There’s a meeting to plan the project. A meeting to review the plan. A meeting to align on the review. A meeting to discuss what the alignment means.
Somewhere in there, the work is supposed to happen. It rarely gets the invitation.
Meetings feel like progress. Everyone’s in the room, everyone’s nodding, and the hour is clearly spent. But a meeting produces alignment, not output — and alignment without output is just a more expensive way to stall.
The test is simple: after the meeting, is something true that wasn’t true before? A decision made. A draft approved. A date set. If not, you didn’t have a meeting. You had coffee with an agenda.
Protect the makers’ time like it’s the budget. Because it is.