26. Stop Wasting Time with Ineffective Meetings

Episode 026: Stop Wasting Time with Ineffective Meetings 

Episode 1 of 9 in the series, "The Founder's Blind Spot"

Ever walked out of a full day of meetings and thought, “What did we actually accomplish?”

Being tired doesn’t always mean you’ve made progress. There’s a good kind of tired — the one that comes from rallying your team, creating clarity, and removing roadblocks. And then there’s the other kind — the one that leaves you drained, frustrated, and no closer to moving the business forward.

In this episode of Leadership in 5, James unpacks why meetings aren’t the real work, and why clarity, anchored in deeper understanding, is what really scales.

This episode is for founders and leaders who want to stop multiplying confusion and start multiplying progress.

Takeaways:

• Not all tiredness means progress—learn the difference between good exhaustion and drift.
• Meetings aren’t the work; the product of those meetings is where the real work happens.
• Clarity must create deeper understanding, not just repetition of words.
• An effective meeting aligns priorities, assigns ownership, and builds confidence to act.
• Your calendar becomes part of your culture—what you tolerate in meetings gets replicated.

Reflection Questions:

• When was the last time you ended the day tired and satisfied because progress was made?
• Do your meetings consistently produce clarity—or just more noise?
• If someone from your team was asked what came out of your last meeting, would their answer show understanding?

BONUS #1: Deeper Reflection

For those who want to push further, here’s a set of deeper reflection questions to stretch your leadership and culture:

• What’s one recurring meeting you either lead — or sit in — that produces busyness instead of progress… and why do you still allow it?
• When your team leaves a meeting, do they leave more confident—or more dependent on you?
• If your calendar sets the culture of your company, what story is it telling right now?

BONUS #2:  Two Layers of Fixing Ineffective Meetings:

• Reflection Layer (the real fix): Force yourself to face your tolerance for drift. That one question above cuts straight to ownership (because ownership is what changes behavior.)
• Action Layer: Keep it simple. Operational clarity is the fix:
• Define outcomes, not agendas. A meeting exists to decide, align, or unblock. If it’s not one of those, it doesn’t need to happen.
• Use “missed, met, or exceeded” language to measure progress. If what you’re talking about can’t be tracked against that, it’s just conversation.
• End with forward motion. Not “next steps” in corporate-speak, but: who owns what, by when, and how progress will be known.

That’s not micromanaging. That’s calibrated execution.

Links and Resources:

• The Next Question Guide → NextQuestionGuide.com
• LinkedIn → linkedin.com/in/jamesmayhew
• Website → JamesMayhew.com