Most organizations treat meetings as the default answer to everything, but that's costing you more than you think. Rebecca Hinds, Head of the Work AI Institute at Glean, researcher, and author of YOUR BEST MEETING EVER, brings a product design mindset to the most expensive form of collaboration in your org. She shares how to spot meeting dysfunction, use AI to audit your calendar, and make intentional changes that actually stick.

In this episode:

• Why meetings have become the 'junk drawer' of organizational communication, and how visibility bias keeps the habit alive.

• How to use return on time investment (ROTI) scoring, meeting minimalism, and shared language to redesign your meeting culture.

• The role AI and data play in building the business case for calendar reform, especially with a skeptical C-suite.

Timestamps

[00:01:10] Why Rebecca went all-in on meeting research and the psychology of visibility bias.

[00:02:19] The meeting junk drawer: why meetings become the default for everything.

[00:04:39] Treating meetings like a product, including the concept of meeting debt.

[00:06:26] Return on time investment (ROTI): a data-driven way to rate your meetings.

[00:08:16] How leadership buy-in determines how boldly you can reform your calendar.

[00:08:56] Using AI to build meeting calculators and get C-suite buy-in.

[00:10:52] Making the business case by anchoring on what the most powerful person cares about.

[00:13:54] Building psychological safety so people feel empowered to flag bad meetings.

[00:16:36] Shared language for meeting dysfunction, including Meeting Doomsday and meeting minimalism.

[00:21:05] The one thing every leader can do this week: intentional design across four meeting dimensions.

Guest Bio

Rebecca Hinds is the author of YOUR BEST MEETING EVER, a leading expert on organizational behavior and the future of work, founder of the Work Innovation Lab at Asana and the Work AI Institute at Glean. She holds a BS, MS, and PhD from Stanford University. Her research is consistently featured in top-tier publications like Harvard Business Review, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Wired, and more. She is a trusted advisor to companies navigating the challenges of modern work, from meeting overload and hybrid dysfunction to the messy realities of AI adoption and organizational change.

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Keywords: meetings, meeting culture, organizational behavior, future of work, meeting debt, return on time investment, psychological safety, AI, calendar reform, Meeting Doomsday, meeting minimalism, collaboration, HR leadership, Rebecca Hinds, HR Mixtape