What would an efficient and trustworthy meeting culture look like? • Hacker News Board

Re: What would an efficient and trustworthy meeting culture look like?

#91

Post by PeterStuer » Mon, Jul 28, 2025, 4:04 PM UTC

izacus wrote: post #61

PeterStuer wrote: post #28

"Meetings are primarily for two things:" ... "Brainstorming" ..., ... "Making a decision as a group" ... "Secondary" ... "to expand and clarify knowledge" I've said this before, The "engineer's" pov on meetings is that they are an incredibly poor and overused instrument of getting things done and that it is beyond comprehension why "the company" continues to tolerate such expensive nonsense. The manager's (current an…

> You might call this 'cynical', but is it really when you lay out the facts? It's not only cynical, it's downright sociopathic if that's the sum of your opinion. Yes, even if you lay down the facts.

Organisational sociopaths: Rarely challenged, often promoted. Why? [pdf] https://www.researchgate.net/publication/242338489_Organisat...

Deconstructing the corporate psychopath: an examination of deceptive behavior https://www.emerald.com/rbf/article-abstract/10/2/163/368313...

Re: What would an efficient and trustworthy meeting culture look like?

#92

Post by dsr_ » Mon, Jul 28, 2025, 4:11 PM UTC

vjvjvjvjghv wrote: post #85

duxup wrote: post #64

>agenda I once worked at a company that had something like 3 to 5k employees. Everyone had to take an online class (about 8 hours) about effective meetings. Rule 1 was to have an agenda available in the meeting invite. I loved this, it made for FAR more productive meetings. Nobody at the company that I knew of outside myself and one other person had agendas available for our meetings, including leadership. I think se…

An ex-director I worked for had a habit of sending out non-descript meeting requests for Friday afternoon. You never knew if it was was something trivial or layoff announcements. I think he enjoyed spreading panic among his people :-)

Way back when, the president of the company had a habit of sending out email on a Monday to schedule a company-wide meeting for Tuesday. These were weeks to months apart from each other.

Every single time, I wondered if it would be routine, or an acquisition, or a bankruptcy...

One day I mentioned my anxiety to him. He immediately apologized, and from then on, the company-wide meetings had agendas. Eventually that stopped -- when we started doing regular company-wide meetings with a standing agenda.

Sometimes everyone needs to communicate better. Without bug reports, what are you going to fix?

Re: What would an efficient and trustworthy meeting culture look like?

#93

Post by sitkack » Mon, Jul 28, 2025, 4:33 PM UTC

throw-qqqqq wrote: post #72

duxup wrote: post #64

>agenda I once worked at a company that had something like 3 to 5k employees. Everyone had to take an online class (about 8 hours) about effective meetings. Rule 1 was to have an agenda available in the meeting invite. I loved this, it made for FAR more productive meetings. Nobody at the company that I knew of outside myself and one other person had agendas available for our meetings, including leadership. I think se…

I’m in a company of +6k. > Rule 1 was to have an agenda available in the meeting invite Same rule here, but enforced. We are allowed (and encouraged) to cancel or decline invitations without an agenda here. In my experience, it makes a big positive difference, when people have to justify why they need someone’s time and provide a rough frame for the discussion. Much more focused, much more efficient. Fewer meeting wh…

Is part of the agenda the outcomes desired, some could be a) gather feedback b) broadcast a new thing c) discuss and decide on next course of action ...

It would be nice if agendas explained each persons role in the outcome and what the exit conditions are for the meeting.

Re: What would an efficient and trustworthy meeting culture look like?

#94

Post by indoordin0saur » Mon, Jul 28, 2025, 4:58 PM UTC

judge123 wrote: post #6

this feels like advice for the person running the meeting, not the one being dragged into it. I'm just picturing myself telling my boss "Sorry, this meeting doesn't have a clear goal, so I'm dropping off." Anyone actually have the guts to do this when you're not the senior person in the room?

Once I have enough political capital within a company I'll just stop showing up to the ones that are a waste of time for me. If someone asks I'll let them know that it's not useful for me.

Re: What would an efficient and trustworthy meeting culture look like?

#95

Post by fellowniusmonk » Mon, Jul 28, 2025, 5:07 PM UTC

duxup wrote: post #64

>agenda I once worked at a company that had something like 3 to 5k employees. Everyone had to take an online class (about 8 hours) about effective meetings. Rule 1 was to have an agenda available in the meeting invite. I loved this, it made for FAR more productive meetings. Nobody at the company that I knew of outside myself and one other person had agendas available for our meetings, including leadership. I think se…

Companies that allow agenda free meetings are just begging for high control people to generate unnecessary meetings.

