How to Run Meetings Better Than 99% of Companies
Summary
TLDRIn this video, Ryan Deiss shares a four-part meeting rhythm that transformed meetings into highly productive sessions. Deiss, who oversees 17 companies, emphasizes the importance of structured, outcome-driven meetings. Key principles include treating meetings as essential work, maintaining consistency, and setting clear rules: no agenda, no outcome, no expert, and no scorecard, no meeting. He outlines a meeting cadence focused on strategic 3-year plans, 90-day quarterly sprints, monthly reviews, and weekly scorecard meetings, which reduces the need for ad-hoc sessions. This structured rhythm improves team efficiency and long-term success.
Takeaways
- 💼 Meetings are essential to business success, and when done right, they can be the most valuable time spent with the team.
- 🏆 Principle 1: Meetings are real work. Companies need meetings to be efficient and successful, similar to how sports teams and relationships need communication.
- 🔄 Principle 2: Consistency is key. A predictable meeting rhythm saves time and leads to better optimization and results.
- 📜 Principle 3: Establish rules for meetings. Key rules include: No agenda, no meeting; no outcome, no meeting; no expert, no meeting; no scorecard, no meeting.
- 📊 A leadership team should meet every three years for strategic planning, focusing on long-term goals instead of annual planning, which is seen as ineffective.
- 📅 Break down the three-year plan into 12 quarterly chunks. Quarterly sprint planning meetings set 90-day goals and key initiatives to keep progress on track.
- 📈 Monthly business reviews assess if the team is on track with quarterly plans and adjust strategies if needed.
- 🟢 Weekly scorecard meetings evaluate key metrics (green, yellow, red) to ensure continuous progress. Major pivots happen in monthly reviews, not weekly meetings.
- 💡 Ad hoc meetings, like project kickoffs or emergency meetings, should be minimized by following the consistent meeting rhythm.
- 🕒 Following this rhythm actually reduces meeting time, leading to more focused and productive sessions, saving time overall.
Q & A
What is the core idea behind the meeting rhythm implemented in the speaker's businesses?
-The meeting rhythm focuses on transforming meetings into highly productive and valuable time. It ensures consistency, clear goals, and efficiency by following a structured approach that minimizes unnecessary meetings.
Why does the speaker emphasize that 'meetings are work'?
-The speaker emphasizes this to counter the notion that meetings are inherently wasteful. He argues that meetings, when done correctly, are essential for communication, decision-making, and organizational success.
What does the speaker suggest is the main problem with ad hoc meetings?
-Ad hoc meetings are often interruptive and inefficient. By establishing a consistent meeting rhythm, the need for frequent ad hoc meetings is reduced because issues can be handled during scheduled meetings.
Why does the speaker believe in 'three-year' strategic planning over 'annual' planning?
-The speaker finds annual planning too short-term to achieve meaningful goals and too long-term to be predictable. Three-year planning strikes the right balance for setting significant, impactful objectives while allowing room for adjustments.
What are the four key rules the speaker's company follows for meetings?
-1. No Agenda, No Meeting. 2. No Outcome, No Meeting. 3. No Expert, No Meeting. 4. No Scorecard, No Meeting.
How does the speaker suggest optimizing long-term business performance?
-Optimization is framed as a ritual, not a one-time task. Continuous, consistent efforts through regular meetings ensure that businesses can optimize performance over time, rather than making occasional, reactive changes.
What is the purpose of the weekly scorecard meeting?
-In weekly scorecard meetings, the team reviews the company’s key performance metrics to assess progress. They identify which metrics are performing well and which need attention, but avoid major pivots during these meetings.
How does the speaker recommend breaking down long-term goals?
-The speaker recommends breaking down three-year goals into 12 quarterly sprints. Each quarter, the team meets to establish the key projects and metrics that will keep the business on track for its long-term targets.
What is the role of a 'monthly business review' in this meeting rhythm?
-The monthly business review serves as a checkpoint to assess progress toward quarterly goals. It allows the team to make necessary adjustments or pivots to stay on track with their long-term objectives.
How does the speaker argue that a consistent meeting rhythm saves time?
-A consistent meeting rhythm saves time by reducing the need for frequent ad hoc meetings and ensuring that team discussions are focused, productive, and goal-oriented. Over time, this structure leads to fewer interruptions and more efficient operations.
Outlines
📊 Transforming Meetings into Valuable Team Time
Ryan Deiss explains how implementing a four-part meeting rhythm in his businesses turned time-wasting meetings into highly productive sessions. He introduces himself as the manager of 17 companies under a $200 million holding group, highlighting his extensive experience with meetings. Deiss emphasizes that meetings, when done right, are not only valuable but crucial to business success. He compares them to essential communication in sports teams or personal relationships. While some argue that meetings are a waste of time, Deiss contends that well-structured meetings are vital for long-term success.
💡 Core Principle #1: Meetings Are Real Work
Deiss stresses that meetings are legitimate work, countering the trend of avoiding them entirely. He acknowledges the idea that fewer meetings can be better but insists they are necessary for any successful team or relationship. He cites Peter Drucker’s view that meetings reflect poor organization and should be minimized, but also notes that this doesn't mean eliminating meetings altogether. The key is in structuring meetings properly to ensure they provide real value and aren't time-wasters.
⏰ Core Principle #2: Consistency in Meetings Saves Time
Deiss underscores the importance of having a consistent and predictable meeting rhythm. Instead of holding ad-hoc meetings frequently, a steady schedule can streamline discussions and save time. He introduces the idea that optimization is a ritual, not a one-time task. Success is achieved through consistent adjustments, which happen best when teams meet regularly in a structured environment. This regular optimization is essential for maintaining long-term success.
⚖️ Core Principle #3: Establish Meeting Rules
According to Deiss, having rules around meetings is crucial for both efficiency and cultural alignment. He outlines four key rules: 1) No agenda, no meeting, meaning every meeting needs a clear agenda. 2) No outcome, no meeting, stressing that meetings should lead to decisions or changes, not maintaining the status quo. 3) No expert, no meeting, ensuring that someone present can make a final decision. 4) No scorecard, no meeting, which requires clarity on the current situation and metrics before the meeting.
🚀 The Three-Year Strategic Planning Meeting
Deiss introduces his company’s primary meeting rhythm, starting with a one-day strategic planning meeting every three years. This meeting sets long-term company goals and strategic direction, such as mission, vision, and values, and breaks the plan down into three-year targets. He advises against annual planning, claiming it’s too short for meaningful change and too long for precise forecasting. Instead, a three-year horizon is ideal for accomplishing substantial goals.
🎯 The Quarterly Sprint Planning Meeting
Following the three-year strategic meeting, Deiss describes the quarterly sprint planning meeting, where 90-day goals are set based on the longer-term objectives. These meetings last half a day to a full day and focus on setting revenue, profitability targets, and greenlighting key initiatives. The goal is to ensure that every 90 days, the company is on track toward achieving its long-term vision. This meeting is critical for keeping momentum and ensuring continuous optimization.
📅 Monthly Business Review Meetings
The monthly business review meetings are held at the end of every month to assess progress. This is where teams evaluate whether they are on track with the quarterly goals and whether any adjustments are needed. While major pivots aren't usually made during these meetings, they serve as checkpoints to see if progress aligns with the larger strategic objectives.
📈 Weekly Scorecard Meetings for Continuous Tracking
Every week, Deiss and his leadership team hold scorecard meetings to review key metrics. The scorecard provides a snapshot of what's going well and what needs attention, with green indicating success, yellow showing concern, and red signaling urgent issues. These meetings help ensure that any problems identified can be addressed proactively, though major changes are reserved for the monthly business reviews.
🛠️ Ad-Hoc Meetings for Special Circumstances
Deiss explains that ad-hoc meetings, such as project kickoffs or crisis discussions, occur when necessary, but the goal is to minimize them through the structured meeting rhythm. He notes that having fewer ad-hoc meetings is a direct result of following the established rhythm, which cuts down on the need for last-minute gatherings.
🔄 Planning in Three-Year Cycles and 90-Day Sprints
Deiss concludes by summarizing his meeting rhythm, urging companies to plan in three-year cycles and break down those goals into quarterly sprints. Weekly scorecard reviews and monthly business reviews ensure consistent tracking and allow for timely pivots. While this might seem like a lot of meetings, Deiss assures that the structure saves time overall by reducing the need for inefficient or redundant gatherings. He invites feedback on how others might implement these principles in their meeting routines.
Mindmap
Keywords
💡Meeting Rhythm
💡No Agenda, No Meeting
💡Scorecard
💡Three-Year Cycles
💡Optimization is a Ritual, Not a Task
💡Quarterly Sprint Planning Meeting
💡No Outcome, No Meeting
💡Leadership Team Strategic Planning
💡Weekly Scorecard Meeting
💡Ad Hoc Meeting
Highlights
Transform meetings from time-wasters into high-leverage sessions by implementing a four-part meeting rhythm.
Meetings are essential for business success, and eliminating them entirely is counterproductive.
Consistency in a meeting rhythm saves time and prevents unnecessary ad hoc meetings.
Optimization is a ritual, not a one-time task; it requires regular team meetings for continuous improvement.
Rule 1: No agenda, no meeting. Always have a clear agenda for any meeting.
Rule 2: No outcome, no meeting. Meetings must be designed to achieve clear outcomes and decisions.
Rule 3: No expert, no meeting. Ensure the right people with decision-making power are present in the meeting.
Rule 4: No scorecard, no meeting. Every meeting must include a scorecard to establish a clear understanding of the current state and performance.
Hold a one-day strategic planning meeting every three years to set long-term goals, mission, vision, and values.
Stop annual planning; three-year cycles allow for more meaningful and impactful progress.
Quarterly sprint planning meetings set clear objectives for the next 90 days and define actions to keep the company on track.
Monthly business reviews assess the progress of quarterly plans and provide opportunities to pivot as needed.
Weekly scorecard meetings review key metrics, helping teams stay on track with their goals.
Ad hoc meetings, such as project kickoffs or emergency sessions, are minimized with a consistent meeting rhythm.
A consistent meeting rhythm can actually reduce the overall time spent in meetings, providing structure and clarity across teams.
Transcripts
in this video I'm going to show you the
four-part meeting Rhythm that we
installed in our businesses that
transformed our meetings from soul
sucking time wasters into the highest
leveraged most valuable time that I
spend with my team if you don't know who
I am my name is Ryan dice my partners
and I manage 17 companies across our
$200 million Holding Group so I
participated in and yes even LED my fair
share of boring meetings and what I'm
going to show you now is how we
structure meetings across all of our
businesses I'll talk about the meetings
I attend the meetings I skip and the one
meeting I never ever Miss I'll also give
you three rules that you can Implement
right now that I guarantee will make
your meetings suck less core principle
number one that I want you to understand
is that meetings are work like it's real
work uh it's become very popular to
suggest that companies can exist without
meetings and that meetings are just a
total waste of time and that we should
seek to remove them completely and I
want to be clear like I get it we've
tried that before team teams if they
want to be efficient if they want to be
successful need to meet I mean name any
Championship sports team in any type of
sport anywhere in the world that follows
the no meeting advice similarly name any
successful relationship could be a
friendship or romantic relationship with
the parties just don't talk meetings are
essential to business and if you do
meetings the right way they're not a
waste of time they're some of the best
time that you can possibly spend Peter
duer one of the most famous business
thinkers who has ever walked this Earth
did say that meetings are a symptom of
bad organization and therefore the fewer
meetings the better and I couldn't agree
with Ducker uh more than that I agree
the fewer the meetings the better but he
didn't say no meetings cor principle
number two consistency is key a
consistent predictable meeting rhythm is
actually going to save time because
instead of holding interruptive ad hoc
meetings every other day your team is
going to start saying hey you know what
let's just add that to next week's
agenda also if you don't have a
consistent meeting Rhythm I can assure
you you're not going to get the results
that you want and that's because and I
would write this down optimization is a
ritual not a task if you want success
for the long term if you want results to
compound to just get better and better
and better you can't just optimize
willy-nilly one and done that's good
enough for now no you need to optimize
on a consistent predictable basis and
more times than not optimization is
going to occur when great minds get
together in the same room so consistency
is key core principle number three you
need to establish rules I firmly believe
that every company should establish
rules around their meetings not only is
it going to be really good for
efficiency and things like that it's
also just good a critical aspect of kind
of codifying this is our culture uh you
can come up with your own rules but I'm
going to give you a few of ours so rule
number one for us is No Agenda no
meeting now this one's simple you
probably heard it before but if
somebody's going to request a meeting my
first question is always what's the
agenda rule number two no outcome no
meeting the fact is if if we're meeting
it's usually because something isn't
working or it's because a decision needs
to be made so often time if we're going
to have a meeting the only unacceptable
outcome is just to keep doing the same
thing usually if we need to meet if we
need to get together it's because we
need to have discussion and change needs
to occur so I like to know going into it
what is the outcome rule number three
for us no expert no meeting now this one
sounds a little bit strange so let me
explain often times um teams will decide
to hold a meeting not really realizing
that there's nobody in the room who's
who's able to kind of render a verdict
there's nobody in the room who's in
charge so if there's not that expert in
the room then why are we having the
meeting we don't just want to meet to
kind of discuss we want to meet again to
achieve a particular outcome and Rule
Number Four and this one is really
really important no scorecard no meeting
anytime we're going to come into a
meeting everybody in there needs to
agree on what is the problem that is
being solved and we also need to agree
on what is the current state of affairs
in other words what are we going to
agree reality is what is the scorecard
that is going to be driving this meeting
what's the scorecard that everybody's
looking at is the company scorecard is
it a team scorecard what is the
