Atomic (Meeting) Habits: Committing to Good Meeting Behavior

On January 1, you’re full of energy and committed to your new nutrition and exercise plan, but by April, your New Year’s resolutions are a distant memory.

We’ve all been there, MeetingMakers. And when it comes to changing meeting habits, it’s much like trying to change your diet. Changing how you show up in a meeting is as difficult as swapping pizza for salad, and why do it if everyone else is eating pizza—aka poor meeting behavior?

This is not another article telling you that the secret to fixing your meetings is having a clear agenda. That’s old news. Put simply, change is hard, especially when a group of people needs to change their behavior.

A common complaint we hear from team leads and project managers is that their teams lack individual accountability and follow-through between meetings. It often sounds like…

Not having enough time: Meetings run over, leaving little room for meaningful discussion or decision-making.
No action between meetings: Despite discussions, little progress is made.

Good meeting practices are common sense, so why are they so difficult to maintain?

Social bias: The "pizza-eating" phenomenon—why bother changing habits if everyone else is doing the same thing?
Normative complaining: Griping about meetings has become the norm, making it harder to address underlying issues (Joe Allen, PhD).
Fear of speaking up: Team members may hesitate to voice concerns or suggestions, hindering open dialogue.
Resistance to change: Old habits die hard, and some team members may resist adopting new meeting practices.

When practicing good meeting structures, teams are more clear on what needs to get done and more likely to demonstrate personal accountability. If your team has good meetings, but still lacks personal accountability as a whole or by individuals, that may need to be addressed directly with the group or one-on-one with an employee.

Let’s approach changing meeting habits like we approach making any change in our lives. It’s not as simple as saying, “Put down the pizza and eat a carrot stick.” Or in meeting terminology, “Don’t just jump in, start with clear outcomes.”

How Do We Change a Habit?

Direct your rider and motivate the elephant.

We love the concept of the rider and the elephant mentioned throughout Chip and Dan Heath’s book Switch. By guiding the "rider" (the logical mind) and motivating the "elephant" (the emotional side), this book offers practical strategies for navigating any change, large or small.

Direct the Rider

Let’s first recap a few meeting habits that support individual accountability and follow-through, many of which you’ve probably heard before.

Set a clear agenda: Define a specific purpose and limit the number of topics to ensure focused discussion. (Listen to This Meeting Sucks S1E4: Outline Your Meeting.)
Establish meeting norms and agreements: Define how you'll hold each other accountable and ensure all voices are heard. (Download our Meeting Agreement Matching resource.)
Optimize meeting structures: Use breakout sessions and designated roles like notetakers and timekeepers to enhance efficiency and engagement. (Listen to This Meeting Sucks S3E8: Support Roles.)
Streamline decision-making processes: Clearly outline your process for making decisions and reporting project status using methods like the Agile Kanban board (Read “What is Kanban?” by Asana).
Define clear next steps: Utilize sign-up sheets and clarify who is responsible for what and when. (Listen to This Meeting Sucks S1E10: Closing and Follow-up.)

With your team, define one or two meeting habits you’d like to work on collectively. As with any new habit, start slow and master one before adding another. Trying to change too much too quickly is the surest way to find yourself eating a large piece of chocolate cake on National Quitters Day with the rest of the world.

Motivate the Elephant

Find Your Why

Next, and most importantly, let’s talk about motivating change, starting with finding why implementing these new habits is personally important to you or your team.

Finding your why in day-to-day life looks like finding a compelling reason to do something you don’t necessarily want to do:

I make dinner because having quality time with my family over a meal is important to me.
I mow the lawn because I enjoy the fresh air.
I'm going to the gym because I know I'll see my friends and feel good afterwards.

Your why for better meeting habits may center around the success of your team, your performance at work, or the development of your career skills:

I actively participate in meetings because I believe in the value of collaboration and teamwork.
I prioritize effective meeting habits because they lead to clearer communication and better decision-making.
I commit to following meeting best practices because they help us respect each other's time.
I embrace meeting accountability because it empowers us to deliver results we can all be proud of.
I invest in improving my meeting skills because I recognize their impact on productivity and morale.

Whatever your why is, it needs to be front and center wherever you have your meetings. Whether it’s a motivational poster on the wall of your conference room or a sticky note on your computer, your why is not memorable until you constantly remind to the point that you no longer have to think about it.

Script the Critical Moves and Shape the Path

Chip and Dan Heath write about scripting critical moves and shaping the path to habit change. In other words, how do you stick to your plan as easily as possible?

Might you create an agenda template for your meeting so you don’t need to spend time on the design every time?
Might you share the role of notetaker for each meeting so that it doesn’t become a burden on one person?
Might you set a timer to go off five minutes before the end of the meeting to remind everyone to stop and identify next steps?

Scripting critical moves differs for each team, but it involves making the habits you landed on as easy as possible to follow.

Rally the Herd

If everyone’s eating french fries, it’s hard to be the one ordering salad. If you’re the team leader or project manager, find ways to make adhering to the agreed upon meeting habits the norm, not the exception. If it’s within your power, include meeting habits as part of everyone’s performance management plan. Maybe you collect monthly feedback on your meetings and reward improvements (pizza party, anyone?). Most importantly, modeling good meeting habits from a position of power gets noticed and encourages others to do the same.

If you’re a participant, model the way by being the first salad eater. Doing so gives others permission to do the same. Let a co-worker know that you’re committed to changing how you show up in meetings and encourage them to do so too.

Remember, MeetingMakers, change doesn't happen overnight. Start small, stay consistent, and be patient with yourself and others.

Ready to elevate your meeting etiquette? Check out This Meeting Sucks S3E4 for a review of basic meeting etiquette, from embracing a collective mindset to dealing with dominating personalities without ruffling any feathers.

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