A Meeting Ritual To Get Rid of Unnecessary Meetings That Waste Time

The Meeting Escape Hatch: Ritual Design Lab for Org Change from Margaret Hagan on Vimeo.
I’ve been interested in organizational rituals that build resilience.  Being in a meeting that is a waste of your time can suck your energy.  How many meetings are you invited to that you where it isn’t mission critical that you attend? What if you reclaim that wasted time?  What if every meeting in your organization was optional?
This is small, fun ritual for the start of meetings, especially if your organization has back-to-back meetings every day.    At the start of the meeting, give a brief overview of the agenda.  Next, offer a one-minute coffee  break telling participants that anyone who realizes that they don’t need to be in this meeting can leave and there will be  no judgment.
As everyone returns to actually start the work, after the first start, only the people who need to be there will be there.
This ritual was developed by the Stanford Ritual Design Lab . You can read more about the Ritual Design lab here.