1014: How to Make Meetings Better for Everyone with Calendly’s Darren Chait

Pete Mockaitis
Darren, welcome.

Darren Chait
Thanks, Pete. Thanks for having me.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, I’m so excited to get into your unique vantage point, your insights, your wisdom. So, you work at Calendly, which is my all-time favorite meeting scheduling software. Use it in two businesses. So, great job, guys.

Darren Chait
Good to hear those. Thank you.

Pete Mockaitis
I’m curious, while you’ve been there, how many meetings have been scheduled in Calendly?

Darren Chait
Personally? Thousands.

Pete Mockaitis
Thousands? Millions?

Darren Chait
Well, yeah. I’d say thousands. I’ve been at Calendly for two and a half years. I think I probably would have exceeded hundreds. I spend a lot of my day in meetings, like we all do, which is why it’s such a good topic for discussion. And I really try and schedule most via Calendly because who’s got time to jump around with the back and forth and try to coordinate multiple schedules? And being an Australian, living between the US and Australia, time zones are a nightmare. So, I need Calendly to work, and luckily, so do other folks.

Pete Mockaitis
And how many meetings has the Calendly software product platform scheduled for humanity?

Darren Chait
That’s a very good question. That’s not a number that we’ve actually published before. So, you’ve heard it here first, if I had to do the math quickly, I wonder if we’ve crossed a billion, it’s possible, but I’m not sure. So, keep that one between us, all right? But I want to look into that. It’s the number I should know off the top of my head.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Well, we’ll say rounded to the nearest billion and one million.

Darren Chait
Exactly, that’s right. It’s closer to a billion than zero, but it could even be more. I’ll have to check on that one.

Pete Mockaitis
All right, so that’s cool. So, a billion meetings, and you’ve been in many yourself, personally there. I’d love to hear, off the top of your head, what are some of the most striking, surprising, fascinating discoveries you’ve made about us workers and meetings from your vantage point here?

Darren Chait
We’ve recently published a report on this. We do it every year, and the 2024 State of Meetings Report, went in and asked over a thousand workers a whole lot of questions about meetings. And what I love about this process, this piece of content is because we do it year on year, things are changing right in front of us.

So, the number one thing that jumped out at me, which I can’t reconcile, I don’t know what your thoughts are, Pete, but 81% of workers want more meetings. Here we are talking about meetings being the bane of our existence, competing with productive work, there’s a million and one memes about meetings that should have been emails and those sorts of things, but the overwhelming majority say, “Give me more.”

Pete Mockaitis
Fascinating. Okay, now I imagine that the devil’s in the details in terms of do they want more meetings like the ones they’re having right now? Or are they looking for something else on the menu that they haven’t received yet to appease their appetite?

Darren Chait
Yeah, exactly. It’s both. So, number one, firstly, productive meetings was the caveat there. We want more productive meetings. Are we having productive meetings today? Yes and no. But I think there’s a more interesting take, which was my opinion, anyway. We sort of said, “Why? Like, how do meetings help you?”

And if you look at all the different reasons why people love meetings, 51% said connection with colleagues, 44% said more collaboration, and the list goes on. And what it really led me to think is that we’re in this new world where we’re now post-COVID, we can’t blame COVID anymore, but it’s certainly reset the way we work. We have many, many, many remote-first companies out there, many, many, many hybrid companies, and some companies that are operating in a traditional office environment, but we’re really just seeking out connection.

So, yes, we want more productive meetings, but based on what respondents said in this particular survey, and what I hear talking to folks every day, meetings are how we stay connected. It’s how we build relationships at work, it’s how we make the work we do human. So, I guess it’s not that surprising if you think about it like that.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. So, we like more meetings, in so far as they are productive and connecting. Got it. And can you lay it out for us, just how much time are we spending in meetings these days?

