Meetings

How many lifetimes are wasted every minute across the globe in pointless meetings?

A meeting is a state transition. The six-box canvas — Reality, Dream, Questions, Plan, Control, Ideas — is the state being read and updated. Pick the right type and you change the right state.

Async Gate

Before requesting a meeting:

• Can I send a message to request the desired input or action instead?
• If not, add reasoning why synchronous time is worth the cost in the invite.

Async communication is the default. Meetings are the exception that must justify itself.

Five Types

Every meeting uses the same six-box canvas. The meeting type determines which boxes are primary, which archetype chairs, and what energy the room needs.

Type	Chair	Energy	Purpose
Collision	Dreamer	Divergent	Creative spark, unplanned magic
Discovery	Philosopher	Receptive	Share information, find patterns
Debate	Realist	Convergent	Narrow criteria, test ideas
Decision	Engineer	Committed	Commit resources, place bets
Accountability	Coach	Reflective	Review progress, enter the danger

Specialized protocols apply the five types to specific domains. AI Strategy specializes the Decision type for technology choices — the business owner chairs, not the tech person.

Protocol Flow

Universal standard for every meeting, regardless of type:

Stage	Standard	Output
Before	Purpose, agenda, required attendees, prep docs	Shared context
During	Timebox, facilitation rules, live note-taking, clear decision call	Clear commitments
After	Minutes, owners, due dates, follow-up cadence	Execution continuity

Best Practices

Meetings without an agenda or minutes are a party.

• Agenda: Send in advance with purpose, decisions required, and expected outcomes. Provide materials that minimize information transfer during the meeting.
• Attendance: Invite people who can make decisions or will be directly accountable. Before confirming: "What will I gain that I can't gather via notes or recording?"
• Preparation: Re-read the agenda (5 mins). Assign someone to record minutes. Agree delegated actions for the next meeting.
• Minutes: Capture decisions, commitments, open questions, and sparks. Recap next steps at the end. If it is not written down it did not happen.

• Meeting Template on Figma

Benchmarks

Benchmark	Target
Agenda compliance	>90% of meetings start with explicit agenda
Decision clarity	>90% of decisions have owner + due date
Follow-through rate	Commitments completed by agreed date
Time efficiency	Duration within declared timebox
Rework avoidance	Fewer repeated alignment meetings on same topic

Dig Deeper

• Collision — Divergent creative energy. When you need sparks, not structure.
• Discovery — Receptive learning. When the room needs shared understanding before anything else.
• Debate — Convergent evidence testing. When positions need stress-testing before commitment.
• Decision — Committed resource allocation. When the room must commit with owners and dates.
• Accountability — Reflective progress review. When outcomes need honest comparison to expectations.
• AI Strategy — Specialized Decision for non-technical owners making technology choices. The owner chairs.

Context

• Navigation — Value, belief, control — the three systems meetings should align
• Decision Making — What meetings should produce
• Decision Journal — Where meeting decisions get recorded
• Communication — Structure, Substance, Connection
• Productivity — The loop meetings serve
• Flow State — What bad meetings destroy
• Async Comms — The alternative to test first
• Make Meetings Matter — The six-box canvas
• Standards — Meetings freeze insight into state that lasts
• Archetypes — The five chairs, one per meeting type
• Protocols — Meetings are operational protocols; agent commerce and network standards are coordination protocols. Same pattern, different domain

Links

• Steve Jobs
• Meeting Decisions
• Cut meeting time
• Meetings at Amazon
• meetinghero.ai
• meetgeek.ai
• minutes.io

Questions

How many lifetimes are wasted every minute across the globe in pointless meetings?

• If meetings without minutes are parties, what percentage of your meetings last month had written outcomes?
• Which of the five meeting types — collision, discovery, debate, decision, accountability — do you default to, and which do you avoid?
• What would change if every meeting required a two-sentence justification for why it couldn't be async?
• When agents join meetings, which of the five types changes the most — and which stays exactly the same?