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There's a certain kind of meeting I know you have on your calendar. It happens every week, often same time, same day, same people. And if you're honest, you walk out of it every week thinking, why did I just spend the last 60 minutes of my life doing that? What did we accomplish? Nothing moved forward, no real decisions got made, and somehow you're going to do it all again next week. These are the meetings that should not exist. But they are everywhere. And today I'm going to talk about why. More importantly, to show you how these meetings are not actually the problem. They're a symptom. Welcome to the Nonprofit Mastermind podcast where we name what's really happening inside growing nonprofits and what it actually takes to design a high impact nonprofit the right way. I'm Brooke Richie Babbage, longtime nonprofit strategist and coach. Each week I unpack the systems, strategies and specific mindset shifts that help growing nonprofits get smart and intentional about growing their impact without burning out along the way. This show is about moving beyond grit to design. It's about building organizations that have the systems, structures and leadership capacity to truly hold the weight of their mission. Welcome. Let's start by getting really honest about what these meetings look like. These are the meetings where people give updates, but no one's actually using the information. The same issues come up week after week with with no real momentum or resolution. Decisions get deferred or quietly avoided. Often you leave with more questions than answers. And underneath all of that there is this slow growing, low grade frustration, sometimes even resentment because everyone can feel it. This is not a good use of my time, but no one quite knows what to do instead. So the meeting stays. Here's the reframe I want to offer you. These meetings exist because your organization has not built the structure that would make them unnecessary. They are structural workarounds. That's it. They're not a time management issue. They're not a people issue. They're often not even a meeting facilitation issue. They are a design issue. Because when information and decision making and ownership are not clearly structured inside an organization, they default to to being processed synchronously in real time in a room, together, over and over. So the meeting becomes a workaround for missing infrastructure. So I'm going to break this down into three specific types of meetings that I see all the time that I want you to be on the lookout for. Because each one of these points to a different structural gap. These are the three types of meetings that honestly should just not exist. Number One, the update meeting. That is actually an information problem. The update meeting is where everyone goes around and shares updates. What's going on in your area of work? Where are things at with this project? Feeling any blockers, experiencing any challenges? Anything I should know? Now, on the surface, this feels responsible. You're checking boxes, you're aligned, you're being collaborative, you're talking, you're communicating, you're quote, unquote, sharing information. But here's what's actually happening. You built an organization where information only moves through conversation. That doesn't work and it doesn't scale. You need your information to move through systems. When information only moves through conversation, the only way for people to know what's happening is to sit in a meeting and talk to one another or send emails, right? Which you then have to check in about. And that happens week after week or month after month. It feels like the most efficient way to make sure everybody stays on the same page. That's what I hear a lot. We do these so that everybody stays on the same page. This is what it looks like when your information lives in people's heads, lives in their inboxes, or is shared inconsistently. So the meeting itself, the update meeting, becomes the system. But it is fragile. It is a fragile system because it depends on everyone being there, remembering everything, interpreting things the same way, bringing their information in the same way. It doesn't scale. Okay, meeting number two, the stuck meeting. This is actually a decision making problem. So the stuck meeting is where the same issues come up every single week. You talk about them, you circle them, you analyze them, but they don't get resolved. Why does this happen? Because your organization doesn't have a clear way to make decisions. Decisions get deferred or diluted or. And this happens particularly as organizations grow and scale. They get quietly pushed up to the executive director. And here's where this connects to something deeper that I see across so many of the leaders that I coach. That constant feeling of I'm tired of shooting in the dark, right? They feel like there's no clear decision making framework. So every choice that people on their leadership team makes feels like high stakes. That is why people hesitate. That is why decisions boomerang back to the executive director or they get brought to this stuck, meaning they get brought back to the group because people are afraid to make decisions, because they don't actually know how to make decisions within the construct of the organization. So the meeting becomes like this holding tank for unresolved decisions that keep getting punted to the next meeting or the next month, third meeting type to look out for. They call this one the everything meeting. And the problem it points to is an ownership problem. So this is the meeting where everything gets discussed. Operations, programs, staffing, strategy, fundraising, all in one place. These often happen with leadership team. Right? We're going to bring the leadership team meeting and talk about all the things. It is a version of the update meeting, but. And this is the reason these feel so messy, actually, what's happening is no one is fully owning anything. So in the update meetings, people are updating you on where they are with the things they own. Here in these meetings, in the everything meetings, things have to be reviewed collectively, things have to be realigned over and over. This is what happens when roles, priorities, outcomes aren't clearly owned and defined. Because when ownership isn't clear, the safest thing to do is bring the discussion to the meeting. Right? A program decision needs to be made and a fundraising decision needs to be made and they impact one another. So