Darren Chait
Most of us, in terms of the respondents, are only having one or two meetings a day, but about half are having three or more meetings a day, and I guess it comes down to what you do for work, right? So, this year for 20% told us, they’re spending more than six hours per week in meetings, which, 20% doesn’t seem like a whole lot. But I think there’s a few things to consider.

Firstly, the folks that are customer-facing, we heard way higher. We saw five, six hours a day in some cases. The folks that aren’t customer-facing, so in roles that they don’t need to be talking to customers, just internally, is where we saw those numbers of one or two meetings a day.

The other thing is you might have two meetings a day at two hours in total, which doesn’t sound like much, but think about the time needed to prepare for the meeting, to travel to the meeting, in some cases, attend, take notes, travel from, identify what the follow-ups were, share them out, and before you know it, your two hours of meetings a day could be closer to four. And that’s why the cost of these meetings and making them productive and valuable matters so much.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Well, let’s talk about making them productive and valuable. What are some of your top insights and discoveries here associated with what makes meetings excellent versus bad?

Darren Chait
The fundamental question is whether you need a meeting at all. It’s 2024, we have a ton of technology at our fingertips, there’s so many different ways to collaborate and communicate, but in many cases, we just jump straight back to the calendar.

I used to tell my team, I’m in a different role, there’s only three reasons you need a meeting, the three D’s: debate, discussion, and decision-making. So, if that’s not going to happen, does it need to be a meeting? Can I send them a video, right, with, “Here’s what I want you to know, the background on this particular topic,” or, “Here is the plan for next quarter,” or, “Here is some feedback on something I’ve read.”

If I don’t need debate, discussion, or decision-making, I can share that asynchronously via video. And there’s many other different ways we can achieve that. So, if you don’t need to have a meeting at all, that’s the number one way you can reduce the cost of those meetings.

Pete Mockaitis
And I suppose connection as well, it doesn’t fit into the nice 3D framework, and it’s not necessarily about making productive value creation happen, but that is a key source of reason and value of a meeting going down.

Darren Chait
That’s a very good point. I think you’re right, and it sounds like that’s what people are craving. So, even if we could do everything async, we would be losing out on that element of connection. But then, again, is a meeting always the best way to achieve that connection? Can we catch up spontaneously? Can I give you a call? Can I text you and say it’d be great to have a one-on-one and check how things are tracking and hop on the phone? Different style of meetings can, obviously, favor connection and can be achieved that way.

But a traditional meeting, if I have eight people in the room, in a meeting room with some slides up on the screen and so on, debatable the level of connection you get there. But it’s a good point and something to keep in mind.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. So, with the three D’s – the debate, the discussion, the decisions – what are some inappropriate meetings then, meetings we’re having where this is not occurring that should perhaps sound the alarm bell for us, and make us say, “Wait a sec, maybe this meeting should not exist anymore”?

Darren Chait
The knowledge sharing meeting, I think that’s the one. worst culprit. So, where I’m just coming to share information, “So, can everyone come because I need to present the 2025 plan for whatever with you?” And you come along, and everyone’s happy because I’ve got some interest in the 2025 plan, and I go and tell you a story for 30 minutes, 45 minutes, 60 minutes, and that was helpful to know. I need to know your plan.

But do we really need everyone in a meeting on the schedule that I dictated, joining the Zoom call, or traveling to the meeting, sitting there at the same time, perhaps having distractions because I’ve determined the time that they have to listen, and really, they’re just gleaning this information from me. Could I not have shared that some other way? So, that’s one. I think that jumps out at me a lot.

The other alarm bell for me when I look at a meeting is the attendees – too many or too few. Too many is where everyone has some sort of, you know, interest in the topic. They all join this meeting and you’re never going to have any real debate or discussion, right? There’s 20 people in the room. Even if there’s 12 people in the room, that’s just not going to happen. We can’t have this productive discussion with, effectively, a conference that we’re running.

Or, too few people in the room, or the wrong people in the room. How are we going to make a decision? I can’t go and talk about planning or strategy when Pete clearly is a stakeholder who couldn’t attend and has to be a part of the decision, or talk about what we’re doing for social next year where there’s no social media marketing folks there. So, the attendees is the second red flag that jumps out at me.

