Conducting productive meetings is what you want as a team lead.

Yet, sloppy agendas and unclear ground rules of meetings conspire to frustrate you.

Every business leader has a different approach to meetings. And we can always learn from other leaders. 

This is why we have evaluated the productive meeting management strategies of some of history’s most successful leaders. They include Steve Jobs, Jeff Bezos, and Sheryl Sandberg. 

If you want to learn how to conduct a productive meeting, scroll down and read the following sections. 

Let’s dive in. 

1. Jeff Bezos’s best practices for meetings: apply the two-pizza rule

I’m sure you’re wondering, pizza and meetings? How do they relate?

Sounds delicious, but that’s not the case here. 

According to Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, a productive meeting involves inviting the least number of participants. 

His two-pizza rule suggests not asking more people than you can feed with two pizzas.

Selfish, no? 

That’s Jeff Bezos’s secret to a successful meeting. You can use it as an inspiration for your own.

In Jeff Bezos’s two-pizza rule, we learned the following to conduct a meeting: 

• Cut unnecessary participants from meetings.
• Keeping the number of participants under eight is a good idea.

2. Steve Jobs’s best meeting practices: keep them short and sweet

It is a dream come true for your team members to keep meetings small. If your meetings are short, can they still be productive?

Let’s find out what Steve Jobs used to do to make his meetings short yet effective.

When conducting a meeting, Steve takes a different approach. Steve prefers short, efficient meetings that have fewer participants. 

Also read: Top Reasons Why You Should Choose WebRTC-based Video Meeting App

Steve believes that too many minds in a single space spoil the pot.

Steve also reflects his thoughts in his words. 

“That has been one of my mantras — focus and simplicity. Simple can be harder than complex; you must work hard to clean your thinking to make it simple.” – Steve Jobs.

In Steve’s idea of conducting a productive meeting, we learned: 

• Meetings tend to become more productive with fewer minds in a room. 
• According to Steve, having too many minds in one session spoils the meeting goal.

3. Elon Musk’s best practices for meetings: be super ready in advance

You don’t want meetings with unclear objectives or agendas as a leader. 

It becomes a waste of time when a meeting turns out unproductive, and we get that. 

For a productive meeting, Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk demands preparation before the meeting.

Elon’s standards are high, and only tolerate participants who prepare adequately.

Elon examines, scrutinises, and asks follow-up questions as part of Elon’s mission. If you fail to respond, you will find yourself in hot water. Entrepreneurs can follow this example and improve meetings.

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Elon says that employees need to think and work in a way that gives their company an edge over fellow mammoth businesses. 

Elon has since reformed several business processes, including conducting business meetings. 

Here are his three golden rules: 

• Get rid of large meetings: Elon advised his employees to keep sessions short unless they provide value to all attendees. Elon Musk says an ideal meeting would consist of four to six people.
• Leave if you’re not adding value: When Tesla employees don’t feel they are adding value to a meeting, they need to leave. Elon Musk emphasises that walking out of a meeting room is not rude.
• Reduce the frequency of meetings: Elon Musk instructed his employees to reduce the number of meetings. Conduct meetings based on urgency and not as a routine or as an obligation.

4. Alfred Sloan’s best practices for meetings: a follow-up memo with a plan of action

Is there anything more productive than conducting an actionable meeting? That’s what former CEO of General Motors Alfred Sloan suggests.

Figuring out the meeting agenda during the meeting can make the session unproductive.

Let’s see how Alfred used to make his meetings productive. 

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When Alfred held a formal meeting, Alfred would announce the purpose, listen to what people had to say, and then leave. Alfred would then follow up with a memo outlining an action plan.

A memo usually summarises the discussion and its conclusion. 

Alfred’s memos made him an “outstanding executive,” and they helped GM dominate the 20th century.

So, what can you learn from Alfred’s meeting method? 

• The meeting participants should receive a follow-up memo summarising the discussion.
• Include a plan of action in the memo for the participants.

5. Larry Page’s best practices for meetings: don’t wait for a meeting to make a decision

How often have you faced a delay in making an important decision? Because a meeting wasn’t held to that effect?

If you have, then former CEO of Google Larry Page’s practice of conducting a meeting will interest you. 

After Larry became CEO of Google in 2011, Sundar Pichai took over the role in 2015.

Immediately, Larry sent out an email to the entire company. The topic was how to run effective meetings. 

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In the mail, Larry proposed:

• Decision-maker: Each business meeting should have a person empowered to make decisions. Meetings shouldn’t occur if the participant or host feels there is no need for a decision-maker.
• Attendants: Each meeting room should accommodate at most ten people. During meetings, Larry’s managers selected only those with the right skills to help accomplish the meeting’s goals.
• No Spectators: Meetings eat away a good chunk of working hours for every participant. So, every attendant needed to contribute to the meeting. Otherwise, they weren’t supposed to be there in the room.

6. Ben Horowitz’s best practices for meetings: have one-to-one meetings

In 2007, Ben Horowitz led Opsware to a $1.6 billion sale to HP as CEO.

A year later, Ben co-founded the venture capital firm, Andreessen Horowitz. 

According to Ben, architecting how people communicate in a company is the most critical job for a CEO. 

In that process, Ben says, the one-to-one meeting is crucial because it’s the best way for ideas to flow from employees to management.

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Ben’s advice on how to run one is as follows:

• If you prefer structured agendas, let the employee set them. Sending the plan in advance is good practice.
• A manager should spend 10% of the meeting talking and 90% listening to the employee since it’s the employee’s meeting. 

7. Oprah Winfrey’s best practices for meetings: start by asking three questions

Oprah Winfrey, CEO of OWN, knows how to keep meetings short and productive. At the beginning of each meeting, Oprah asks three questions:

• What is the purpose of this meeting?
• Why is it important?
• Why does it matter?

The shortest amount of time spent in meetings is Oprah’s way of getting straight to the point. 

To deal with a project, Oprah convinced Coretta Scott King not to fly in for a meeting because of her dislike for meetings.

A television producer, magazine publisher, actor, author, and philanthropist doesn’t have meetings. 

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How does Oprah accomplish tasks? Mostly by email. 

This sentiment is common among us. If you can do it through email, don’t have a meeting.

Conduct a productive meeting with TelebuJoin or grptalk

There you have it – experts’ tips for conducting a productive meeting.

Following these experts’ tips is the first step to conducting productive meetings.

Wondering what the second step is?

Getting a video conferencing app to conduct smooth meetings.

Our blog on the best video conferencing apps can help you pick one that suits your needs.

We recommend the cloud-based video conferencing platform TelebuJoin. It’s your best bet when it comes to conducting productive meetings. 

Do you have just audio conferencing needs? Do not worry.

Grptalk is an audio conferencing app that allows you to connect to up to 50,000 people simultaneously. 

With grptalk, you do not need an internet connection. Yes, you heard us right.

So why wait? Get started with TelebuJoin and grptalk now to conduct effective meetings.