{"id":9660,"date":"2026-03-20T21:57:41","date_gmt":"2026-03-20T21:57:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/onspeaking.com\/?p=9660"},"modified":"2026-03-21T18:41:56","modified_gmt":"2026-03-21T18:41:56","slug":"meetings-culture-broken","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/onspeaking.com\/index.php\/2026\/03\/20\/meetings-culture-broken\/","title":{"rendered":"Our Meetings Culture Is Broken"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"block-4f03020a117f0ec1e000\" class=\"sqs-block html-block sqs-block-html\" data-block-type=\"2\" data-border-radii=\"{&quot;topLeft&quot;:{&quot;unit&quot;:&quot;px&quot;,&quot;value&quot;:0.0},&quot;topRight&quot;:{&quot;unit&quot;:&quot;px&quot;,&quot;value&quot;:0.0},&quot;bottomLeft&quot;:{&quot;unit&quot;:&quot;px&quot;,&quot;value&quot;:0.0},&quot;bottomRight&quot;:{&quot;unit&quot;:&quot;px&quot;,&quot;value&quot;:0.0}}\">\n<div class=\"sqs-block-content\">\n<div class=\"sqs-html-content\">\n<div id=\"attachment_9662\" style=\"width: 1034px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-9662\" class=\"wp-image-9662 size-large\" src=\"https:\/\/onspeaking.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/scared-businessman-in-glasses-hiding-behind-podium-2026-03-12-23-55-16-utc-1024x683.jpg\" alt=\"businessman keynote speaker hiding behind podium tribune during conference\" width=\"1024\" height=\"683\" srcset=\"https:\/\/onspeaking.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/scared-businessman-in-glasses-hiding-behind-podium-2026-03-12-23-55-16-utc-1024x683.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/onspeaking.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/scared-businessman-in-glasses-hiding-behind-podium-2026-03-12-23-55-16-utc-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/onspeaking.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/scared-businessman-in-glasses-hiding-behind-podium-2026-03-12-23-55-16-utc-768x513.jpg 768w, https:\/\/onspeaking.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/scared-businessman-in-glasses-hiding-behind-podium-2026-03-12-23-55-16-utc-1536x1025.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/onspeaking.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/scared-businessman-in-glasses-hiding-behind-podium-2026-03-12-23-55-16-utc-1920x1281.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-9662\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">image source: Envato<\/p><\/div>\n<h4><\/h4>\n<h4 class=\"text-text-100 mt-3 -mb-1 text-[1.375rem] font-bold\">The Readiness Gap<\/h4>\n<p class=\"font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal leading-[1.7]\">I ask this question a lot in my sessions: &#8220;What would you need to feel <strong>truly ready<\/strong>\u00a0when presenting at work?&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal leading-[1.7]\">The answers are always the same:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"list-style-type: none;\">\n<ul>\n<li><em>Knowing my stuff. <\/em><\/li>\n<li><em>Having a clear flow. <\/em><\/li>\n<li><em>Being able to handle questions without saying &#8220;I&#8217;ll get back to you.&#8221; <\/em><\/li>\n<li><em>Not needing my slides as a crutch.<\/em><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p class=\"font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal leading-[1.7]\">But when I ask \u2013 &#8220;So what does your actual preparation look like?&#8221; \u2013\u00a0 that picture begins to crack:<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal leading-[1.7]\"><em>&#8220;Well&#8230; I run through my slides a couple of days before. If I&#8217;m lucky. In practice, it&#8217;s usually the night before. Sometimes the morning of! I scroll through a few times just to know what&#8217;s what.&#8221;<\/em><\/p>\n<p class=\"font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal leading-[1.7]\">Wait, what?!<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal leading-[1.7]\">We know what readiness requires: <strong>reps!<\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal leading-[1.7]\">In other words \u2013 time, iteration, saying things out loud, building a broader context around our core message so that we&#8217;re not hostage to whatever&#8217;s on Slide 7.<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal leading-[1.7]\">And yet we consistently don&#8217;t do any of that.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>I&#8217;ve seen this on repeat over the last 18 years working with professionals for whom communication is key to achieving their goals. Over and over, I&#8217;ve been listening to my clients outline exactly what they need to feel on top of their stuff \u2013 and then sighing at the difficulty of making it happen.