And then, I guess, the third thing I’ll say, which is back to really tips for a great meeting, they sound obvious, but we don’t do them well, which is goals for that meeting. So, when you actually look, and ask yourself, you shouldn’t have to ask yourself, it should be clear, but if you have to ask yourself what the goal of the meeting is. If you can’t answer that very quickly, we shouldn’t have had that meeting. We didn’t need that meeting in the first place.

So, what do we need to walk out of this room with, virtual or physical? If we haven’t achieved this, this meeting has been a waste of time. If you can’t express that for a meeting, at least once it’s started, I think we’re making a mistake here.

Pete Mockaitis
So, when it comes to the right number and the right people in the meeting, you have some work there associated with folks having a specific role. Could you expand on that?

Darren Chait
So, one of the downsides to virtual meetings in 2024 is the risk of multitasking and distraction. We know that 52% of workers report multitasking always or often in virtual meetings. Now, yeah, it doesn’t surprise me, but when you look at it like that in the numbers, it’s mind blowing. That means, in every meeting I go to, more than half the folks in the room are doing something else.

Pete Mockaitis
When they’re remote?

Darren Chait
Yeah, they’re doing both. Now, how well can we do both? Well, I won’t debate you on that topic, I know we’ve all got different views there, but you don’t have 100% of their attention. And I’ve got a goal here for this meeting, we don’t want to walk out of the room without achieving this meeting, but I know half the people there are doing something else. So, that’s number one.

And then, to more directly answer your question around engagement level for different types of meetings, if I have an assigned role in that meeting, we saw more than 90% say that they’re engaged in that meeting, “I’m actively listening.” So, an assigned role, I might be chairing, I might be taking notes, I might be presenting a piece of it, everyone’s kind of listening. Very few said otherwise.

But if I don’t have an assigned role in that meeting, it’s almost inverted. We see, at this point, almost 30% of folks who are somewhat disengaged or completely disengaged. And that role, again, could be part of a brainstorm, providing a status update. Again, taking notes, whatever the role is, it makes a very, very big difference.

The reason I like this stat, it sounds obvious, again, naturally, if people don’t need to be there, number one, they’re not going to be engaged. But even if people need to be there, it’s really important to run these meetings in a way where other folks are involved, where there’s collaboration happening, if you want everyone to be engaged. And as I mentioned, particularly for virtual meetings, you’re competing with that 52% who are doing something else otherwise.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, that’s kind of fascinating, and there’s a whole lot of debate right now like, “Everybody come back to the office!” “No, we don’t want to come back to the office!” Or some people are like, “No, we’re fine, you don’t need to go back to the office.” So, that’s sort of raging now in 2024, and probably will continue in 2025.

And so, I can imagine, if those people who are calling the meetings are aware of these phenomena, that’s probably sort of annoying to them, “No, I would like you to be physically in the space such that you cannot be multitasking.” But, at the same time, I think some people really do perhaps think and function better when we’re multitasking.

I’ve been to meetings where someone’s on his walking treadmill desk, and it’s like, “More power to you. I think your brain is working better when you’re moving, and that’s cool.” Or folks are able to just kind of move around a little bit, or fidget with some things, or ponder. I think, I don’t know, I don’t have any evidence in terms of scientific randomized control trials on this, but I think some people just happen to be in a more comfortable thinking, working groove when they have the flexibility to be in their own space.

And yet, having a little bit of that forced pressure of, “No, you’re here and there’s no escaping. There is no multitasking available in this room without you looking rude and embarrassing yourself.” So, it is really juicy and personal what’s at stake here.

Darren Chait
I have two views on that. I think fascinating point. One is what sort of multitasking, right? So, I’m a big fan of the walking meeting. A lot of my team will know, I’ll put in the AirPods and go for a walk and have a conversation at the same time. Certain meetings, right? That works great when we’re catching up about the week and I’m helping to hear and unblock.

