McKinsey Classics | July 2024

A leader’s guide to planning effective meetings

We’ve all suffered through unproductive meetings—ones with too many people, too little useful information, and, ultimately, too few decisions being made during or immediately after them. (You’ve likely already had one of those kinds of meetings today.) And though it might seem tempting to simply hit “decline” the next time a meeting invite shows up in your inbox, you’d be better served by accepting the invitation—and attending a better-planned meeting. Here’s how to make that happen.

Start by clarifying the meeting’s goal. This may seem obvious, but it’s an important line that often gets blurred once a meeting begins. Determine whether the goal of the call is to share information, discuss it, or make a decision. Likewise, clarifying roles ahead of the start time will help attendees know what they should be doing during the meeting and boost the odds of achieving the meeting’s goal.

Decision making is paramount for any company, and productive meetings are where some of the best decisions happen. To help make sure your next meeting is meaningful, read Aaron De Smet, Gregor Jost, and Leigh Weiss’s 2019 McKinsey Quarterly classic, “Want a better decision? Plan a better meeting.”

— Drew Holzfeind, editor, Chicago