⚙️ Hi Operator,

I’ve been a fan of Torsten Walbaum for quite a while now. He has over a decade of experience at high growth startups, including Rippling, Meta and Uber.

Torsten is extremely generous about sharing his experience being an operator through his Operators Handbook newsletter. A perfect example is how he thinks about meetings.

Meetings aren’t the problem—it’s how we run them. In today’s guide, Torsten shows you how to turn chaos into clarity with straightforward tips for better scheduling, smoother execution, and effective follow-ups.

P.S. Knock knock, are you there? Don’t be afraid to say hi!

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• 6 tips to run a highly effective meeting, backed by science (Science of People)

• How to run effective meetings in the era of hybrid work (Atlassian)

• 15 best practices for creating an effective corporate meeting culture (Forbes)

• White collar work is just meetings now (The Atlantic)

• 12 essential tips for effective meeting management (Fellow)

Stop Wasting Time in Pointless Meetings

Insight from Torsten Walbaum

“This meeting is pointless.”

When I saw those words flashing up on the screen, I knew I’d screwed up. I shouldn’t have sent my coworker that Slack message while they were sharing their screen.

But I meant it — after spending more than 30 hours in meetings that week, I had run out of patience. Another hour wasted talking in circles and accomplishing exactly… nothing.

Here’s the thing, though: We can't just get rid of meetings (trust me, I've dreamed about it). Companies are essentially groups of humans trying to solve problems together. And sometimes – just sometimes – we need to actually talk to each other.

The real problem isn’t that we spend a lot of time in meetings – it’s that we don’t take them seriously. If you spend $10k on a marketing event, people expect qualified leads in return. But at the same time, we run large, expensive meetings that don’t drive a single decision without batting an eye.

Many articles on running meetings exist, but most are basic or high-level. So we put together the ultimate operator’s guide to help you apply the same rigor to meetings as you do in other areas of your work.

We’ll cover:

• The biggest reasons why meetings fail to achieve their goal 

• How to run better meetings (from scheduling to actionable follow-ups)

• What you can do as a meeting attendee

Let’s dive in!

Why do so many meetings fail?

The most common reasons are:

1. It didn’t need to be a meeting (AKA “this could have been an email”): Meetings should be interactive — one-sided presentations or read-outs are (usually) a waste of time.

2. No clear agenda: Meetings often fail because the agenda is either missing or not enforced

3. The wrong people are in the room: If the decision maker isn’t there, why bother debating?

4. Bad preparation and problem framing: If everyone in the meeting has different amounts of context, and the problem you’re trying to solve is not clearly defined, the meeting will go nowhere.

But enough complaining, let’s talk about how to fix these.

How to run better meetings

So what can you actually do to address the issues discussed above? Throughout the rest of this post, we’ll cover actionable tips across the entire lifecycle of a meeting:

• Scheduling the meeting

• Preparing the meeting

• Running the meeting

• Following up after the meeting

Step 1: Scheduling the meeting

Scheduling a meeting sounds easy enough, but this first step is where the majority of meetings already fail.

To prevent this, ask yourself these questions:

Question #1: What are you trying to achieve?

The goal of your meeting affects everything else, so you need to figure this out first.

There are four types of meetings:

1. Problem solving: You are trying to solve a problem in the meeting

2. Decision making: You are trying to get a decision made during the meeting

3. Getting buy-in: You already have a plan or made a decision, and now you need to make sure others are aligned

4. Sharing information: You want to highlight important information or raise awareness around an issue.

Some meetings have aspects of multiple categories (e.g. a team meeting might have a short brainstorm in addition to information sharing), but 95% of the time, they should have a singular purpose.

Question #2: Does this need to be a meeting?

More often than not, if we’re being honest, the answer is “no”.

For example:

• Smaller, less controversial decisions can be made via email or Slack

• For straightforward topics, you can get sign-off from other teams asynchronously (just add an approval section to a document):

• If you’re just sharing information, you can record a walk-through of the deck / demo of the tool / etc. That way, people can watch the video async—even on 1.5x speed—and reach out with questions afterward (we have done this successfully at Rippling, incl. presentations by leadership)

From the above, it’s clear that meetings should mostly be reserved for any issues that require discussion (e.g. controversial decisions).