But if I’m going to have a really direct conversation with you about feedback or performance, or we’re trying to solve a problem that might be financial and we’re sharing our screen, obviously, you can’t do it that way. Similarly, if I’m sitting in a meeting and I’m now working on writing a piece of content, there’s no way I’m listening or engaged with what you’re saying. No part of my brain can do that. So, I think it comes down to definitions of multitasking. It’s a fair point that some types of multitasking can be productive.

The other side I was going to mention is around remote, and Calendly, full disclosure, Calendly is a remote-first company. What we mean by remote-first is we designed a workplace, a way of working, that takes into account the fact that our team is remote. And I think what we learned through the pandemic, many companies sort of just picked up their culture and dropped it in online and ran into a lot of issues. Different businesses have different views on the topic, and that’s why many companies have required their employee base back to the office, either full-time or part-time.

If you design a meeting culture around the way you’re set up, I don’t think it makes any difference. So, if I’m running highly collaborative meetings where everyone’s engaged and has a role to play in that meeting, I’m going to see the same levels of engagement, or higher even, than I would if I force everyone into the room such that they can’t be on another device, such that they can’t be doing something else.

And to your point, Pete, many people do better because you think better when you’re on your treadmill while you’re in that meeting or when you go for your walking meeting, and we allow for that. So, I guess what I’m saying here is your meeting culture and the way you meet has to be purposeful and intentional based on the way your organization operates.

Pete Mockaitis
And to your point about our own idiosyncrasies and perceptions, you’ve actually got some fun tidbits about etiquette, like what we consider to be rude or unacceptable. This is fun, because I think some people wonder, “Is it okay if I do this on this meeting?” Well, you actually have some answers. Lay the numbers on us, Darren.

Darren Chait
So, in general, we asked a whole lot of questions around, “Is it okay to eat in a meeting? Is it okay to schedule over lunch?” and those sorts of questions, things we do all the time. And let me run you through some of this data.

So, in general, we saw that 23% think eating in a meeting on camera is totally fine.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay, so 77% thinks it’s not fine.

Darren Chait
No, no, no. But, if you’re on mute and your camera’s off, that’s fine.

Pete Mockaitis
And they’ll never know.

Darren Chait
Most people thought that was okay, 68% said that’s fine, “I just don’t want to see you taking those bites.” I thought that was interesting. I’ve definitely been a bit self-reflective after that because I’ve probably been guilty of that over the years. But some more, I guess, relevant ones to the way we work, the dynamics with camera on and camera off is really fascinating. So, when most people have their camera on, 39% said it’s okay for you to have your camera off, but, obviously, 61% said the opposite.

Pete Mockaitis
So, 61% said, “I want those cameras on.”

Darren Chait
Yep, that’s right. “If some people’s cameras are on, yours better be on,” that’s what they’re saying. And that kind of makes sense, right? You’re trying to build connection here. You know you’re remote in these examples, they’re virtual meetings. It’s hard to do that when you’re the one that’s not there. You think about the real world parallel. So, I wasn’t too surprised by that, the people weighed it up.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, what would the real world parallel be, like you just have a black bag over your head? It’s like, “Okay, I’m not available to be looked at.”

Darren Chait
It’s true. It’s true. Again, it’s funny with technology because, just a few years ago, if you weren’t in the office, hopping on the phone is totally acceptable with no camera. But now that we have the likes of Zoom at our fingertips, no longer good.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, and I think it gets to the notion of, “Well, hey, if this was a properly sized meeting with the proper people in attendance, it makes sense for everyone there to be on their camera,” in most contexts, as I think through it. And yet if it’s like, “Well, you invited 80 people to this meeting when, really, only nine are there,” it’s sort of like the other 71 are more so spectators, so, like, it seems to make sense to turn the cameras off at that point.

