Meetings Suck Because You Are Lazy: Rebecca Hinds on Fixing Your Broken Calendar

I used to think that meetings just naturally sucked. Then I read Your Best Meeting Ever by Rebecca Hinds and realized I was the one breaking them. In this episode of the Brilliant Podcast I sit down with Rebecca to figure out why we keep throwing junk on our calendars and calling it work. We are getting into the organizational psychology of why your quick syncs are actually killing your company growth. The memes about emails and getting into systems thinking are a thing of the past now. If your team has that meeting suck reflex or is drowning in asynchronous communication noise Rebecca breaks down the Seven Principles for designing interactions that actually drive productivity. We talk about why your meetings are often just symptoms of a leadership development crisis and how to fix the communication system once and for all. I am using her book every week now and my team is already noticing the difference. If you are tired of being double and triple booked for things that do not matter this conversation is for you. What we cover in this episode The 4D CEO Test To decide if a meeting actually deserves to exist. Meeting Doomsday Why you need to nuke your entire calendar once a year. The IKEA Effect Why top-down mandates fail and employee ownership wins. Verb Noun Agendas Because catching up is not a strategy. Decision Making Why most of your meetings are just delayed information exchange. ----more----   ABOUT REBECCA: Rebecca Hinds is a leading expert on organizational behavior and the future of work.   Rebecca holds a B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. from Stanford University, where her research focused on how emerging technologies—especially collaboration tools and AI—are reshaping the way we work.   From 2022 to 2025, Rebecca founded and led the Work Innovation Lab at Asana to explore bold, research-driven solutions to the biggest challenges in today’s workplace. In 2025, she launched the Work AI Institute at Glean where she partners with leading experts to help organizations transform their work with AI. Rebecca is a trusted advisor to leading companies—helping teams tackle everything from meeting overload and hybrid work to the growing pains of AI adoption and organizational change. Her work challenges outdated management playbooks and inspires leaders to rethink—and redesign—the way work gets done.   Grab her books: Amazon: Your Best Meeting Ever: 7 Principles for Designing Meetings That Get Things Done = Barnes and Noble: Your Best Meeting Ever: 7 Principles for Designing Meetings That Get Things Done   Website: https://www.rebeccahinds.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rebecca-hinds/ X: https://x.com/RebHinds Apple Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/brilliant-podcast/id1816980260   #Productivity #LeadershipDevelopment #TimeManagement #OrganizationalPsychology #MeetingCulture #SystemsThinking #WorkplaceEfficiency #RebeccaHinds #BrilliantPodcast #ExecutiveCoaching