First Round Review's 6 Must Reads to Run Fast, Efficient Meetings

First Round Review's 6 Must Reads to Run Fast, Efficient Meetings

We've featured advice from some pretty smart, successful people about how to run better meetings that don't sap energy or waste time. Here's everything they've shared.

Outline

  1. 1. Clear the deck of meetings you don't need — and embrace the impermanence of a more dynamic schedule.
  2. 2. Rands on how to run great 1:1s that leave people feeling aligned and connected.
  3. 3. Design board meetings that prompt investors to give you the help and advice you actually need.
  4. 4. Produce all-hands meetings that no one will want to miss.
  5. 5. Bring clarity and focus to initial sales meetings to make both sides happier and close more deals.
  6. 6. Make it easier to speak truth to power with good skip-level meetings.

Generally speaking, we decide what to cover on the Review based on conversations we have with founders — during listening sessions, on our internal First Round Network, at conferences, and around the office. There are a few recurring themes when they talk about their needs for advice, but one big one is roughly this: Meetings are the bane of our existence. How can we possibly do better?

Meetings slow things down. They lose focus fast. They recur on calendars with plodding and unnecessary regularity — inspiring dread and dimming everyone's energy. This happens because people feel like they need them. Most of the time they don't (we have some advice for this). But sometimes they do. There's no getting around board meetings, all-hands meetings, and one-on-ones (in fact, you really shouldn't want to). What you can change is how you run them.

We're here to convince and assure you that all of these meetings can be designed to add momentum, instigate change, reinforce transparency, and maintain alignment. To do so, we've got best practices to share from some of the smartest, most insightful leaders we've ever interviewed, from Michael Lopp (VP Engineering at Slack) to Kim Scott (creator of the Radical Candor phenomenon). So read on and start leading meetings that don't suck today.

1. Clear the deck of meetings you don't need — and embrace the impermanence of a more dynamic schedule.

Peter Deng has led a lot of prestigious product teams — formerly at Instagram and now as Head of Rider for Uber. And he has a very particular approach to meetings: you have to get rid of them all sometimes.

One of the most pernicious and pervasive manifestations of too much process is the recurring meeting. What to do about it? Cancel them all, Deng says. This does not necessarily mean canceling them for good. That’s unrealistic. But you do need to reset things every so often so you can get a critical look at what’s necessary and what’s not. Once you’ve stripped things away, you gain a lot more clarity around how to truly support the people around you.

When you get to the root of the problems recurring meetings try to solve, it becomes clear that there are much less intrusive and more active ways to address them (including brief meetings that are very focused on busting problems). By breaking tradition, you will arrive at a more efficient structure where you aren’t simply sharing updates round-robin-style just because it’s Monday morning.

This is where impermanence and more dynamic scheduling come in. Namely: It's okay to create meetings with an expiration date.

For more from Deng on meeting efficiency and how to make sure too much process doesn't overrun your productivity, keep reading here.

2. Rands on how to run great 1:1s that leave people feeling aligned and connected.

Michael Lopp (aka Rands of Rands in Repose) is an expert on managing humans. In fact, he wrote a book with that exact name. So when he talks about how to run effective one-on-one meetings, we sit up and listen. Here's what he had to say:

Meet with your reports. Every week at the same time (no matter what — do not move these or reschedule them) and for at least 30 minutes each (book 45 minutes so you have room if it runs over).

Often, the first reaction to this is “Wait, I have 20 people. You’re suggesting I’m going to spend 10 hours a week having meetings with folks?” Lopp has two responses: (1) yes; (2) you shouldn’t have 20 direct reports.

The goal of an effective 1:1 isn’t for an update from your direct report, or for you to lay down some instructions (this tends to happen a lot). It’s a conversation. There are lots of systems for status updates (project management software, bug tracking systems, Google Docs, Wikis) — 1:1s aren’t one of them. 1:1s are a chance to hear about your direct reports’ ideas for your product, their career goals, and potentially their opinion of their performance — it’s their time.

What you’re most likely going to find is your reports want to immediately go into status or when you ask them if they have anything they’d like to discuss, they’ll say “nope.” To counteract this, have a list of three potential topics ready for discussion. That way when they say, “Nope — nothing to discuss” at the beginning of the meeting you can go right to your list to jumpstart the conversation. After a few weeks of doing this, the transition from status to dialog should be well underway.

Most 1:1s wind up falling into three categories:

The key is knowing which kind you're walking into, so you can bring in three topics that will break the deadlock and give the person energy and momentum forward no matter what they brought into the room with them.

For more advice from Lopp on how to run staff meetings and also what he calls 'tapestry meetings' for fostering and reinforcing culture, continue reading here.

3. Design board meetings that prompt investors to give you the help and advice you actually need.

Jeff Bonforte, Founder and CEO of Xobni, recommends the following for ensuring productive board meetings: