This message from Ed is a few years old, but the advice still holds true: great meetings do not happen by accident.
Most meetings don’t fail because of bad ideas. They fail because no one took the time to prepare.
It’s easy to walk into a meeting with a general sense of the topic and figure the rest out as you go. But leaders who consistently drive good outcomes treat preparation as a non-negotiable step, not an afterthought. A few minutes of intentional thought before a meeting can be the difference between a conversation that moves things forward and one that just fills time on the calendar.
Why Preparation Gets Skipped
It’s rarely a lack of caring. More often, it’s a lack of time, or the assumption that things will “come together” once everyone’s in the room. But meetings without a clear purpose tend to drift: people talk past each other, decisions get delayed, and the same topics resurface the following week. The good news is that fixing this doesn’t require a bigger time investment. It requires a more intentional one.
“Go in with a plan, be clear in your communication about what you’re hoping to accomplish, and amazing things will happen.”
Four Questions to Ask Before Your Next Meeting
You don’t need an elaborate process. Before you send the invite or walk into the room, run through these:
Find Your Own Style
Not every leader prepares the same way, and that’s fine. Some people build out detailed agendas; others jot down three bullet points and trust their instincts to fill in the rest. Both can work. What matters is that some intentional thought happens before the meeting starts, not during it.
The Payoff
Preparation compounds. Teams that walk into clear, well-run meetings spend less time in follow-up conversations, make decisions faster, and trust that their time is being respected. Over time, that adds up to a culture where meetings are seen as productive, not something to be dreaded or worked around.
The fix isn’t fewer meetings for the sake of it. It’s meetings that have a clear reason to exist, and leaders who take the time to make sure they do.
In our Leadership Development programs, we help leaders build stronger habits around communication, planning, and running meetings that actually move work forward.