Darren Chait
And that’s why I blame the media organizer, or the onus is on the media organizer. If you have a meeting where folks consistently have their camera off, or if they are doing things while the meeting is running, rather than go to the attendees, and say, “Why are you doing this?” you should be looking at yourself, and saying, “Hang on, what is it about this meeting that disengages, that means that folks can go and do something else, or have their camera off?”

So, I think that’s the feedback there. I think related to multitasking point, before I shared some data with you around how many people are typically multitasking during a meeting, but what surprised me is 70% said that’s okay. They don’t have a problem with it. So, then 30% said, “Nope, everyone should be there.” I don’t personally agree with that.

Again, if you’re running a great meeting and everyone needs to be there, I think that number should be lower. But I think it’s a sign of the fact that we’re not all running those great meetings. We’re all attending many meetings. We don’t have enough hours in the day to get our work done because we’re attending all of these meetings that maybe I didn’t need to be in and that’s why I’m multitasking and that’s why I think it’s okay.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. So, that’s some good stuff about inside a meeting. Anything else you want to share about best or worst practices when you’re inside a meeting?

Darren Chait
So, generally, I mean, from a data standpoint, we asked some questions about folks calling in when they’re not at their desk, but others are at their desks, only 37% thought that was okay. I was offended by that one. Again, I’m a fan of that walking meeting. If people are at their desks, you should be calling in the same way and so on, so similar sorts of insights.

But really, we’re just seeing the same trends again and again in terms of great meetings, great engagement, everyone needs to be there, everyone’s there. Poor meetings, unclear goals, not everyone needs to be in the room, didn’t need to be in a meeting, everyone disengages, and technology has made that so much easier, because I can click one button and turn my camera off. And again, I can’t do that in the live meeting like we discussed.

Pete Mockaitis
And that’s really intriguing. The word “should” is so heavy, like, with judgment, you know. And I guess it varies how strongly people hold these “shoulds.” Like, is it more like, “I’d kind of prefer if it were on,” versus, “I can’t believe this unprofessionalism on the other side”?

But I think that really highlights the need to have these conversations because we might very well be entering into this situation, blindly unaware, it’s like, “Well, no, I got my video camera off because, I mean, it’s during lunchtime and I’m hungry and I’m going to get really cranky if I don’t eat. You’re going to have a dumber Pete if I don’t eat. So, this is all in everyone’s best interest for me to be eating right now.”

So, I’m just thinking, “Hey, I’m making prudent decisions that make sense for me and my team and organization.” And unbeknownst to me, I’m getting some judgments from others participating in the meeting, so it sounds extra super important that we have those conversations candidly and upfront so that we’re not incurring the negativity that can just be unspoken and foment and grow, you know?

Darren Chait
Well said. And it gets even more complicated culturally because different demographic factors drive different opinions. I saw in the research, for example, 72% of folks in the US feel like it’s okay to eat off camera, but only 64% in the UK felt that way. So, if you’re meeting with Americans, have your lunch. If you’re meeting with Brits, maybe not a good idea. And there’s generational differences and all sorts of others. So, to your point, being clear on expectations and the way we’re operating this meeting matters because you’re never going to make everyone happy.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah. Yeah, that’s handy. Well, I think it’s just good that the fact that you have this report gets some people thinking and perhaps more likely to discuss, “Oh, hey, I had no idea that a reasonable portion of you might find my behavior completely unacceptable. Why don’t we go ahead and chat about that, shall we?”

Darren Chait
We actually had that a few weeks ago. We have a weekly meeting with the team, and a lot of the team don’t have their camera on, and there’s 40-something people in this meeting, and I get it. Everyone’s got busy. This meeting has just been dropped on their calendar. We haven’t really found a time that suits everyone. It’s impossible with so many folks, and about half of them come with camera on, half come with camera off.

And for the people that are presenting content in that meeting or sharing and driving the discussion, it’s really difficult because there’s no feedback, right? When I’m chatting live with video, we can read each other’s faces and body language and build a great relationship. If you’re just a name, it becomes really hard.