Here’s a simple framework to help you decide on the right channel:

To hold yourself (and your colleagues) accountable, you could look at the cost of a meeting before you schedule it. This way, you’ll have to ask yourself: “Is this metrics read-out really worth $10k? Or should everyone get back to executing?”

There are several Google add-ons available in the Chrome web store that do this:

Question #3: Who needs to be in the meeting?

Coming back to one of the most common failure modes: If someone important is missing from the meeting, it’s doomed.

There’s really only one consideration here:

• Who do you need in the room to get to the desired outcome (e.g. who has the authority to make the decision you want to make)?

A lot of people think there is a second consideration as well:

• Who needs to be there to be in the loop (or not get offended)?

Asking yourself this often results in bloated meetings where everyone and their mother gets invited.

It’s not just that the meeting isn’t a good use of those people’s time — the more people are in the room, the more likely your discussion will get side-tracked.

You can always record the meeting or share notes to keep people in the loop, so I recommend that you’re strict on who really needs to be there.

Question #4: How much time will you need?

In my experience, people always underestimate how much time is needed.

And there’s nothing worse than ending a meeting in the middle of a discussion. Do you really want to schedule a follow-up and spend 10 minutes reminding everyone where you left off?

Problem-solving sessions and decision-making meetings tend to take longer than 30 minutes; 45 minutes to an hour is a good bet depending on the complexity of the topic. If you’re presenting a deck, plan to spend 2 - 3 minutes per slide (incl. questions / discussions).

It’s also easier to give time back than to have a meeting run over, so bake in a buffer for important meetings.

Question #5: When will the meeting take place?

This sounds trivial, but there are a few things to consider.

If you want busy people like executives to be there, or the meeting requires a lot of prep, you need to schedule the meeting well in advance. In any case, avoid same-day invites at all costs–it just pulls people out of their flow.

And don’t schedule a challenging meeting late in the day (or on Fridays), if possible. It’s going to be hard to dig into a model or make a controversial decision if everyone’s brain is fried.

Speaking of time of day: Don’t forget about different time zones — you won’t make any friends by scheduling a meeting at 7:30 PM EST. I speak from experience; I’m pretty sure the wife of our NY-based CFO hated me for ruining their Friday family dinners.

⚙️ Logistics

• 📋 Always add an agenda to the meeting invite and link any relevant documents you want people to review in advance. If you are still working on the pre-read, say so and send it when it’s ready.

• 💬 I also like to send a Slack message to the attendees after I schedule the meeting. This is especially important if you expect them to either 1) review certain materials ahead of time or 2) play an active role in the meeting (e.g. present data).

• 🔔 If there are key people that need to be there or you have double-booked people and they haven’t RSVPd, follow up. This might seem like babysitting, but it’s better than wasting everyone’s time because a key person didn’t show up.

• 🚪 Book a room for people who will be in the office (even if you’re not). Your meeting will be off to a bad start if people have to run around to find a quiet place.

• 📅 And my favorite: Set an end date for recurring meetings. That way, there is a natural point where you can re-evaluate whether it is adding value. In other words, the meeting regularly needs to earn its place on people’s calendars again.

Step 2: Preparing for the meeting

Now that the meeting is scheduled, it’s time to prepare. A bit of effort before the meeting can make a huge difference.

Ask yourself: How can you make sure that the meeting can get straight to the point?

This includes two parts:

1. Pre-reads: To ensure that people have the right context, share important materials in advance. Not everyone will read it, but it at least gives them a chance to prepare

2. Meeting materials: Almost all meetings benefit from having a document or slides to facilitate the discussion

What kind of preparation is necessary depends on the type of meeting:

Problem-solving meeting

Even for a problem-solving working session, it’s lazy to show up unprepared. If you did, you’d just be outsourcing your job to someone else.

The preparation for a problem-solving session should focus on framing the problem correctly.

• What problem are you trying to solve? Why is this important (not just for you, but also for others / the company overall)?

• What did you already try and how did that go? Where exactly are you stuck?

• Are there any constraints you need to work around?

For a good primer on framing problems, check out this post by Coda.

