You Don’t Need Another Meeting. You Need a Better Meeting.

Let’s be honest. Most meetings are miserable and could have been an email.

Think about the last time you were really in your groove at work: focused, productive, knocking things off your list. Now picture yourself being yanked out of that state and dropped into a conference room with six colleagues while Terry from Accounting repeats the exact same question John from Sales just asked. Then they both give color commentary on the problem and why it’s a problem. After everyone has talked about the problem it is decided to set up another meeting to find a solution.

Not exactly peak performance, is it?

At most organizations, meetings are broken. Everyone knows it. Yet week after week, calendars fill up with the same recurring misery. By the end of the month, entire workweeks have been consumed by “collaboration” sessions that accomplish little more than draining energy and morale.

The tragedy isn’t that meetings exist. It’s that they’ve become the enemy of the very productivity they were designed to foster.

A Horror Story From the Conference Room

One client of mine, an accomplished professional, told me about a meeting that still makes her wince.

“We had one simple task: decide which offices would provide which documents for an upcoming  audit. Easy, right? One hour on the calendar. By the 45-minute mark, the vice president  was still lecturing seven seasoned professionals on why the audit  mattered. By 1:05, the head of sales  was in a full-blown argument with the head of finance. By 1:20, half the room was checking email and texts. At 1:35, we formed a subcommittee and adjourned, having accomplished absolutely nothing except assigning more work to the few of us still trapped there.”

And just like that, an hour becomes ninety minutes, nothing is really solved, and everyone leaves late for their next meeting and worse off than when they arrived.

If you’ve been working long enough, you’ve experienced your own version. Meetings where nothing happens except the slow erosion of trust in the process. Meetings that leave people vowing to “never waste time like this again” right before they send a calendar invite for next Tuesday.

Why Bad Meetings Persist

If everyone knows meetings are broken, why do we keep holding them? The reasons vary, but I see the same three themes again and again. Some meetings survive because “we’ve always done it this way.” Some happen because leaders fear that without them, they’ll lose control of the flow of information. And some are simply the product of misplaced optimism and the belief that surely this time people will come prepared, stay focused, and wrap up on time.

Add those together and you’ve got a culture that accepts bad meetings as an inevitability. They aren’t.

The Hidden Cost of Wasted Meetings

It’s easy to underestimate what bad meetings cost because we only think in hours. Ten people in a room for an hour doesn’t cost “one hour,” it costs ten. And those ten hours could have been spent serving customers, solving problems, or generating revenue.

But the real price is higher. Decisions delayed become mental clutter, dragging on leaders long after the meeting ends. Energy fades when people realize their time isn’t being respected. And trust in leadership erodes when team members notice that the calendar fills up with sessions that accomplish nothing.

That’s why fixing meetings is a matter of performance.

Meetings Don’t Have to Be This Way

The good news? Meetings can work. They can align a team, drive clarity, real solutions, provide accountability and even energize people. I’ve seen it happen.

The difference comes down to four things: purpose, structure, resolution, and rhythm. If you know why you’re meeting, if you’ve got a framework that keeps people moving, if every issue ends with a decision, and if you’re meeting at the right pace, then meetings become the engine of progress instead of the brake.

That’s exactly what the Entrepreneurial Operating System® (EOS®) provides.

How EOS® Fixes Broken Meetings

EOS® is built on a simple principle: if time is your most valuable resource, wasting it in unfocused meetings is almost criminal. So EOS® meetings are designed to protect that time.

Every meeting follows a set agenda. No surprises, no wandering detours. Issues are solved on the spot rather than kicked down the road. Agendas are open so the right conversations actually happen. And—this is critical—one person owns the flow. That facilitator makes sure the team stays on track, moving from one item to the next without circling endlessly around the same debate.

The effect is striking. Teams go from dreading meetings to depending on them, because they know the time will actually matter.

The Rhythm That Makes It Work

Of course, structure alone isn’t enough. Timing matters just as much. Hold a meeting too early and there’s nothing to talk about. Wait too long and the issues have festered into something ugly.

EOS® solves this with a meeting pulse:

• Weekly Level 10 Meetings® to keep the team aligned and address issues before they snowball.
• Quarterly Planning Sessions to reset priorities and keep the big picture in focus.
• Annual Planning Sessions to set the long-term vision and get everyone rowing in the same direction.

This cadence creates a steady drumbeat for the organization. Problems get addressed when they’re still small. Priorities don’t drift. Accountability doesn’t fade.

The result? Teams I work with often tell me something I never expected to hear when I started consulting: they actually look forward to certain meetings.

When was the last time someone on your team said that?

A Case in Point

One technology firm I coached had fallen into the classic trap: endless “status update” meetings that everyone dreaded. Projects lagged. Leaders complained about being in meetings all day and working nights just to catch up.

We implemented the EOS® meeting pulse. The weekly Level 10® replaced the bloated status sessions. Issues were prioritized, solved, and documented in real time. Quarterly planning gave the team space to think strategically instead of just reactively.

Within a few months, the CEO told me: “I don’t just feel like I’ve got my time back—I feel like I’ve got my company back.”

That’s the power of better meetings.

The Bottom Line

Meetings don’t have to drain your organization. Done well, they can energize your team, sharpen your focus, and drive real progress. The key is shifting from “more meetings” to better meetings, and EOS® provides the structure and pulse to make that possible.

So the next time you look at a week crammed with calendar invites, ask yourself: do you really need another meeting? Or do you need a better meeting?