Meetings Suck

I recommend this book for anyone who is in a leadership position at their job. Meetings can be a great tool or a huge waste of company resources, but the difference is how you use them. If you run a small business this book is invaluable because you get to set the culture of your company and the meeting flow is a big part of that.

What I really like about Cameron Herold’s Meetings Suck is the short and concise chapters. The topic itself is pretty simple and I am glad he didn’t try to make this book 300 pages.

Each chapter gives practical advice for which type of meetings you should have, how to run them and common mistakes to avoid.

I was glad to read that Carrot has most of these meetings on the books and we run them in a very similar way. We did borrow the meeting cadence from a business coach so who knows, maybe this book influenced what we were taught.

This is a quick and easy read. If you feel like your employees (or yourself) are bored at meetings, not getting value from meetings, or feel they are a waste of time, read this book.

Biggest Insights

• Make your meeting culture a place where people can opt-out of a meeting if they won’t/don’t provide value.
• State what type of meeting it will be beforehand (informational, decision making, brainstorming, etc.)
• Put time allotments on meeting agenda items
• Have someone keep time and be VERY strict about speaking up when the time is up
• Leadership retreats should both train and challenge leaders while they are out of the office for the meeting
• Keep the energy up on meetings – the daily huddle should be around 11:00 am when energy tends to suffer
• Excuse yourself from a meeting if you won’t provide value