<\/p>\n<p>The most common hurdles:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"list-style-type: none;\">\n<ul>\n<li>Back to back meetings<\/li>\n<li>Being in constant &#8220;firefighting&#8221; mode<\/li>\n<li>Frequent interruptions from multiple communication platforms<\/li>\n<li>Open plan offices<\/li>\n<li>Having to do deep work outside of working hours<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<div class=\"sqs-html-content\">\n<h4><\/h4>\n<h4 class=\"text-text-100 mt-3 -mb-1 text-[1.125rem] font-bold\">Just set priorities! <span class=\"x1rg5ohu x16dsc37 x19la9d6 x1fc57z9 x6ikm8r x10wlt62 x19co3pv x11tp94h xw4jnvo x1qx5ct2 xfibh0p xiy17q3 x1xsqp64 x1lkfr7t xexx8yu xyri2b x18d9i69 x1c1uobl\"><span class=\"xrtxmta x1bhl96m\">\ud83d\ude44<\/span><\/span><span class=\"x1rg5ohu x16dsc37 x19la9d6 x1fc57z9 x6ikm8r x10wlt62 x19co3pv x11tp94h xw4jnvo x1qx5ct2 xfibh0p xiy17q3 x1xsqp64 x1lkfr7t xexx8yu xyri2b x18d9i69 x1c1uobl\"><span class=\"xrtxmta x1bhl96m\">\ud83e\udd2a<\/span><\/span><span class=\"x1rg5ohu x16dsc37 x19la9d6 x1fc57z9 x6ikm8r x10wlt62 x19co3pv x11tp94h xw4jnvo x1qx5ct2 xfibh0p xiy17q3 x1xsqp64 x1lkfr7t xexx8yu xyri2b x18d9i69 x1c1uobl\"><span class=\"xrtxmta x1bhl96m\">\ud83d\ude24<\/span><\/span><\/h4>\n<p>I used to think this was a prioritisation problem.<\/p>\n<p>Surely if you set your priorities right, and stand firm in your decision, that will fix the lack of time, the interruptions, etc. Surely it&#8217;s all a matter of willpower!<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"sqs-html-content\">\n<p>Don&#8217;t get me wrong \u2013 everyone can do it once. When that annual town hall is coming up, or that big board meeting, everyone can prioritise. Everyone can take space to prepare for the big do, because everyone else also gives space for it.<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s all the other day-to-day meetings that are the death-by-a-thousand-cuts. When you don&#8217;t have a strong enough &#8220;excuse&#8221; to be unavailable for &#8220;quick calls&#8221; (that are never quick!), Teams or Slack messages, or emails marked &#8220;urgent&#8221; (urgent for the sender, not for you!)<\/p>\n<p>Those are the meetings for which it&#8217;s impossible to prepare to the extent that you need.<\/p>\n<h4><\/h4>\n<h4 class=\"text-text-100 mt-3 -mb-1 text-[1.125rem] font-bold\">It&#8217;s not you, it&#8217;s the system<\/h4>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"sqs-html-content\">\n<p>After almost two decades watching hundreds of intelligent, talented professionals across 47 nationalities be unable to consistently carve out the space they need in order to feel prepared, despite all their efforts, all the coaching, all the time management training, all the good intentions and the motivation&#8230; I&#8217;ve concluded that this is not a personal failing.<\/p>\n<p><strong>It&#8217;s systemic.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>When we expect individuals to perform to the best of their potential, and then take away the conditions that make that performance possible, we need to ask ourselves \u2013 how did we get here? And where to next?<\/p>\n<p>Organisations need to address this question.<\/p>\n<p>As Wharton psychologist Adam Grant <a href=\"https:\/\/www.weforum.org\/podcasts\/meet-the-leader\/episodes\/adam-grant-skills-future-leaders-work\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">put it<\/a>, &#8220;in almost every field of excellence, people spend most of their time practicing and very little performing. (&#8230;) In leadership and management, and frankly, in most jobs, we do the opposite. We perform and we don&#8217;t practice.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The same is true, I would argue, of our communication abilities.<\/p>\n<p>We undervalue deliberate, intentional practice, and expect that performance will just happen. But that&#8217;s not how it works. The best communicators are the ones who took the time, studied themselves and others, rehearsed, tested, measured impact, tested again, rehearsed again. It&#8217;s not magic, and it&#8217;s not the default setting.<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s <em>learning.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n<p class=\"font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal leading-[1.7]\">But here&#8217;s what nobody seems to be asking: where is that learning supposed to happen?<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal leading-[1.7]\">46% of professionals attend three or more meetings per day (<a href=\"https:\/\/calendly.com\/resources\/guides\/2024-state-of-meetings-report\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Calendly, 2024 State of Meetings Report<\/a>) and 60% of meetings are ad hoc or unscheduled (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/worklab\/work-trend-index\/2025-the-year-the-frontier-firm-is-born\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Microsoft Work Trend Index, 2025<\/a>).<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal leading-[1.7]\">Employees are interrupted every ~2 minutes during core work hours, totaling ~275 interruptions per day for heavy collaboration users (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/worklab\/work-trend-index\/2025-the-year-the-frontier-firm-is-born\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Microsoft Work Trend Index, 2025<\/a>).