Written by Ilse
When was the last time your team walked out of a meeting energised and clear on what happens next?
We once walked into a team of eight that met every week for two and a half hours. No agenda, no owners, nothing written down. The same few people did most of the talking, and by the end the energy in the room was gone. Nobody could say what had been decided.
Sounds familiar?
Let’s fix that. A meeting that produces decisions needs three things in place before anyone sits down.
A meeting needs a purpose to end on
Ask a team what their weekly meeting is for and you get a list: updates, alignment, ideas, problems. A list of everything has no end, so the meeting runs until the time is up.
The fix is one line, written before the invite goes out: what should be different when we leave? A decision, an approval, a plan. No purpose, no meeting.
Someone has to decide
In most teams, decisions go to whoever speaks last, or to the founder. The meeting turns into a discussion where everyone has an opinion and nobody has the final say.
Write down who decides what. We call these decision rights. Then sort the decisions into two kinds. A two-way door can be reversed easily, so the owner decides and informs the team. A one-way door is hard to undo, and that is the one that deserves a meeting. Many of the decisions that fill an agenda turn out to be two-way doors.
A decision needs an owner before anyone leaves
Every meeting ends with someone saying “good, so we’ll follow up on that.” Three days later nobody remembers what was decided, who is reponsible, or what is the deadline.
Before anyone leaves the room, every decision gets one owner and one next step. A person, with a date.
Notes you can find
Notes in a document nobody opens do not help. Put every meeting in one searchable database, linked to the project or decision it belongs to, and let an AI notetaker do the typing while people listen. Three months later, anyone can see why something was decided without asking whoever happened to be there. We build ours in Notion.
What changes
With a clear purpose for the meeting, the right people in the room and a note database where every action has an owner, the meetings of that team of eight got shorter and things started to move. People left the room energised.
Try it yourself
On Wednesday 18 November, we run a hands-on workshop at The LoLo House in Al Quoz, Dubai, from 09:30 to 11:00. You’ll build your own meeting system in Notion, using a real business case from your company, and leave with our Meeting Notes template. It’s free, including coffee and something sweet. No Notion experience needed, just bring your laptop. It’s meant for founders, managing directors and operations leaders, and registration is subject to approval.