🎒 Microlesson

🪞 Reflect

When you want to share an idea with a coworker, brainstorm with your team, or decide on the best path forward, what’s your go-to method of communication: synchronous or asynchronous?

💡 Concept

No one wants too many meetings. But sometimes, the ways we’re used to working lead us to cling to behaviors and mindsets that make us depend too heavily on meetings to get things done. That overdependence leads to meeting overload.

If you’re a leader, you need to be especially mindful of how your behaviors contribute to meeting overload for your team, since they look to you to model expectations.

Here are five warning signs to look for:

1. You default to synchronous meetings for all purposes.

Updates, brainstorming, collaborating, assigning tasks…you name it, you’re scheduling a meeting for it. When every task requires a synchronous meeting, you and your teammates’ schedules will quickly get devoured by nonstop meetings.

2. You invite more people than necessary to seem inclusive.

You may think it’s inclusive to invite everyone on the team to every meeting, but if you don’t expect every single invitee to contribute, you’re probably wasting some people's time rather than being truly inclusive.

3. You don’t like it when people decline meetings.

If your first reaction when someone declines your meeting invitation is negative, it’s not likely you’re able to hide your feelings from your team. And if your team knows that you don’t like it when they don’t attend meetings, they’re not going to feel empowered to take ownership of their schedule.

4. Your meetings have no rules.

Meetings with no rules are less productive and efficient, often running over time or failing to accomplish the desired objectives. That leads to scheduling even more meetings.

5. Your team attends meetings as the primary way to stay in the loop.

If your team members attend meetings even if they don’t actively participate or contribute, there’s a good chance they’re only attending to get information they won’t get otherwise. This leads to team members spending all day in meetings just to get updates, rather than to make decisions and progress.

🎬 Take Action

• Reflect on your own meeting mindset. Do you exhibit any of the five signs listed in this microlesson?

• Reflect on your team’s meeting mindset. Do they exhibit any of the five signs listed?

• For each sign exhibited, consider taking one concrete action to adjust your tendencies. Here are a few ideas:

  • Create meeting norms that set expectations for how to conduct meetings.

  • Add default language to meeting invitations that give explicit permission for attendees to decline the invitation if their participation is not required.

  • Make certain meeting invites “optional.” Make sure there is written documentation so those who opt out can stay informed.

  • Double-check meeting attendee lists and remove people who don’t need to attend.

  • Provide written team-wide updates after meetings.

  • At the beginning of meetings, remind attendees that if they don't need to actively participate in a discussion or decision, their attendance is not required.

  • Send asynchronous updates instead of hosting a synchronous meeting.

  • Recognize team members with positive feedback when they decline meetings they are not required to participate in.

✅ Check In

🧠 Keep Learning

Learn more about how to keep from defaulting to synchronous meetings with the Async at Work course.

🎁 Learn with your team!

Refer our weekly microlessons to your team members to learn as a group! Just follow the instructions in the section below to get started.