let's go to the leadership team meeting and just talk about programs and fundraising. That's a lot of stuff in one meeting and it is messy. So why is this so exhausting? I'm going to pause here and name something that might feel familiar about all of these. These meetings don't just feel like they're wasting your time. They can actually be really draining because they're forcing you to carry something you were never meant to carry manually. What the meetings are trying to do or what, what they are forcing you to do is hold all of the information, guide all of the decisions and maintain all of the alignment in real time in these meetings with no structural support. And this is where the deeper leadership exhaustion comes in. It's decision fatigue. It's second guessing. It's why you come out of the update meeting and everything meeting and the stuck meeting not feeling like you have more answers or momentum or movement. It's feeling like more is resting on your shoulders. Because in many ways it is. Not because it should, but because meeting as system. Right? When the system is the set of meetings, that is not a system that's designed to hold the work. That is not a set of systems that is designed to hold decisions apart from you, to allow information to flow apart from the meeting, to allow work to move forward alongside one another, people working alongside one another, but not having to do it synchronously. So if you're listening and thinking, okay, I get it, we have these meetings we're not supposed to have, but what if we do about it and how do I fix the meetings? The honest answer is you don't fix the meetings directly. What you do is you remove the need for the meetings. And that requires three structural shifts. So first, instead of asking what should we talk about in our meetings? You want to redefine or redesign how information flows. Instead of asking what should we talk about in our meetings? You want to start by asking what information should never require a meeting in the first place? Right. Write that question down, think about it for a moment. What information should never require a meeting in the first place? And then think, if we didn't meet, how would that information be shared? Think dashboards instead of updates. Think shared documents instead of verbal reporting, clear metrics instead of anecdotal check ins. As your organization grows, you cannot rely on conversation as your primary information system. Like I said, it doesn't scale. So the answer to the update meeting isn't as simple as we just stopped the update meetings. It's designing how information flows without needing a meeting. Second, you want to build real decision making infrastructure. So to various degrees, particularly as organizations grow, decisions were made one way and then you look up and you have, you know, a $1.8 million organization with a decision making infrastructure that is still built for a $600,000 or a $900,000 organization. Decisions feel like or made as part of group discussions or worse. They're a quiet bottleneck that just lands on your plate. So instead, here's what you need. Things like clear decision, ownership. It's not complicated. You can just write it down. I like Raci R A C I is a way. Some people like moca, I think it's a little over complicated, but you get the idea. Define ownership. Not just who owns, but what does ownership mean. What exactly are people accountable for versus helping with or needing to be consulted? Right. Second, you want to define decision criteria. Under what circumstances are decisions to be made and what are necessary versus nice to have strategies for making those decisions. Third, get really clear about what good looks like. Define it. Write it down. Super, super concrete and specific so that as decisions are made, or more importantly, so that decisions can be made without needing a meeting to process them and okay them. Finally, this is a big one. You want to clarify ownership at every level. Because when ownership is clear, fewer things need to be discussed, fewer things bounce around. My husband likes to talk about doubles tennis being sort of a metaphor for not really understanding who owns what. Right. In doubles tennis, one of the challenges is the ball comes and you look at your doubles partner and you're like, I thought you had that one. And they look at you like, I thought you had that one. And so the ball drops, right? Because we're so afraid of that happening, which is fair. We meet, right? But when ownership is clear, you're like, look, if the ball comes and goes in that direction, you've got this. This is what that means. Take care of it. I trust you. Then people move from bringing problems to. To meetings to bringing solutions. Here's what I did. Let me know. Let me tell you what's working, what's not right. They act. And that alone eliminates half the meetings on your calendar. So here's the shift I want to leave you with today. Every recurring meeting on your calendar is telling you something. It's not just a block of time. It's a signal. It's a signal about where information is is flowing correctly versus breaking down, where decisions are moving versus are unclear, where ownership is clear versus diffused. So you want to ask yourself, rather than how do we make our meetings better? You want to ask what would have to be true for each of these meetings not to exist at all? Because that question, that is where the real design work begins. It's not about better agendas. It's not about tighter facilitation, and it's not about trying harder to make the meeting productive. It's about building a structure that makes most meetings unnecessary. And then you look and the only meetings you have create and perpetuate momentum. Right? Really strong, resilient organizations are not held together by conversations and decisions made in a shared room. They are held together by systems. And when those systems are strong, the meetings that used to feel really essential quietly disappear. So that's it for this week. I hope this episode was helpful and helps you look at your calendar a little differently. That's the point. I will see you back here next week for more Mastermind. Thanks for listening. If this episode resonated, leave a review. I read them and they do matter. And make sure you're subscribed so that you never miss a deep dive into building your resilient nonprofit. And finally, if you're ready to move from grit to good design, head to brooke richiebabbage.com strong to take the 90 second quiz and find out where to start.