Commonwealth Club of California Podcast Rebecca Hinds: Your Best Meeting Ever
Mar 12, 2026
Rebecca Hinds, organization expert and author of Your Best Meeting Ever, helps companies fix broken collaboration. She explains why meetings are relics of hierarchy and how to treat meetings like products. Topics include 'Meeting Doomsday' resets, calendar cleanses, meeting metrics and their traps, adding useful friction and AI, and techniques to minimize and redesign meetings for better participation.
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Measure Time Investment Not Broad Meeting Ratings
- Meeting metrics can mislead because people publicly rate meetings more negatively; ask about whether time was well invested instead.
- Measure singular meeting experiences and time-investment judgments rather than broad meeting-satisfaction surveys.
Airtime Balance Predicts Team Performance
- Airtime balance predicts team performance: equal contribution matters more than who speaks most.
- Studies show talking distribution alone can reliably predict team effectiveness without analyzing content.
Practice Meeting Minimalism With Odd Lengths
- Apply meeting minimalism: subtract attendees, agenda items, frequency, or duration — try nonstandard lengths like 25 or 27 minutes to break autopilot.
- Shorter or odd-length meetings reduce Parkinson's Law and create mental space between meetings.
