Our Manifesto: Brilliant Meeting / Broken Meeting

There’s an epidemic of horrible meetings in organizations across the world.

The bad ones are ineffective, unproductive, dysfunctional, boring, or pointless. The worst ones are all of those things together. 71% of leaders say their meetings are unproductive; 64% say they prevent deep thinking critical to strategic breakthroughs.

Bottom line: our calendars are filled with broken meetings.

With all the issues thrown at companies today — AI, shifting markets, changing rules and regulations, tightening margins, rising customer expectations — broken meetings might be the most impactful root issue that needs to be solved. If people can’t effectively get questions answered and paths unblocked, it’s incredibly hard to address the big problems.

Think about it. It’s the extraordinary meetings — the rare, golden moments where you can feel the electricity in the room—that fuel every major achievement in your organization.

Those are the meetings we actually want on our calendars. The ones that spark great ideas. Where decisions get made. Where deals get closed. Where people get aligned, focused, and energized.

Why do we have to pay the tax of nine broken meetings just to get one brilliant one?

How do we rescue our calendars from this flood of mediocrity?

How do we get the lion’s share of our meetings to be brilliant?

Six ways to tell the difference

There are six hallmarks that distinguish brilliant meetings from broken meetings.

• Broken meetings have no finish line and wander aimlessly. They treat every issue or update equally, and force everyone to “talk through the encyclopedia” of things the organization is dealing with.
  
  Brilliant meetings have a clear objective, and we know what we’re there to talk about. Everyone has pre-read the updates, and we use the time to talk only about the 2-3 key issues that really need discussion.

• Broken meetings have no decision maker present; are missing critical contributors; and are filled with extra people who “need to stay in the loop.” They look like a United Nations Security Council meeting, with the big outer ring of chairs.
  
  Brilliant meetings always have a decision maker in the room; only include the needed contributors for a conversation. They look a lot more like the Situation Room at the White House.

• Broken meetings are dominated by a few loud voices; are held back by others who are trying to cold-start the discussion; and everyone is multitasking, instead of fully participating.
  
  Brilliant meetings have engaged and active people who have done at least a little bit of thinking about the topic in advance, and arrive with something to contribute.

• Broken meetings waste time discussing a decision they can’t make, because they don’t have the necessary facts.
  
  Brilliant meetings empower informed decisions because the relevant data and documents are at our fingertips.

• Broken meetings run too long or too short, allow unfocused “pinball” discussions that waste time, or cut off important conversations prematurely.
  
  Brilliant meetings allocate time with precision, and the leader carefully manages the discussion, seeing their role as “a steward of other people’s time.”

• Broken meetings end vaguely, with people unsure of what got decided. They aren’t sure why they invested that time in the discussion. They feel demoralized and aren’t sure how to move forward.
  
  Brilliant meetings end with clear outcomes and action items. We know what we decided, and we know “who needs to do what by when” as a result of this discussion. People are energized and excited about the work ahead.

How do we get to brilliant?

The challenge is that creating a brilliant meeting involves a lot of thinking, preparation, and hard work. In our post-pandemic back-to-back-to-back world, people almost never have time for that. It’s no wonder that 90% of meetings are broken.

Contio is building powerful AI to transform our broken meetings into brilliant ones — turning every person into an elite meeting strategist who can design meetings that answer the critical questions, accelerate decision making, and consistently achieve incredible results.

We can’t wait to show you how we’ll transform the world’s meetings into a force for accomplishing great work. Join the wait list today for a free month of Contio when we launch.