So, we did two things at the same time. One is we set expectations. I said to the team, “Hey, I really want to make this into a meeting that you have your camera on, and I’ll explain why.” And I gave that rationale. And at the same time, we redesigned the way we ran that meeting so it was a lot more collaborative, we had a lot more engagement. Even though it’s a big team, we’d have breakouts most times, we’d have polls running, we’d have an open agenda that anyone could add to.

And both of those things together, a terribly designed scientific trial, both of those things together changed the way this meeting operated. So, I think it comes down to, as we keep saying, right, being clear on expectations and why it matters, but also creating meetings where we want to be there, we get value out of them, and naturally I’m going to be engaged.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Well, Darren, let’s dork out a little bit, if I may, on tech tools. So, Calendly is one of the finest software as a service tool as I’m aware of on the planet. So, yep, I said it. I made it, Darren. You can quote me if you like.

Darren Chait
It must be true then. I’ll take that. I was going to say, just capture that.

Pete Mockaitis
So, yeah, it sounds like you’re doing some cool stuff with regard to the open agenda, the polls. Lay it on us, in terms of when you’re in meeting, what are some cool tech features you’re utilizing, and how’s it go down?

Darren Chait
So, firstly, talking about Calendly, as you and hopefully many of the listeners are familiar, we make scheduling automation software, so we make them very easy to book meetings with you and with your team and co-workers from your website, directly by sharing a link, balancing multiple schedules, round-robining, allowing lead routing, whatever the use case is, we want to make scheduling very easy.

And the reason I share this with you is some of my favorite features and tools out there related to meetings actually happen in the pre- and post-. So, I know one of the common reasons I hear why people buy Calendly reminds me of great meeting practice, which is confirming the meeting, sharing out content before the meeting, and sending that thank-you or that follow-up after the meeting.

But, in general, whatever tooling you’re using to do that, you got to do it, you just got to do it. You have to make sure that everyone knows why they’re coming, what the goal is, and making sure they’re actually attending, and then that you capture the value afterwards. So, sure, use Calendly’s workflows by all means, but otherwise, find a way to do it.

Outside Calendly, we spoke earlier about avoiding the meeting. Here at Calendly, we’re big fans of Loom. Loom is an asynchronous video collaboration tool. They’re actually now part of Atlassian, but you can buy Loom independently too and they’ve got a free tier I believe. And the reason I love Loom is it helps me avoid those meetings when I don’t need meetings, but it does it in what I would call a high bandwidth way.

So, here’s what I mean. If I want to share something with you, Pete, I can go and send you an email or a message, say, a Slack message, and say, “Hey, Pete, I want you to know what I’m thinking about this topic, and here’s some feedback on this work,” you just deliver in bullet points. You’re going to come to work. Firstly, I can do it on my schedule, time zone, the way I work, when whatever my workday looks like.

But you’re going to come to work, you’re going to read this message, and you’re going to have 50 questions, right? You’re going to wonder if what I really meant was this or that, if I’m unhappy about that, what the tone was there. Or, I can send you a video, which is what Loom allows me to do. I can record a video, and say, “Hey Pete, great work there. I want you to be even better because you’re next in line for that director promotion. Here are some tips to make your amazing work absolutely incredible.” And I can run through that.

And, very quickly, you’re seeing my tone, my body language, the words in between, the real words, and you’ve got a completely different message delivered, and we’ve avoided that meeting with all those questions. So, async video tools like Loom, I’m a big fan.

Pete Mockaitis
I love Loom so much, and I’m amazed at just how much you could accomplish there. We bought a company about a year ago, and much communication between buyer and sellers is like, “Hey, so here’s kind of how I’m thinking about the financing situation, dah, dah, dah.”

