How to Say “No” to Bad Meetings

Brief 

If you don’t know the point of a meeting and feel your presence will not add value, it’s OK to ask who will attend, what the agenda is or why you’re needed. And if you don’t get the answers you need, politely decline or offer your input through email or a phone call.

Insight

It’s 2022, and communicators are still struggling to shed useless meetings that drain time and energy. Corey DuBrowa, VP of global communications at Google, shared how removing meetings from his calendar was a huge part of how he is recalibrating in the new year. He wrote on LinkedIn:

One thing I think most companies are *terrible* at is “stopping things that aren’t a priority anymore” — most companies seem to have an almost endless shelf life for work or projects that realistically should have been called months, if not years, ago. So two things I am doing this year to personally try to get at the heart of your question:

1) I am taking meetings OFF my calendar, they are energy and idea killers 2) deprioritizing things that really aren’t important. I’m sure some feelings will be hurt this year but I don’t have time in my life or in my work week for “pro forma” meetings and “somebody else’s priority” stuff. I want us (aka me) to take back our most valuable and precious commodity: our time. To think, to connect, to create.

Yet, getting out of that pesky 7 a.m. confab can be tricky for communicators who aren’t looking to offend colleagues, clients or bosses. On Twitter, the question of how to politely decline a meeting became a big thread where users shared some of their favorite tactics for letting people down easy:

Warning signs

How can you tell that a meeting is going to waste your precious time?

Here are some red flags:

No agenda is offered. You’re well within your rights to ask what a meeting is going to be about. If you can’t tell from the agenda how you will be contributing to a decision or discussion—it’s time to decline.