Jobs, Musk, Bezos: How Business Gurus Make Meetings Less Exhausting

Steve Jobs once refused to attend a meeting with the US President because the attendee list was too long. Anna Yoshitsugu, Senior Strategy and Development Manager at Uber, explains how business gurus prevent meetings from "stealing" their time.

Let's say you hold one meeting each week, it lasts two hours, and there are ten people in attendance, each with an average salary of 100,000 rubles. How much does such a meeting cost? We enter the input data into one of the many meeting cost calculators available online. We get 12,000 rubles. What if there are more meetings and more participants?

How can you prevent meetings from becoming just another bureaucratic procedure? First and foremost, you need to break the process down into stages.

Step 1: Preparation

Meeting preparation is the most important step in optimizing labor costs. A lack of synchronization between management and employees leads to redoing the same reports before every regular meeting.

1. Determine the purpose of the meeting and the topics that will be discussed.

Steve Jobs, founderAPPLE recommended limiting the discussion to three key topics to maintain focus. Outline the topics in advance for those attending the meeting.

2. Discuss with senior management which key indicators you will include in your reports.

For example, at our company, all strategic goals are broken down into operational KPIs, which teams report on at regular meetings. To avoid wasting time creating presentations each time, use the dashboards available in your system.

3. Ensure automatic data updates.

You don't have to copy charts and tables from Excel every time. Connect your databases and create automated reports using BI tools, such asMICROSOFT Power BI, Tableau, Qlik, Amplitude.

4. Put only key information on your slides.

For example, at our company, each team often presents just one slide to management—the Executive Summary. In it, participants present the main changes since the previous meeting. However, detailed information remains available in automated BI reports.

5. Ask employees to prepare in advance for the meeting any issues that they cannot resolve without the participation of colleagues from other departments.

Let employees decide in advance what kind of assistance they need from their colleagues.

Step 2: Conducting the meeting

The effectiveness of a meeting depends largely on two factors: the correct composition of participants and a high level of their involvement.

1. Invite no more than five to eight people to the meeting.

Steve Jobs was extremely particular when it came to the number of people in meetings. He once turned down a meeting with then-President Barack Obama because he considered the list too long. Another business guru, Jeff Bezos , founder of the internet company Amazon, coined the famous "two-pizza rule," which states that a meeting should have no more than the number of people comfortable sharing two pizzas.

2. Cancel the meeting if it is not necessary.

For example, it often doesn't make sense to hold a meeting right after the holidays. If you can't avoid such a meeting entirely, reduce the time allotted for it. Elon Musk, CEO of SpaceX and Tesla, wrote in a letter to employees: "Leave a meeting or end a call as soon as it becomes clear you're not adding value. Leaving isn't rude; forcing someone to stay and wasting their time is."

3. Familiarize all participants with the agenda.

Send the agenda to all participants the day before the meeting so they can review it. Go over the agenda again during the meeting itself, once everyone is present. Jeff Bezos introduced a practice at Amazon of starting management meetings with a 20-minute agenda review to ensure everyone understands the context.

4. Appoint a meeting moderator.

The moderator will monitor timing and record important details, such as:

• tasks (action items) - will go through them, assign responsibilities and deadlines;
• important points - for example, highlighting significant deviations from the norm in the presentation so that all participants pay attention to them;
• Results - will download key information to shared folders.

What types of meetings are there?

1. Weekly business reviews

• The purpose of the meeting is to track the dynamics of key metrics (sales, revenue , number of clients, etc.), as well as progress on important projects.
• Participants include the department HEAD and team leads for each area. Sometimes, senior specialists may attend the meeting to report on progress, discuss ways to overcome obstacles, and generate tactical ideas.

These are the most expensive meetings, as they require a full hour each week. However, companies are in no hurry to abandon them. Weekly business meetings allow for quick decision-making, correcting mistakes, and monitoring progress.

2. Monthly business reviews

• The purpose of the meeting is to present a full report on the business to the president or vice president.
• Participants include department heads, the president, or vice president. The president/vice president monitors the profit and product margin plans, reviews the status of key clients, and discusses projects that have either been successfully completed or failed.

These meetings are necessary to highlight risks that could prevent the company from achieving its plan. For example, if sales are below plan for the current month, then the bar needs to be raised in the following months. If unexpected events occur, for example covid-19 , then the annual plan needs to be recalculated.

3. Quarterly business reviews

Often, every third monthly review (details of which are described above) is held quarterly. The fourth quarterly meeting can also be held annually. Townhalls and all-hands meetings are a separate category of such meetings.

• The purpose of such meetings is to share the assigned strategy with colleagues in a simple enough format for everyone to understand and remember. This type of meeting is attended by employees from across the entire company or a large department, including junior staff.
• Typically held in the form of an hour-long presentation, the manager and his immediate subordinates share business plans, inspire their teams to new achievements, and express gratitude for the work done.

Typically, companies hold such meetings quarterly. However, tech companies, for example, often hold them every two weeks due to their rapidly growing business . These meetings are often informational in nature. Colleagues who rarely interact with each other update each other on issues affecting their areas of responsibility.

Stage 3. Tracking task execution

Tracking task completion is the most complex step, one that many companies overlook. It involves three people: the moderator, the department head, and those responsible for task execution.

• The manager clearly defines the task and deadlines, assigns responsibility for its completion, and allocates the necessary resources. Upon completion of the task, they provide feedback and express gratitude for the work done—both privately and publicly, for example, at town halls.
• The moderator records the task, reminds the person responsible about it, and provides the manager with information about the results or lack thereof.
• The responsible employee assesses the importance and urgency of the task and then passes on the instructions to the team.

To ensure the framework runs smoothly, use specialized systems such as Jira, Asana, and the like. They make it easy to add tasks to the backlog and track their status. A good practice is to send meeting participants an email outlining the status of initiatives adopted at the previous meeting.

If you follow these tips, your meetings will take up minimal time and be maximally productive.