This can be dominating high control or anxious/disorganized high control, either way it's a waste of people time.

Re: What would an efficient and trustworthy meeting culture look like?

#96

Post by throw-qqqqq » Mon, Jul 28, 2025, 5:28 PM UTC

sitkack wrote: post #93

throw-qqqqq wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m in a company of +6k. > Rule 1 was to have an agenda available in the meeting invite Same rule here, but enforced. We are allowed (and encouraged) to cancel or decline invitations without an agenda here. In my experience, it makes a big positive difference, when people have to justify why they need someone’s time and provide a rough frame for the discussion. Much more focused, much more efficient. Fewer meeting wh…

Is part of the agenda the outcomes desired, some could be a) gather feedback b) broadcast a new thing c) discuss and decide on next course of action ... It would be nice if agendas explained each persons role in the outcome and what the exit conditions are for the meeting.

There are other recommendations around meetings, but the agenda is 100% mandatory.

Desired outcomes, minutes of meetings etc. are also part of the default invite template.

Re: What would an efficient and trustworthy meeting culture look like?

#97

Post by alach11 » Mon, Jul 28, 2025, 5:44 PM UTC

duxup wrote: post #64

>agenda I once worked at a company that had something like 3 to 5k employees. Everyone had to take an online class (about 8 hours) about effective meetings. Rule 1 was to have an agenda available in the meeting invite. I loved this, it made for FAR more productive meetings. Nobody at the company that I knew of outside myself and one other person had agendas available for our meetings, including leadership. I think se…

> Everyone had to take an online class (about 8 hours) about effective meetings

As soon as I read this line I grimaced. This is a clear sign of an organization that doesn't respect peoples' time. The class should be an email (and proper follow-up by the management chain) establishing three rules:

- Meetings must have an agenda

- After a meeting, there must be a follow-up email describing what was decided and any action items

- Recurring meetings should be rare/exceptional

- Given good meeting notes and action items sent afterwards, reduce the invite list to decision makers; people who need to be informed can be added to the follow-up email

Re: What would an efficient and trustworthy meeting culture look like?

#98

Post by danjl » Mon, Jul 28, 2025, 5:56 PM UTC

pjc50 wrote: post #23

Agenda + minutes, in however minimal a form, is crucial. A meeting with no minutes and no agenda and a warm drink is just a tea party. Not that that doesn't have a role in organizations, but it shouldn't dominate your time. Most standups are therefore tea parties. A previous boss of mine even used to bring biscuits, which was nice. It serves the role of reminding everyone that each other exists and are collaborating…

These days it is trivial to record the meeting and have it transcribed and then summarized by an LLM to produce "automatic" minutes. Searchability is a bonus.

Re: What would an efficient and trustworthy meeting culture look like?

#99

Post by duxup » Mon, Jul 28, 2025, 5:56 PM UTC

alach11 wrote: post #97

duxup wrote: post #64

>agenda I once worked at a company that had something like 3 to 5k employees. Everyone had to take an online class (about 8 hours) about effective meetings. Rule 1 was to have an agenda available in the meeting invite. I loved this, it made for FAR more productive meetings. Nobody at the company that I knew of outside myself and one other person had agendas available for our meetings, including leadership. I think se…

> Everyone had to take an online class (about 8 hours) about effective meetings As soon as I read this line I grimaced. This is a clear sign of an organization that doesn't respect peoples' time. The class should be an email (and proper follow-up by the management chain) establishing three rules: - Meetings must have an agenda - After a meeting, there must be a follow-up email describing what was decided and any acti…

Sadly you're right. It was a good company but by that time it was being run by some folks who were put in charge to sell the company. Once they were in place most of the executive team seemed to be resume building with little initiates here or there.

I rode that train until I was fortunate enough to get a moderate buy out.

Re: What would an efficient and trustworthy meeting culture look like?

#100

Post by javier_e06 » Mon, Jul 28, 2025, 5:59 PM UTC

The human brain hates meetings. It sees people. Tall, short, poorly dressed, overly dressed, it sees the sittings arrangements, someone with the arms crossed, someone is laughing, wait, are we here to talk about technical issues? They want answers now? Why now? Someone is not happy, why? Someone has a question, is Dan, probably something obvious..

That is not how the human brain works. To believe a creative mind is in problem-solving mode when sequestered into 1 hour or 30 minutes social gathering is bizarre. The best technical interactions I've seen happened randomly at a lab when everybody else has left for the day or while at hike chat on a trail during lunch time.