Ask Sanyin: How Can I Make Meetings Less Painful?

In the remote/hybrid world of work, meetings can be a valuable opportunity to strengthen relationships, suggests CEO coach Sanyin Siang.

We love to hate meetings, and it can often seem that the one thing we all agree on is that they’re the reason we aren’t getting any real work done. But does it have to be this way? Sanyin Siang, who writes MIT Sloan Management Review’s Coaching for the Future-Forward Leader advice column, doesn’t think so. In fact, she believes that in many cases, they can actually be opportunities to help your workforce reenergize and reconnect.

In this short and insightful video, Sanyin makes the case for why we need to see human connection and relationships as an important part of meetings and explains how to do so. She discusses the opportunities meetings provide that other communication channels, such as Slack and email, simply can’t offer. And she shares some ideas on how you can approach meetings more strategically, with an eye toward building your team members’ understanding of one another and scaling your own resources.