The (hidden) power of the 3-minute meeting

Of all the time-wasting exercises in life, meetings consistently rank near the top of the list.

Thirty minutes to discuss an upcoming client call here, an hour to review a Powerpoint there, a two-hour marketing deep-dive that leads to no concrete conclusions whatsoever.

We all know how it goes.

So what if every meeting - every single one - had to be limited to a maximum of three minutes?

Yes - that’s right… JUST. THREE. MINUTES. Is such a thing even possible to imagine?

The high-priests of management consulting at McKinsey and Bain might balk at the prospect of limiting their presentation time so much. After all, their fees pile up most when they can bill hundreds of hours spent on producing endlessly complicated PowerPoint slides.

On the other hand, some well-known revolutionaries in the corporate space might embrace the idea wholeheartedly. Amazon’s executives - at the initial behest of Jeff Bezos - famously start all thier meetings with extended silence while they read through the written summary of the proposal before them.

PowerPoint slides are forbidden.

So how does a 3-minute meeting work?

Here is the playbook.

The Playbook

Obviously there is very little time - so it is essential to understand the exact schemat of a 3-minute meeting. It is also essential to reduce the number of persons participating in the meeting to the max.

Ideally this is just two persons.

Yes, two persons and three minutes - the formula for an amazingly successful meeting.

It may be obvious why only two people should participate in such a meeting. But the logic also deserves to be explained in more detail.

The main purpose of any meeting is to decide upon the action to be taken. Nothing more and nothing less.

No meeting should ever, ever occur if it does not result in a clear action plan. And in order to arrive at the right decision about which action to take, sometimes people need to exchange information, most often their own perspectives on the decision in question.

And in order to reach the most effective outcomes, the decision-making process should be limited to two people. In fact, no single topic should ever be worked on by more than two people.

This concept of “working in pairs” is not new. But the radical application of the “power pair” as an organizational and decision-making structure is less well-known. Logitech CEO Bracken Darrell is one of its main proponents and has implemented the philosophy in his company - quite successfully.

With only two sides to a discussion and one outcome in focus, the 3-minute meeting can take the shape that it should - and produce the results that are necessary.

Let’s break it down:

1. Preparation and awareness are key, of course. Both parties to a meeting should be clearly aware what it is about and what kind of outcome is desired. When writing the Outlook calendar invite, this must be clearly specified.

2. Prior to the meeting, both persons should take the time - and it doesn’t have to be much since, after all, there is only one very very narrow point which will be covered - to formulate their point of view and condense any information which they wish to share.

3. Then - the magic of the 3-minute meeting can actually begin:

   1. 30 seconds - Review the topic and the decision to be made

   2. 30 seconds x 2 - Each party shares their condensed perspective on the topic

   3. 60 seconds - A (very) brief discussion ensues to determine the course of action

   4. 30 seconds - A confirmation of the conclusion and action item (if any) to be taken from the meeting.

The (hidden) power

If this sounds overly simplified that is because…it is.

The power of the 3-minute meeting is that it forces a direct confrontation and a hyper-focused session to reach an actionable conclusion. Most of us are not used to this, but the brevity and quick action of a 3-minute meeting can be thrillingly invigorating.

There is also another, hidden advantage of a 3-minute meeting.

Not only does it force the two participants to prepare mentally for in advance so that each one can state their point of view as concisely and convincingly as possible - it also requires both sides to confront each other.

A great number of meetings end up being extremely long because there are either too many participants or those who do take part are inherently afraid of meeting the other side head one. Long conversations and complicated discussions ensue when both sides try to dance around the issues at hand. Meetings can also run far over time when there is more than one egoistic person involved who insists on promoting his or her opinion unnecessarily.

The direct confrontation and quick decision-making that the 3-minute meeting promotes help build a strong momentum. The faster the decision-making, the more empowered the stakeholders feel. With each passing decision - provided it is clear and well-communicated - the tempo builds until their is a strong crescendo that pushes everyone forward.

Just three, please

First-time meeting makers who try the 3-minute meeting method may find it difficult to begin with. But with time, no person will be able to deny its effectiveness.

But it is paramount to avoid the temptation to extend the time-frame. Three minutes can so easily morph into 4 or 5…or longer…meetings.

No doubt, we can all agree that this rarely produces superior results.

So - keep it simple (stupid) and short - reduced to the minimum that is required to do great things and the results will be clearly noticeable over the span of time.