And so, like, we’re going into all these details of a spreadsheet, and so it’s like, “Huh, this is kind of high stakes kind of a communication, and yet we all recognize that, yeah, this is the best way to do it. We want to say, ‘Wait, what was that sell? Where did you get that number? Where’s that coming from?” And we can’t find the right time to meet together quickly, but it’s like, so it really kept our back-and-forths moving faster as opposed to, “Oh, I guess we could all meet Thursday.” “No, give me the Loom Monday, and then we’ll all have our comments Monday evening.”

Darren Chait
Exactly. I love it. What a great testimonial. So, I think that’s an absolute secret for success.

Pete Mockaitis
Cool. All right. So, Loom or something like it enables you to, very quickly, easily do a screen record share. You can see your face in a bubble and mark up documents or spreadsheets or work products of any sort. Very cool. Any other favorite tools?

Darren Chait
So, at my core, I’m a marketer. I crave voice of customer. I want to hear from the customer all the time. So, looking for solutions that allow me to do more of that, and there’s lots out there and it depends on the nature of customer and so on. So, without going to a specific solution, because I think it depends on the company, if you can find a tool that helps you record customer conversations and allows you to share them around internally, that is game-changing. That helps us organize.

Because, in my marketing org, I can go and tell you what the customer says, I can give you slide deck after slide deck, spreadsheet after spreadsheet, until you’ve heard a real human standing right there, talk about the value they get from your product or service, the challenges they have with your product and service, nothing aligns you more like a marketer. But it’s also an area that we’re very interested in directionally at Calendly.

We are moving beyond just scheduling. We are very interested in tasks around meetings, preparation, engagement, and follow-up. I think you’ve got to find ways to capture what’s discussed in meetings and circulate them and surface them and share them to create that organization that’s always working for the customer.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s cool. So, when you say record the voice of the customer. Is that just as simple as, “Hey, we’re on a Zoom, or a Google Meet, or whatever, and I’m clicking record, and now here’s the snippet”? So, what you’re saying is there’s tools that make it even simpler than that?

Darren Chait
Totally, yeah. I know a lot of enterprise organizations use Gong, for example, where sales calls are recorded, you can search and share snippets so there definitely are. But, again, it’s a bit like some of the meeting features and workflows I mentioned earlier. It’s a way of working more than a particular tool that matters. And we really have seen total change in the way we work and collaborate and how customer-centric we are as we’ve created that culture of sharing meetings.

Because the thing about meetings, right, I should have said at the beginning, is we love to hate them. Yes, they drive all of these great outcomes for our business, but it’s where business gets done. If you think about external meetings, every meeting you have with someone outside your business is somehow tied to making money, or recruiting to have the right team to make money, or build relationships that ultimately may lead to customer acquisition, whatever it is.

So, the fact that we’re letting the value of these meetings dissipate into thin air when the meetings end doesn’t make sense. So, we need to capture them, and the same rationale is, the same reasons why we have to make sure we take notes, we have to make sure that we have follow-ups, and make sure those follow-ups actually happen and so on. So, just all of these ways of working and tools out there are all really reminding us of the fact of the value of every meeting.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And so, inside a meeting with remote technology operating, you mentioned open agenda, polls, whatever. So, these are just the features baked into your Zoom or Google Meet or whatever you’re using?

Darren Chait
Yep, yep. In many cases, yep.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay, just making the most of them. Like, they’re there for you. Go ahead and learn about them. Try them out.

Darren Chait
Yep, and like that, we won’t be eating in meetings anymore, right, because I’ll be so engaged in what we’re talking about.

Pete Mockaitis
“I get to vote! I’m excited!” It might not be immediately that transformational.

Darren Chait
Yeah, that’s it.

Pete Mockaitis
It may or may not be that immediately transformational.

Darren Chait
There you go. That’s the disclaimer.

Pete Mockaitis
But you’re right, it is fun. It’s intriguing. I don’t know about you, but something about real-time data, there’s a little bit of a reveal. If it’s an interesting question, like, “Oh, hey, how many of you are calling in from the West Coast?” It’s like, “Okay, I don’t know.” But like, if I’m genuinely wondering in terms of like, “Hey, we came up with 12 ideas. I’d love for everyone to vote on which ones they think are the most likely to be high impact and they want to start on first.” Like, I don’t know about you, but that just gets my heart thumping a little bit. Like, “Ooh, who’s going to be the winner?” It’s like election night, like county by county.