<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal leading-[1.7]\">And my personal &#8220;favorite&#8221;: <strong>PowerPoint edits spike 122% in the final 10 minutes before meetings<\/strong> (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/worklab\/work-trend-index\/2025-the-year-the-frontier-firm-is-born\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Microsoft Work Trend Index, 2025<\/a>).<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal leading-[1.7]\">Most organisations implicitly expect excellent communication from their leaders. It&#8217;s baked into performance reviews, leadership competency models, promotion criteria.<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal leading-[1.7]\">But how many create the conditions for that communication to actually be excellent?<\/p>\n<h4><\/h4>\n<h4 class=\"text-text-100 mt-3 -mb-1 text-[1.125rem] font-bold\">What can we do?<\/h4>\n<p class=\"font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal leading-[1.7]\">If you lead a team, or if you&#8217;re in HR or L&amp;D, this is where you tag in.<\/p>\n<p>This readiness gap won&#8217;t close without collective, organisation-level effort \u2013 no matter how much time management training or coaching around priority setting you pay for.<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal leading-[1.7]\">Here are 5 upgrades to organisational infrastructure I would love to test, together with a brave (\/ audacious \/ downright nuts?! <span class=\"x1rg5ohu x16dsc37 x19la9d6 x1fc57z9 x6ikm8r x10wlt62 x19co3pv x11tp94h xw4jnvo x1qx5ct2 xfibh0p xiy17q3 x1xsqp64 x1lkfr7t xexx8yu xyri2b x18d9i69 x1c1uobl\"><span class=\"xrtxmta x1bhl96m\">\ud83d\ude05<\/span><\/span>) team:<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal leading-[1.7]\" style=\"padding-left: 40px;\"><strong>1. Auto-block preparation time for every meeting where someone presents.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal leading-[1.7]\" style=\"padding-left: 40px;\">How this works: if a meeting invite includes a presentation, the system automatically blocks preparation time in the presenter&#8217;s calendar.<br \/>\nThe length depends on the role. Keynote to the board? Two days. Team update? 30 minutes. No blocked time, no meeting on the calendar. If there&#8217;s not enough time during working hours and the presenter needs to spend evenings or weekends preparing, these hours get logged and paid as overtime.<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal leading-[1.7]\" style=\"padding-left: 40px;\">Preparation shouldn&#8217;t be optional, and it shouldn&#8217;t be <em>invisible work<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal leading-[1.7]\" style=\"padding-left: 40px;\"><strong>2. Cap the calendar. When it&#8217;s full, it&#8217;s full.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal leading-[1.7]\" style=\"padding-left: 40px;\">Set a maximum number of meeting hours per week \u2013 say, 40% of working hours. Once you hit it, the system doesn&#8217;t allow new meetings to be scheduled. Not &#8220;sends a warning.&#8221; Not &#8220;flags it in a dashboard.&#8221; <em>Blocks it.<\/em><\/p>\n<p class=\"font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal leading-[1.7]\" style=\"padding-left: 40px;\">Yes, there will be push-back. Yes, exceptions will be requested. But it will make everyone think more consciously about what gets put on their calendar.<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal leading-[1.7]\" style=\"padding-left: 40px;\"><strong>3. Kill the internal presentation. Replace it with a pre-read + discussion.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px;\">What if, for internal knowledge-sharing, the standard procedure was to send a 1-page pre-read, 24 hours before the meeting, and then have a facilitated discussion? The presenter prepares <em>once<\/em>, in writing. The audience comes ready with questions. The meeting itself becomes conversation, not performance.<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal leading-[1.7]\" style=\"padding-left: 40px;\">Many internal presentations exist because that&#8217;s how we&#8217;ve always done it.\u00a0But not every meeting needs a presentation, and a slide deck is not always the best format for the information being shared.<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal leading-[1.7]\" style=\"padding-left: 40px;\">Reserve presentations for when they actually make sense: moments where <em>how<\/em> you say it is as important as <em>what<\/em> you say (idea pitches, town halls, board meetings).<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal leading-[1.7]\" style=\"padding-left: 40px;\"><strong>4. Protect the last 48 hours before a high-stakes presentation. No new inputs.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal leading-[1.7]\" style=\"padding-left: 40px;\">Right next to the lack of time, a top disruptor is the constant interruption that fragments the time you do have.<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal leading-[1.7]\" style=\"padding-left: 40px;\">You block Friday afternoon to rehearse your Monday board presentation. Then a &#8220;quick&#8221; Slack thread pulls you in. Someone reschedules a 1:1 into your prep slot. Your manager sends last-minute data and asks you to &#8220;weave it in.&#8221; By Monday morning, you&#8217;ve touched your slides six times and rehearsed zero.