Managing meetings effectively is vital in the fast-paced, complex environment of the modern workplace. However, direct scholarly attention to work meetings is still limited, making an understanding of what makes meetings successful elusive. In this article, we examine the particulars of successful and unsuccessful meetings from a participant’s perspective. Employing a conceptual mapping approach, we analyze open-ended statements collected from meeting participants to identify three broad themes associated with meeting success: (1) participant learning and development; (2) the coordination of performance, including the creation of links between meeting episodes; (3) and the development of common understanding and alignment among attendees. By more fully taking these themes into account, managers can be better equipped to design, organize, and manage their work meetings successfully.

What drives a meeting’s success?

In the daily routines of employees and managers, meetings abound: annual review meetings, budget meetings, customer service meetings, planning meetings, training meetings, and the list goes on. Meetings have been defined as “communicative event[s] involving three or more people who agree to assemble for a purpose ostensibly related to the functioning of an organization or group” (Schwartzman, 1989, p. 7). Not only are meetings ubiquitous in the modern workplace but the amount of time employees and managers spend in work meetings has risen continually over the past 50 years (Rogelberg, Scott, & Kello, 2007). One estimate indicates that managers spend around 23 hours per week attending meetings and that number rises for supervisors and employees of large organizations (Rogelberg et al., 2007). As meetings increasingly become a significant aspect of organizational life, the nature of work meetings has also become more diverse. In this context, understanding how participants experience meetings and how to effectively manage them is of immense importance in people’s work lives. While there is no clear consensus about what meeting elements are necessary for meeting success, research has shown that structural elements, relational elements, information acquisition, and time management are all important contributors to a successful meeting (Rogelberg et al., 2007). Yet, all too often, participants’ actual experiences are far from ideal. Complaints about meetings are quite common and even the most engaged employees often experience reduced motivation and morale because of negative experiences related to meetings.