The One Question That Tells You If a Meeting Worked

You walked out of the meeting. Now what?

If you can't immediately answer these three questions, the meeting didn't work:

1. What was decided?
2. Who owns what next step?
3. What's the deadline?

If you don't know those three things, the meeting produced conversation, not outcomes.

Why This Is Hard

Meetings feel productive when they're engaged. People talk. Ideas get shared. Perspectives shift. There's energy in the room.

But energy isn't output. You can have a fascinating discussion that produces nothing. And you'll walk out feeling like you accomplished something because the conversation was good.

The good conversation is the trap.

The Pattern

The best meetings end with you knowing exactly what changed. The decision is documented. The owner is named. The deadline is set.

The worst meetings end with everyone nodding and saying "that was a good conversation." And nothing changes because nothing was decided.

The Test

After every meeting, ask yourself: "If I had to send an email to the team right now with everything that came out of this meeting, what would I say?"

If that email is "We discussed X and decided nothing" — you know what you need to fix next time.