Update meetings often swap information, but little else.

And, let’s face it, they’re often plain dull. They’re a series of lengthy monologues, rather than value-adding discussions. They’re also too long.

In fact, here’s an idea: don’t have one for the next two weeks. Meet again in Week Three and start with “Well, did you miss them?”

Depending on the response, either stop them entirely, or change them to only include the bits people missed. After all, meetings should be about usefulness, not habit.

Now, I recognize that stopping them might be a step too far for some teams. In fact, one of my customers once gave me this brief:

So, I devised a new approach that reduced their 60-minute meetings down to 10, made them more interesting, generated more discussion, and always led to positive next steps.

All I did was suggest that they replace update meetings with LION meetings, where each attendee has one minute to present their LION:

LIONs work well because:

• Giving your team a time limit ensures they’re punchy, interesting and focused (this is better than giving them a maximum number of slides, since that just encourages them to write small).
• Asking them to do an I and O means they put both sides of what’s happened, rather than being only positive or negative or, more boringly, neutral – “I’m working on X”.
• The O’s subtitle “A current challenge they’d like help with” ensures they come with a solution-focus, rather than just grumbling about something.
• The L and N ensures momentum and accountability: they have to look forward with their Ns, then report back with their Ls.

If you find templates useful, here’s one to share with your team:

And here’s an example of how one might look:

One final point: if you’re doing a follow-up email to your LION meeting, please don’t call it “FYI”. It wipes out all your good work. The next chapter explains why FYIs don’t work, and what to do instead.