Decision-making meeting

If your goal is to make a decision, you need to make it as easy as possible for the decision maker to do that.

First, of course, you need to figure out who the decision maker is. It’s not always obvious; is this decision made jointly between different teams? Is there one executive who needs to make the call?

Then you need to frame the decision:

• What’s your recommendation, and why?

• What other options exist, and what are the trade-offs between the choices?

• Is this decision a one-way door or not?

• Are there ways to de-risk the choice?

If at all possible, you should come to the decision maker with a clear, joint recommendation.

But if different teams disagree on the decision, and you are unable to resolve the disagreement, it can be helpful to lay out the different viewpoints and let each party speak to their recommendation. The decision maker will be the tie-breaker in that case.

Getting buy-in

If you are planning to use the meeting to get buy-in for your plan, be prepared to:

1. Summarize the plan

2. Explain how it affects each stakeholder, and whether you need their support

3. Walk through your reasoning for how you arrived at the decision

And be super clear about what is set in stone and what is still up for debate. For example, it’s pointless discussing whether the overall project makes sense if that decision has already been made by leadership and it’s just a question of how you’ll do it.

Sharing information

The most common mistake with these types of meetings is that people just present a huge deck with 50 slides full of data, most of which is not relevant to the audience.

Focus on the most important things you want to highlight and put everything else in the appendix. Using consistent slide layouts for recurring meetings makes it easy for people to navigate the data, but you don’t have to show the same slides every time. If there’s nothing interesting to report, skip it.

And always translate data into insights; every single slide should have a clear message.

Memos vs. slides: What format should the materials have?

For any pre-reads, a written memo will typically be better than slides. It allows you to lay out a clear narrative that people can react to compared to somewhat disconnected bullet points in slides.

If you want your meeting to be extra productive, ask people to comment in the document ahead of the meeting. When I worked at Rippling, I facilitated a lot of meetings between marketing and sales. By using this tactic, I could get a pulse on the most controversial issues in advance and:

1. Adjust the agenda to focus on these during the meeting

2. Prepare better (e.g. by pulling data to help resolve a disagreement)

For materials that are used during the meeting, it depends on your preferences. I’ve found slides quite effective, especially for data-heavy presentations.

Step 3: Running the meeting

Hopefully, everyone showed up (on time!); let’s get the meeting started.

1. State the goal of the meeting

If you want to have a shot at accomplishing the goal of your meeting, everyone needs to agree on what that is.

You can literally say something like:

“This meeting will have been successful if we decide on which market to launch next. Short of that, we should at least align on the criteria we want to use.”

While not required, stating a minimum and ideal outcome can be a helpful trick. The minimum goal should be the main thing you want to accomplish; the ideal outcome is the optional cherry on top.

That way, people aim higher and you increase the chances of hitting your main goal.

2. Share context

Even if you share a pre-read, a lot of people won’t do their homework. And if you don’t work at Amazon, it’s likely not standard practice to read a memo in silence for 20 minutes at the beginning.

So, it’s up to you to give a brief recap of what happened so far and what is supposed to happen next.

TV shows do this well: An episode typically starts with a recap of important events up to that point. For example, if a certain character is going to play a key role in this episode, their storyline is summarized.

Your recap should be similar. Don’t give a chronological recount of everything that happened, but focus on the things that are key to the decision or problem at the center of the meeting.

3. Keep things on track

During the meeting, you’ll need to make sure to stay on track. People often go on tangents or get bogged down in (unimportant) details.

Even if the people derailing the meeting are more senior than you: As the meeting host, it’s your job to keep everyone focused.

Some tips for doing this in practice:

⏰ Manage time: For example, if the sales team presents some numbers and it turns into a heated discussion that is unlikely to be resolved on the spot, you can say:

“This is an important topic, but we need to move on so that we can also discuss the latest marketing launch. Let’s take this offline and find a separate time to finish it.”

By making the trade-off explicit (you won’t be able to cover the marketing topic if you continue debating), you’re giving a clear, objective reason for moving on.

🗺️ Focus on the critical path: When people “wander off” on a tangent, you need to get them back to the core of the issue. You can say something like:

“We definitely need to figure out these details before we launch, but to make the go/no-go decision today, we only need to understand if it’s feasible at all.”

