My 10 Commandments of Meeting Etiquette

I’ve had to be a part of a lot of meetings in my career, and in that time I’ve come to realize that there are some fundamental rules that everyone should follow when scheduling one. It’s important to note that these aren’t tips aimed at making your meetings the best meetings, but more centered around how to show respect to the people you’re inviting so they show up and bring their A game for you, rather than arriving grumbling and distracted because you booked the meeting at 5pm over their daughter’s dance recital.

If you know me, one of my key personal rules of management is to demonstrate respect to those around you, and every time you send a meeting request out you should show respect to the recipients by proving that you value their time and you’re aiming to squeeze every ounce of value out of those precious minutes you’re asking from them.

So without further delay, I present my 10 commandments of meeting etiquette:

The 10 Commandments

Thou shall invite as few attendees as is necessary

Meetings are scored like golf, not like bowling… the fewer “points” the better. Always start by asking the question “who are only people I need to arrive at the meeting’s outcome?” and beware of adding “FYI attendees” — examples of this would be managers of decision makers, executives that have an interest in the subject matter, etc. — keep them informed using follow-up reports instead of bogging down the meeting with more people to manage. Meetings are more efficient when they have the least number of people necessary to keep meaningful momentum going towards the goal.

Thou shall utilize the required & optional attendee function

Going along with the last commandment, if you do have to invite folks that aren’t absolutely critical to the goal of the meeting, mark them as optional. But don’t let the meeting get blocked by the calendar availability of optional attendees — often these optional folks have the busiest calendars. Make sure to include them in the after-meeting report so they’re aware of everything that transpired. And during the meeting, consider how much they should actually be contributing — make sure to know the chickens from the pigs.

Thou shall honor thy attendees’ working hours and seek pre-approval before breaking that agreement

I work at a company that employs people across the globe, so if my meeting consists of folks on Pacific, Central, and Eastern time, as well as folks in India, there are only so many hours in the day that our working hours overlap. One way or another, each person’s working hours should be visible to you, and you should make a meaningful attempt to land it within the overlapping time that everyone is available. And if your meeting is truly important enough, AND the attendee’s availability isn’t cooperating and you have to land the meeting in someone’s off-hours, show them the respect to reach out to them and (at best) get agreement from them or (at worst) inform & apologize to them.

Thou shall honor attendees’ existing calendar blocks and avoid the hubris of automatically assuming your meeting is more important

Beyond the dimension of working hours, people usually already have existing meetings that are blocking times you want to use, but that doesn’t mean you can play “meeting God” and decide your meeting should take precedence over what they’ve already got scheduled. If your meeting truly is urgent and/or important enough to warrant booting an existing meeting out of its place, then once again you should respect the other person enough to reach out to them and either inform or get approval… otherwise you’re just injecting chaos into that person’s life without so much as an acknowledgement of the inconvenience you’re being.

Thou shall provide context for the meeting and any useful read-ahead materials to your attendees

Beyond providing the desired outcomes and agenda to your attendees, there’s likely context and background information that has lead to the meeting being needed — an event that occurred, a priority that shifted, new information that has come to light, etc. Meetings should be focused on debating and making decisions, not spending half the meeting simply getting everyone up to speed on why the meeting was needed in the first place.

Thou shall identify who final decision maker(s) are for the meeting’s key topics and decisions

Any decision requires a decision maker, whether that is a single person or a group of folks (i.e. a committee). In any case, it’s important for people that are discussing a decision to understand who ultimately will be making the decision, because ultimately the decision makers are who need to be convinced to move in a certain direction.

Thou shall run the meeting on time, on topic, and keep the group away from rabbit holes

Good meetings need a strong emcee — someone to ensure the meeting keeps its momentum going in the right direction and who isn’t afraid to reel in attendees when they’re going off course. This might feel intimidating if your meeting includes your peers, superiors, or (at worst!) executives, but just remember that a good manager or executive will respect a meeting owner that is keeping the meeting on track and efficient rather than rolling over because they’re afraid of respectfully telling someone to stop going down a rabbit hole. Don’t be afraid to control your meeting to ensure it’s successful.

Thou shall send out a meeting summary with key points & action items with their assigned owner

If meetings and the decisions made within them aren’t documented anywhere, then they immediately get thrown into the “tribal knowledge” bucket, and months or years from now no one will know why a key decision was made or who made it. This doesn’t need to be a novel — again, simple & succinct bullet points that capture only what is important for everyone to know that led to what was decided is best. And my personal preference is to make it a completely apolitical and emotionless document, just state the facts and consider whether you have to call out people by name or just say “the group” discussed and reached consensus on something.

Thou shall start the meeting on time and aim to end early

There’s an inherent & fatal flaw with meetings: when scheduled back to back, it’s simply impossible to be on-time to all of them. Even if you’re just switching between virtual conference rooms, chances are at some point you’re going to need a break to get up, use the restroom, respond to emails or chats, grab a bite, hug your kids or your pets, etc., and all of a sudden you’re 5 minutes late to your next meeting. Organizations I’ve been with have tried instituting a 25- and 55-minute meeting policy so there would always be 5 minutes in between each meeting, but in practice people just ran meetings long and we were right back where we started. I do think this could be a viable strategy to help with the problem, but without any meaningful enforcement people will just slip back into the old habits.

So if you’re able to end your meeting a few minutes early, especially when you know folks in your meeting have constant back-to-back meeting days, try to do so. And explicitly call out that you’re doing it to enable them to arrive on-time to the next meeting — hopefully you paying it forward will encourage others to do the same within your organization.

Conclusion

Interestingly, most of the commandments dictate behavior before the meeting ever happens, when you’re sending the invite out, and this is 100% by design. You should put your best foot forward when scheduling a meeting so that your attendees feel like you’re not wasting their time, you’ve thought through how to accomplish what needs to happen, and you’re accountable for achieving the goal and communicating it out to the wider team. Otherwise, you’re contributing to the problem of “meeting noise”, which is a serious detractor from people actually getting work done. Even those of us that have to be in a lot of meetings throughout the day still need to put our hands on the keyboard and get s&#t done.