As we head into Q4, I want to share a story that perfectly illustrates why small changes often deliver the biggest results. Last month I was working with a pharma team whose monthly strategic reviews were legendary – for all the wrong reasons. Three-hour meetings, 47-slide presentations, and decisions that somehow never got made.
The VP of Operations was frustrated: “We spend more time talking about our strategy than executing it.” Sound familiar?
Instead of overhauling their entire process, we made one tiny change that transformed everything. We added a simple rule: every agenda item must end with a specific action, owner, and deadline. That’s it. No more complex meeting protocols or fancy templates – just that one requirement.
My thoughts
The results were remarkable. Their next strategic review lasted 90 minutes instead of three hours, and they made more decisions in that single meeting than in their previous three combined. The constraint of requiring actionable outcomes forced them to focus on what actually mattered.
This reminded me of something I’ve seen repeatedly in my 30 years of process improvement: teams often know what they need to do differently, but they need structure to make it happen. The magic isn’t in complex solutions – it’s in simple rules that change behavior.
What made this particularly powerful was that everyone could immediately see the value. When your meetings actually produce decisions and actions, people want to participate rather than find excuses to skip them.
How to:
- Implement the “A.O.D. rule”: Every discussion must end with an Action, Owner, and Deadline before moving to the next topic.
- Test the “can we decide this?” question: If the answer is no, table it until you have the right people and information present.
Call to action!
Pick your most frustrating recurring meeting and apply the A.O.D. rule for the next month. See what happens when every conversation must produce a concrete outcome.
Let’s turn talk into action!
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Eli Sharp.
