3 signs your meetings have a culture problem

"When poorly-run meetings become the norm, people begin to see them as a time with little value. But meetings are an opportunity to shape organizational culture, and not enough leaders are taking advantage of it. Most high-performing teams build strong relationships, show care for the whole person, have open and honest communications, listen to each other, clarify processes, and collaborate."

"Your meetings are transactional, not relational. Transactional meetings focus on information download without any attention to connection or collaboration. A leader monologues over dense slides, there's minimal discussion, and everyone else has their laptops out to multitask. Attendees are checked out and disengaged, and they take nothing away."

"Your meetings have toxic positivity, not candid communication. Toxic positivity looks like discussions where leaders report that projects, initiatives, or systems are on track—even when things are breaking. The result is that no one discusses what truly needs to be handled to address issues."

Meeting culture in corporate America has deteriorated significantly, with employees attending three times more meetings than pre-pandemic levels, 60% being ad hoc, and 71% multitasking during them. Poorly-run meetings undermine organizational culture and employee engagement. High-performing teams demonstrate strong relationships, open communication, active listening, and collaboration—behaviors that should be prioritized in meetings but often are not. Three critical signs indicate meetings need redesign: they drain rather than energize participants, focus on transactional information transfer rather than relational connection, and feature toxic positivity instead of candid communication about real challenges. Leaders can reshape organizational culture by intentionally redesigning meetings to foster genuine engagement and honest dialogue.

Read at Fast Company