Why does this work? You’re not dismissing their thoughts on the nitty-gritty details of the solution, but you’re reminding them of what exactly needs to be solved right now in this meeting (based on the goal you stated at the beginning).

⬜ Whiteboarding: When the discussion is going in circles, or there seem to be misunderstandings, I like to sketch out my understanding of the problem in real time. This can be on a physical whiteboard or in a digital tool — both work fine.

If you boil a complicated discussion down to simple visuals (e.g. the steps in a process, or a simplified view of a technical architecture), there are two possible outcomes:

1. Everyone agrees on the relevant facts and you can move on

2. Somebody points out things they disagree with, and you can iterate until everyone agrees

Either way, in the end, you’ll have alignment.

4. Know when to call it quits

When a meeting fails, we all know it. You look around the room and see that half the people are already mentally checked out and answering emails instead of paying attention.

And yet, instead of giving everyone time back, the meeting organizer keeps going. Don’t be like that. When you hit a wall, acknowledge that and end the meeting with clear next steps. For example:

• You realize you need to escalate the decision to an exec that’s not present? → Make sure everyone agrees, and then schedule a separate meeting

• You need more data to move forward? → Instead of speculating, assign the analysis to someone and regroup once you have clarity

5. Take notes

You don’t need to write down everything that gets discussed. But you do need to capture:

1. Decisions that were made

2. Action items / next steps

For decisions, you should document what was decided and why. You’d be surprised how often people “forget” that they agreed to something.

For action items, you should note 1) what needs to be done, 2) by when, and 3) who owns the action item. This doesn’t have to be the person actually doing all the work, but you need someone who is responsible for making it happen.

Generally, I recommend that you take notes yourself. However, if you’re sharing your screen and can’t access a note-taking app, you have a few options:

• Take notes while you’re sharing your screen. This might be uncomfortable at first but can be a powerful tactic to drive alignment on the spot.

• Ask someone else to take notes. Don’t just hope that someone will; be explicit about it.

• Use AI. Tools like Fathom will automatically take notes for you. I was hesitant at first, but once you try it, there’s no going back.

Step 4: Following up after the meeting

After the meeting, there are a few things you should knock out within 24 hours:

1. Share your notes. It’s important that you share them as soon after the meeting as possible. If someone disagrees with something, you’ll want to address it ASAP

2. Schedule follow-ups. If you ran out of time, or shut down a side discussion and promised to help schedule a follow-up, do it right away before you forget.

This “last mile” of the meeting is arguably the most important. If you skip it, things will just fizzle out and nothing gets accomplished.

Bonus: What can you do as a meeting attendee?

Even if you’re not the meeting organizer, you can help make meetings better. How?

By enforcing the principles described in this post. For example:

• If you get invited to a meeting with no (clear) agenda, ping the organizer or decline

• If you get invited to a meeting and don’t think you need to attend, decline and send the organizer a brief note. If you’re already in the meeting and it’s clear you’re not adding value, leave.

“Walk out of a meeting or drop off a call as soon as it is obvious you aren't adding value. It is not rude to leave, it is rude to make someone stay and waste their time.” - Elon Musk

In addition, you should do a regular meeting audit (e.g. weekly). Look at all the recurring meetings on your calendar and think back to the last session. Were you really needed, or could you have delegated attendance to someone else?

If you didn’t contribute anything that could have only come from you, you didn’t need to be there.

At a glance: Meeting checklist

📅 Scheduling:

• What are you trying to achieve (problem-solving, decision, buy-in, sharing)?

• Does this need to be a meeting?

• Who, how long, when?

• Logistics: Add agenda to the invite, ping attendees, book rooms

🧑‍💻 Preparation:

• Pre-read: What should people review in advance?

• Meeting materials: How can you facilitate a productive discussion?

👨‍👨‍👦‍👦 Running the meeting:

• Kick-off: State the goal & share context

• Keep things on track

• Take notes (decisions + action items (what, by when, by whom)

📩 Follow up:

• Share notes

• Schedule follow-ups

P.S. If you’re reading this during a meeting, get up and leave; you clearly don’t need to be there