Three minutes for a less painful meeting? I'm in.
How a moment to arrive can get meeting groups on the same page.
Meetings. They’ve exploded in the past few years, littering my calendar like glitter that never quite comes out of the carpet. Some are productive and necessary; many aren’t. Either way, as we often struggle for connection online, meetings feel inevitable.
In 2019, Business Insider reported that out of the 11 million meetings taking place in the U.S. every day, about a third are unproductive and losing businesses an estimated $37 billion every year. A global survey released by the National Bureau of Economic Research in July 2020 statistics affirmed that, “we attended 12.9 percent more meetings” post-pandemic. That figure seems low.
These meetings often back into other activities. Many mornings, I click the Zoom link just seconds after saying good-bye to my daughter or eating after a work out. Try introducing yourself while swallowing a piece of omelet. I feel scattered; it takes me a while to get into the discussion and be productive. Worse, by coming in “hot and on two wheels,” as one of my colleagues likes to say, I’m contributing to what I dislike most: a bad meeting.
We all hate meetings without a clear purpose, functional agenda, or effective time frame. From a 2020 article by Better Meetings, top things people would rather do than attend a bad meeting include, “go to the dentist, talk politics at family dinner, watch C-SPAN in a waiting room, and call Comcast.”
Meanwhile, alongside my role as a nonprofit Communications Director at a history museum, I’ve been Zooming for years into meetings across five disparate time zones while earning a mindfulness mentor certificate. Every session begins with one or two minutes of mindfulness practice. Something really simple, like taking three deep breaths. Closing our eyes and feeling the chair beneath us, noticing the sensations in our bodies before starting to talk. No rainbows, no chakras.
After experiencing both types of meetings, I’ve observed that it’s often our mindless approach to meetings that makes them so unbearable. While we may not always be able to control the agenda, we can address this issue.
It turns out that micro-practices such as beginning meetings with a few minutes of mindfulness, in addition to smart meeting tactics like those that have been used at Amazon, can make a big impact. One of Jeff Bezos’ three meeting rules has been to start meetings in silence with attendees reading the memos prepared for it, ensuring everyone knows the material before discussion.
Bezos’ practice also creates a more subtle effect; it marks a clear transition into the meeting through group participation in one connecting activity. Something that can also be achieved with a mindful moment to arrive practice.
Here are benefits I’ve experienced with adding a mindful moment to arrive:
Taking time to pause at the beginning creates a group-wide transition point to the online meeting.
By all doing one practice together, we’re more connected, helping the meeting flow better.
Focus increases. Like many mindfulness practices, the opening session is a brief attentional training that can also benefit productivity.
The practice encourages people to arrive on time. In my office, we swap who leads the practice to anyone interested by providing a small folder of scripts. When a colleague I know is leading, I want to be there to cheer them on.
Over time, it changes work culture. The practice of pausing to be more attentive before engaging in discussion seeps into other conversations, too.
In collaboration with mindfulness trainers from the non-profit Becoming Jackson Whole, a group of us have started bringing these mindful meeting openers to health, corporate, cultural, and government organizations in our town. Here are three scripts I like to use from my personal stash, ranging from one to three minutes long.
Becoming Jackson Whole is a great resource for additional openers including a short box breathing technique. Or just search YouTube.
When you try a mindful meeting opener, keep these recommendations gathered through our trainers’ group in mind:
You don’t have to call it mindfulness. Some work cultures and people don’t resonate with the term. Use the right term for the setting. I’ve used “moment to arrive,” “meeting intro,” and even “can we just pause for a breath.” At the same time when asked, I’ll always be forthright that the practice is mindful attention training.
Get the meeting facilitator’s agreement. If one person normally facilitates, they can open the practice seamlessly or call on someone to lead. Adding the practice can also be an agenda item for discussion before you begin doing it.
If it’s a stand up meeting without a clear facilitator or you don’t have management’s support, lead anyway. You can offer it a few minutes before the meeting starts.
Make it optional. If someone prefers not to participate, simply ask them to join when you’re done. It doesn’t take long and nobody benefits from being forced into it.
Offer it very casually and authentically. You can try, “Hey, I’ve had a really busy day. Does anyone want to take three deep breaths with me before we start.” The more you feel comfortable with the practice, the more others will feel comfortable.
Change up who leads the practice. By not making one person the “mindfulness leader” the entire team gets more involved.
Use it as an opportunity to affirm company values. Introducing the practice with something like, “We’re committed to cultivating productive meetings in this organization, and the science behind simple mindfulness practices show us they can help us prioritize focus and resilience.”
If you can’t do a group practice, you can still do one on your own, by yourself two minutes before an upcoming meeting. This in itself is an incredible habit.
Our 15-member nonprofit board recently experienced their first moment-to-arrive practice led by our Executive Director. Most of them had never tried mindfulness before, but everyone took two-minutes to follow just three breaths. And…they liked it. At the meeting’s end, they all decided to add the opener to future sessions.
Now, imagine how this simple but powerful practice might impact your work culture.
How many people might benefit from it in your sphere? And how much less frustrated with meetings might we all be?
It only takes two minutes to try it and find out.
My own meditation practice dates back, with fits and starts, to my first religious studies graduate class on Zen Buddhism with Dr. Harold Roth. Since then I’ve studied in India, with Mindful Schools, and in The Mindfulness Teacher Training and Certification Program created by Jack Kornfield and Tara Brach. As a Mindfulness Mentor I’m also grateful to be part of the Becoming Jackson Whole Train the Trainers program led by Sara Flitner and supported by Amishi Jha and Scott Rogers through the Jha Lab at the University of Miami.