scorecard CU I want to know going into
it that everybody agrees that this is
reality if we don't have agreement on
reality we're not going to agree on how
we're going to move forward within this
reality so no scorecard no meet meting
so those are our rules I want to share
with you our company's meeting Rhythm
and this is the meeting rhythm again
that we roll out across all of our
companies and that I would encourage you
to do as well because it works really
well for us uh so first things first um
a leadership team is going to gather for
a one-day strategic planning meeting
once every about 3 years okay at this
meeting this is when we're going to get
really really clear on the company's
Mission Vision Values uh longer term
medium-term goals and we like to set
threeyear targets so this is kind of the
one meeting that I absolutely positively
will not miss because this is where the
Strategic direction of the company is
set so this is a really important
meeting we don't do annual planning I
think that is really important and I
would write this down stop annual
planning annual planning sucks it's one
thing if you got to you know do an
annual Finance plan or perform or
something like that when you're thinking
about the Strategic direction of the
business I really hate annual planning
it it's still a bit too long to be
predictable but it's too short to do
anything truly meaningful so we think
out in terms of threeyear Cycles cuz in
three years you can do something really
big really cool and really really
inspiring then what we do is we break
that 3-year Target down into 12
quarterly chunks in 3 years uh there are
12 quarters and so what we then do is we
meet every 90 days for what we call a
quarterly Sprint planning meeting now
this quarterly Sprint planning meeting
is anywhere from a half day to a day at
this quarterly Sprint planning meeting
where the goals and objectives for that
next 90 days are set where do we need to
be from a revenue and profitability
standpoint 90 days from today to be on
track and on target and similarly what
actions what projects what key
initiatives do we need to Greenlight
over that 90-day period to keep us on
track uh and to optimize thing and it's
it's choosing the metrics and it's
choosing the key initiatives that
happens at this quarterly Sprint
planning meeting now once that is done
we're also going to meet uh once a month
for what we refer to as a monthly
business review and this is simply at
the end of every month we have a chance
to look back and say hey how we doing
are we on track for our quarterly plan
uh do we need to make a pivot the other
meeting that we have weekly scorecard
meetings because these are the meetings
where you guessed it we are reviewing
the scorecard every week my leadership
team and I are looking at the scorecard
and saying what are the metrics that are
green yay what are the ones that are
yellow hm and what are the ones that are
red oh no right that's getting discussed
every single week now hopefully the
actions and activities that were already
approved at that quarterly Sprint
planning meeting hopefully that is
enough to turn red to yellow and yellow
to Green even if we feel like we need to
do something different though again
we're not going to make any major pivots
as a result of the weekly scorecard
meetings because we know that that
discussion is going to happen during the
monthly business review the last meeting
type that we would have is the ad hoc
meeting these might be your project
kickoff meetings your brainstorming
meetings the you know oh no that you
know what hit the fan and we need to get
everybody together now the good news is
is that if you follow this meeting
Rhythm you will have much fewer and
perhaps none of these ad hoc meetings
that is the beauty of this system it
seems like wow that's a lot of meetings
but in reality because we're following
that consistent meeting Rhythm more
times than not you're in meetings maybe
you know an hour or two per week
depending on how many teams you're on I
submit to you that that's probably less
time than you're spending in meetings
right now and the reason that you're not
to be spending as much time in meetings
is because you're going to have that
consistent meeting Rhythm what we do the
process is really really simple if you
follow this Rhythm step number one you
want to plan in threeyear Cycles forget
annual planning I want you to pause I
want you to decide from your team hey
where do we want to be 3 years from
today then we want to execute in 90day
Sprints we're going to break that
three-year plan into 12 quarterly chunks
and every quarter we're going to get
together to come up with what is the
quarterly Sprint plan for the next 90
days we're then going to measure weekly
so we're going to have a weekly meeting
where we review the scorecard remember
one of our rules no scor card no meeting
that's why our standing weekly
leadership and team meetings there's
always going to be a scorecard
associated with it and then lastly we
are going to Pivot monthly as needed so
if we need to we will absolutely um make
a change these plans are not chiseled in
stone it's just not how business works
you might be sitting there saying wow
that seems like a lot of time in
meetings but the fact is and I've said
this a couple of times a consistent and
effective meeting Rhythm will actually
save you time that is how we do it I
would love to know what changes if any
do you plan to make to your meetings and
your meeting Rhythm uh drop a comment
below I would love to hear your thoughts
also keep in mind that a consistent
meeting rhythm is just one piece of a
company operating system so if you want
to get the other pieces check out my
full video on how to scale from1 million
to $200 million a year using a scalable
operating system I'll see you there
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