How to Ensure Accountability in Meetings

Do you close every meeting with actions and deadlines? Does every deadline have accountability? How you close your meetings and conversations can make or break your project and the team's productivity and momentum. If you are closing with actions, great! If those actions are not assigned a deadline and accountability, well...that's not great. And, it happens more often than not, especially when a meeting goes really well. Nobody likes to break the momentum of the meeting's success by assigning deadlines and let alone, talk about accountability. But when we fail to assign actions with deadlines and accountability, we are leaving our success to chance and making it much more difficult to hold ourselves to account. As a general practice save the last 10 minutes of every meeting to assign actions, deadlines and accountability. Here are 3 questions you can begin to use consistently if you aren't already: 🎯 What actions do we need take on and by when? (action + deadline) 🎯 Who will take that action on and by when? 🎯 To the owner of the action...How do you want to be held accountable for that action? When you get in the pactice of closing every meeting with actions, owners, deadlines and accountability, you are setting you and your team up for success. Try this #Tuesdaystip and let me know how it goes! ** For more tips and tools to communication effectively on your team, join over 87,000 Learners in my Linkedin Learning course, "Communication Skills for Modern Management". Link in comments. #Tuesdaystip #accountability #actionitems #meetingmanagement #emotionalintelligence

The most underleveraged growth hack in any company is this: How the leadership team runs their meetingsMost leaders sit through 8–10 meetings a week and walk away with updates, opinions, and half-decisions. Rarely do they leave with clarity, momentum, or measurable action. I coach CEOs to treat meetings like product sprints—designed, tested, and optimized—because your meeting hygiene is a direct reflection of your company culture and strategic thinking. Let’s deconstruct how elite CEOs run meetings that move billion-dollar machines—so you can apply it to your 5-person team or your 5,000-person org. 1. Start with first principles. (Jensen Huang – NVIDIA) Before any ideation, ask: “What do we know for sure? What’s just noise or assumption?” When you strip discussions down to evidence and truths, you avoid solving the wrong problem with brilliant ideas. Clarity before creativity. Always. 2. Cap meetings at 30 minutes. (Tim Cook – Apple) Every minute over 30 without a decision-maker in the room is a tax on productivity. If there’s no owner or desired outcome → cancel it or convert it to async. Time is your highest-leverage resource. Use meetings to compress decisions—not stretch them. 3. Put the customer in the room. (Lisa Su – AMD) Start every meeting by grounding the discussion in a user story, customer tension, or market shift. Every strategic choice should begin with the end user—not internal politics. If you’re not customer-driven, you’re ego-driven. There’s no in-between. 4. Anchor every discussion to one metric. (Safra Catz – Oracle) Great meetings aren’t just about ideas—they’re about impact. So start with: “What are we trying to move?” This turns vague alignment into concrete execution. 5. Always end with a 48-hour action lock. (Sundar Pichai – Google) No meeting is done until: -One person owns the next step -The deliverable is clearly defined -A timeline under 48 hours is locked Momentum dies in ambiguity. Good leaders close meetings. Great leaders create follow-through. 6. Listen like a leader, not a judge. (Satya Nadella – Microsoft) The smartest person in the room doesn’t speak first—they synthesize. Paraphrase what you heard. Ask questions that deepen thought. Cut with clarity. You don’t earn trust by having answers. You earn it by making people feel heard and guided, not managed. If your meetings feel heavy, it’s a culture issue. If they feel aimless, it’s a clarity issue. Either way—it’s a leadership issue. #CEOHabits #LeadershipSystems #StrategicExecution #MeetingMastery #CeoCoach #HighPerformanceLeadership #TimeLeverage #OrganizationalDesign

Prepping to present a breakout session at the EOS Worldwide Quarterly Integrator Exchange in a few weeks -- and, probably no surprise to people who follow me, the subject is getting big value from the Level 10 Meeting format. You may wonder why I'm presenting on such a foundational tool to a group of experienced Integrators. The reality is that many of us fall into slumps where our Level 10 Meeting isn’t working. What's the root cause? More often that not, it's lack of team execution. ‣ It’s not something wrong with the meeting structure. ‣ It’s not the agenda. ‣ It’s not EOS. The problem is how your team shows up and executes as a team. Here’s what’s actually happening behind the scenes: 1️⃣ You’re checking the box, not playing to win. » The team goes through the motions but doesn’t push for real breakthroughs. » The same issues keep resurfacing because they aren’t truly solved—just discussed. » People think showing up = participating. It’s not. Engagement and real accountability matter. 2️⃣ There’s no trust, so conversations stay at the surface level » Team members aren’t bringing real issues to the table because they don’t feel safe. » The real discussions? They’re happening after the meeting (where nothing gets solved). » No one’s calling out inefficiencies or poor execution because it’s easier to avoid conflict. 3️⃣ Lack of preparation kills momentum » Scorecards aren’t updated. » Rocks are vague or misaligned. » IDS becomes a free-for-all because people don’t prep or prioritize the right issues. 4️⃣ Accountability is weak (or nonexistent) » To-Dos are assigned… then forgotten. » The same people drop the ball week after week, and no one calls it out. » People don’t take ownership of their role in making the meeting successful. Fixing this starts with how your WHOLE TEAM shows up: 🔥 Are you prepared? (Numbers tight, issues thought through, ready to engage?) 🔥 Are you willing to push for real decisions? (Not just talk… ACT.) 🔥 Is trust strong enough that you can have uncomfortable conversations? If not, the Level 10 isn’t failing — you are. If you're a part of the EOS Integrator Mastery Forum, I hope you can join me for this breakout session (Tuesday, April 1st, the day prior to the EOS Conference). If you're not part of the EOS Integrator Mastery Forum and curious about what's involved, DM Jonathan Dornbos for more information! #EOSConference #IntegratorMasteryForum Rocket Fuel University™