In a small business a meeting is the most expensive thing on the calendar, because everyone in the room is someone who would otherwise be producing revenue. Six people for an hour is most of a working day gone, and unlike a corporate no one else is covering the work while it happens.
That changes the calculation. The question is not how to run better meetings, it is which meetings deserve to exist at all.
Start by not having it
Most recurring meetings survive because nobody has ever asked whether they should. They were set up for a reason that has since passed and they now run on inertia.
Before scheduling, ask what decision needs to be made and who has to be in the room to make it. If there is no decision, it is an update, and updates belong in a message that people read when it suits them.
A meeting earns its place when it involves a genuine decision with trade-offs, a difficult conversation that should not happen in writing, a problem needing several people thinking at once, or anything sensitive to tone. Everything else is a message.
Cancel one recurring meeting this week as an experiment. If nobody notices within a fortnight, you have your answer.
Put the purpose in the invitation
An invitation titled “catch up” tells nobody how to prepare, so nobody does, and the first fifteen minutes go on working out why everyone is there.
Write the purpose as an outcome: “decide which supplier we use for the Cape Town route” or “agree the December shutdown dates”. Someone reading that knows immediately whether they are needed and what to bring.
Send anything that needs reading beforehand, and say plainly that it should be read before rather than presented during. Reading a document aloud to people who can read is the single most common way meeting time is wasted.
Invite fewer people
Every additional attendee slows the discussion and dilutes accountability. People who are present but not needed either stay silent, which wastes their time, or contribute for the sake of it, which wastes everyone’s.
Invite the people who will decide and the people whose input the decision depends on. Everyone else gets the outcome afterwards, which is what they actually needed.
Make it acceptable to decline. In a small team, someone saying “you do not need me for this, send me the outcome” should be treated as good judgement, not disengagement.
Keep them short on purpose
Work expands to fill the slot, so book thirty minutes rather than an hour and see how rarely you need the hour.
Start on time even when someone is missing. Waiting punishes the people who arrived and teaches everyone that the start time is approximate.
Put the most important item first rather than last. Meetings lose energy as they run, and the thing you leave to the end gets the worst thinking in the room.
Make sure the quiet people speak
The loudest view is not automatically the best one, and in a small business the person closest to the actual problem is frequently the most junior person present.
Ask people directly rather than waiting for volunteers. Someone who has said nothing for twenty minutes often has the observation that changes the decision, and they will not offer it unprompted.
If you are the owner, say your view last. Once you have stated a preference, most people will agree with it, and you will have paid for a meeting to hear your own opinion repeated.
End with who does what by when
This is where most meetings fail. A good discussion with no owner and no date produces nothing, and the same conversation happens again in a fortnight.
Spend the last few minutes stating each action, the single person responsible and the date. One name per action. Shared responsibility reliably becomes nobody’s responsibility.
Write it down and send it the same day, short enough to read on a phone. That note is also the record, which matters when a decision is questioned later.
Handle remote and hybrid deliberately
A hybrid meeting where most people are in a room and one is on a call is not one meeting, it is a good meeting and a bad one happening simultaneously.
If anyone is remote, run it as though everyone is: one person per connection where practical, cameras on if that is the norm, and someone responsible for pulling remote participants into the discussion.
Do not rely on a stable connection for a decision that has to be made. Power interruptions and connectivity problems are a normal operating condition here, so have a fallback, whether that is a phone line or a decision that can be confirmed in writing afterwards.
Protect the time between meetings
Meetings scattered through a day destroy the blocks of uninterrupted time in which real work happens. Two hours split by a meeting in the middle is not two hours.
Cluster them where you can, whether that is a single morning or fixed days, and leave the rest genuinely clear. Protect it in your own calendar first, because a small team copies the owner’s habits whether or not you intend it.
Frequently asked questions
How do I know if a meeting is necessary?
Ask what decision needs to be made and who must be present to make it. If there is no decision, it is an update and belongs in a message.
How long should a meeting be?
Book the shortest slot that could work, usually thirty minutes. Work expands to fill whatever you schedule.
How many people should attend?
The people deciding and the people whose input the decision depends on. Everyone else can receive the outcome, and declining should be treated as good judgement.
How do I stop meetings producing nothing?
End by stating each action, one named owner and a date, then send that note the same day. One name per action, because shared responsibility becomes nobody’s.
What about hybrid meetings?
If anyone is remote, run it as though everyone is, and give someone responsibility for bringing remote participants in. Have a fallback for connectivity failures rather than assuming a stable connection.
Further reading
Originally published in September 2023. Updated September 2026 and rewritten for small teams, where the people in the meeting are the people doing the work.