Darren Chait
You know what though, Pete, if you said, “Does anyone have any views on how we should prioritize this?” Silence. Right?

Pete Mockaitis
Totally.

Darren Chait
We use a lot of Miro here as well. Miro is an online whiteboarding tool, and there’s a few of them around as well, and some of them are embedded in other products and so on. The reason I like Miro is it allows a very fluid, freeform way to collaborate in the form of whiteboards. But they have a lot of great real-time tools you can share.

You can share your Miro board for your Zoom or directly, and it’s great for voting. People can put stickies. They can contribute to a conversation. They can drive that collaboration in a real way. So, that’s what you’re reminding me of as you’re talking about that behavior because it definitely does exist.

Pete Mockaitis
Very nice. Well, Darren, tell me, any other key things you want to make sure to mention, any top do’s or don’ts?

Darren Chait
So, one other thing to mention that we noticed in the research this year, and again, I’m not surprised, but also really cool at the same time. We asked, in general, we asked all the respondents in this survey their views on the role of AI in meetings, if they’re interested in the use of AI in meetings.

2023, 17% said yes. This year, almost 50% said yes. But we’re all learning so much about AI every day and the advent of all the big players in tech in AI. It’s now very clear, to these respondents at least, that it’s here, we’re heading there. Most products are releasing AI features now, particularly those in the meeting space, Calendly included, and we’re coming up there soon.

So, I think it’s fascinating to see that AI has unlocked a ton more powerful online, and it’s a logical place to start, right, to make us more productive in our meetings, more effective. So, that trend in just 12 months was really surprising to me.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Well, now can you share with us a favorite quote, something you find inspiring?

Darren Chait
One of my favorite quotes, in general, in business, comes from, it’s actually been quoted many times by many people so I won’t try to attribute it, which is not to confuse work with progress. So, something I often think about is, “Is this just work keeping me busy or is this actual progress or output?” So, “Don’t mistake work with progress” is one of my favorite business quotes.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. And a favorite book?

Darren Chait
Team of Teams, General Stanley McChrystal. Definitely a bit of a less conventional business book, but a must-read if you’re leading a team.

Pete Mockaitis
And a favorite habit?

Darren Chait
I don’t end my day until I’ve got a plan for the next day. I think, especially with time zones and the likes of Slack and other tools now that bombard us when we’re not online, you always wake up, you always start your day feeling behind. So, I, at least, want to start my day having clarity for the goals for the next day.

Pete Mockaitis
And if folks want to learn more or get in touch, where would you point them?

Darren Chait
Absolutely. So, obviously, if you want to learn more about Calendly, Calendly.com. But on LinkedIn, always happy to connect and chat and nerd out on these topics, and we can, yeah, definitely dive more into what we’ve learned. You can also, if you go to Calendly.com. If you scroll all the way to the bottom of the page, you’ll see a link or other resources to the State of Meetings 2024 so you can dive into this data. And there’s many more thoughts and perspectives here that we didn’t have time for, but you can nerd out on the State of Meetings yourself as well.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And do you have a final challenge or call to action for folks looking to be awesome at their jobs?

Darren Chait
Go through your calendar, and look at those meetings that are competing for productive time. See what you can cut, and then choose a favorite meeting and see if you can make it that much better. Go and look at who’s attending. Look at your process around setting agendas and planning. Look at the tooling that you’re using to power that meeting, scheduling all the way through to follow-ups, and see if you can get that favorite meeting performing that much better. And no doubt you will, you’ll see the results and you’ll move on to the next one. So, meetings really are a hack for team productivity, and I encourage you to try it out.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Darren, thank you. I wish you many excellent meetings.

Darren Chait
Thanks, Pete. Likewise. Great to chat.