Before you schedule a meeting, pause for a second and ask yourself a deeply important professional question:
Does this need to be a meeting, or am I just nervous about sending a clear, concise email?
Meetings are not evil. Some meetings are useful. Some meetings solve problems, build trust, clear up confusion, and stop everyone from wandering through the workday like raccoons in a parking lot.
But some meetings are just emails wearing pants. Lots and lots of pants.
And, we need to be honest about that.
A good meeting has a purpose. It has a reason for pulling people away from their actual work. It needs interaction: conversation, decisions, questions, disagreement, brainstorming, or some kind of shared moment where being together actually matters.
A bad meeting is when twelve people sit silently while one person reads a slide deck out loud like it is bedtime story hour for adults who forgot how to escape. We’ve all been there.
Nobody wins. Most meetings did not accomplish its intended purpose.
Let’s say you need to tell employees that the deadline moved from Friday to Monday.
That is not a meeting. That is an email. Maybe even a Teams message. Maybe, if you are feeling wild, a bold subject line that says, “Deadline moved to Monday.”
Done. Beautiful. Everyone gets forty-five of their life back.
Now let’s say you need to explain a new process that affects five departments, includes possible confusion, and requires people to ask questions in real time.
That might be a meeting.
Or a short training.
Or a recorded walkthrough with a live Q and A.
The point is not “never meet.” The point is “stop using meetings as the junk drawer of workplace communication.”
Sometimes the answer is an email. Sometimes it is a checklist. Sometimes it is a two minute video. Sometimes it is an interactive simulation where people can practice without accidentally breaking the real thing. Sometimes it is a resource people can revisit later because, shocking news, humans do not remember every word from a Thursday afternoon call while their lunch is wearing off.
The format matters.
- If you need awareness, send a message.
- If you need understanding, create a clear resource.
- If you need behavior change, build practice material.
- If you need feedback, make space for interaction.
- If you need everyone to watch you read bullet points from a slide, please reconsider your life choices.
Employees value their time, even when their calendars suggest otherwise. When we ask for that time, we should make it worth something. Not louder. Not longer. Better.
A memorable training opportunity does not have to be flashy. It just has to stick. A good example, a realistic scenario, a useful job aid, a live poll, a quick discussion, a “try it yourself” moment, anything that helps people connect the information to their actual work.
The best question to ask before creating any training or meeting is this:
What do I want people to do differently after this?
Once you know that, the format gets easier. Maybe people need a quick reminder. Maybe they need a decision tree. Maybe they need to see someone model the task. Maybe they need to practice. Maybe they need a live conversation with a subject matter expert who can answer the weird questions everyone is secretly worried about.
So, before you send that default meeting invite, ask:
- Could this be an email?
- Could this be a checklist?
- Could this be a short video?
- Could this be a resource people can revisit?
- Could this be practice instead of presentation?
- Could this meeting have been a lunch date?
Because sometimes people do not need another hour taking up room on their calendars.
Sometimes they just need the right information, in the right format, at the right time.
And maybe a lunch date.