Every meeting without a clear purpose becomes a status update in disguise.
You gather people. Someone shares updates. Someone else asks a question. The conversation meanders. The meeting ends. You feel like you accomplished something — but nothing changed.
The meeting had no job. So it did the only thing it could: become a meeting about nothing in particular.
The Purpose Test
Before you schedule any meeting, ask: "What is this meeting's job?"
Not the topic. Not the attendees. The job.
A job might be:
- Make a decision
- Resolve a conflict
- Align on a plan
- Generate ideas
- Share information that requires discussion
If you can't name the job, don't schedule the meeting. Or if you do, understand it's probably going to be a placeholder.
Why Status Updates Are the Default
When we don't know the job, we default to status. Status is safe. Status is easy to facilitate. Status doesn't require anyone to make a hard call.
But status meetings have a hidden cost: they teach people that meetings are where updates happen, not decisions. And that shifts the team's mental model toward performance over output.
How to Fix It
State the job in the invite.
"The job of this meeting is to decide X." Or "The job of this meeting is to generate three options for Y."
This changes everything. When people know the job, they prepare differently. They think differently in the room.
End every meeting with the job done.
If the meeting ended and the job wasn't done, say so: "We didn't decide X. We need another meeting."
Don't pretend the meeting succeeded when it didn't.
Replace status meetings with docs.
If the job is just "everyone knows Y," send a message. Don't gather people to read them the thing they could have read.
The meeting that has no job is the meeting that costs the most.
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