<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal leading-[1.7]\" style=\"padding-left: 40px;\">How this works: 48 hours before any high-stakes presentation, the presenter enters a <strong>communication freeze<\/strong>. No new slide inputs. No &#8220;one more thing&#8221; from stakeholders. No reshuffling of the flow. The content is <em>locked<\/em>. The only job left is to internalise it: to say it out loud, find the rhythm, and build the muscle memory that lets you show up without clinging to your slides.<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal leading-[1.7]\" style=\"padding-left: 40px;\">This protects the phase that matters most and that gets sacrificed first: the shift from <em>knowing <\/em>your material to <em>owning <\/em>your material.<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal leading-[1.7]\" style=\"padding-left: 40px;\"><strong>5. Review your competency model. And check for inconsistencies.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal leading-[1.7]\" style=\"padding-left: 40px;\">Most leadership competency frameworks include something about communication: &#8220;communicates with clarity and impact&#8221;, &#8220;engages stakeholders&#8221;, &#8220;presents effectively at all levels.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal leading-[1.7]\" style=\"padding-left: 40px;\">Look at your organisation&#8217;s meeting culture, internal norms, and workload expectations.<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal leading-[1.7]\" style=\"padding-left: 40px;\">If it&#8217;s asking people to be excellent communicators without explicit processes on how that excellence will be achieved, that&#8217;s not an operational gap. That&#8217;s institutional inconsistency.<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal leading-[1.7]\" style=\"padding-left: 40px;\">If communication is in the competency model, then the conditions for good communication need to be in the operating model. If they&#8217;re not, remove the communication metric from your appraisal framework. Stop assessing your employees by an impossible standard.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal leading-[1.7]\">None of these ideas requires a budget. They require someone senior enough to make a decision.<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal leading-[1.7]\">And to support the organisation as it relearns how to get together.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<hr \/>\n<h5 data-start=\"747\" data-end=\"923\">If you\u2019re ready to lead your team or your organisation towards a better meetings culture\u2026<\/h5>\n<p data-start=\"747\" data-end=\"923\"><strong>\u2026 let\u2019s connect!<\/strong><\/p>\n<p data-start=\"747\" data-end=\"923\">Drop me a line <strong><a href=\"mailto:ioana@onspeaking.com\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">via email<\/a><\/strong>,\u00a0<strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/in\/ioana-jongsma\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">on LinkedIn<\/a><\/strong>, or\u00a0<strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/on_speaking\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">on IG.<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Readiness Gap I ask this question a lot in my sessions: &#8220;What would you need to feel truly ready\u00a0when presenting at work?&#8221; The answers are always the same: Knowing my stuff. Having a clear flow. Being able to handle questions without saying &#8220;I&#8217;ll get back to you.&#8221; Not needing my slides as a crutch. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9662,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[55,3,59],"tags":[77,66,65],"class_list":["post-9660","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-communication","category-corporate","category-leadership-presence","tag-authenticity","tag-leadership","tag-presence"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/onspeaking.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9660","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/onspeaking.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/onspeaking.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/onspeaking.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/onspeaking.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9660"}],"version-history":[{"count":30,"href":"https:\/\/onspeaking.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9660\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9691,"href":"https:\/\/onspeaking.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9660\/revisions\/9691"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/onspeaking.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9662"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/onspeaking.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9660"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/onspeaking.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9660"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/onspeaking.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9660"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}