Your Best Meeting Ever - by Rebecca Hinds (Hardcover)

Book Synopsis

"Everyone wants better meetings, but no one seems to know how--until now." --Reid Hoffman, New York Times bestselling author and cofounder of LinkedIn

"Warning: This read may save you countless hours." --Adam Grant, #1 New York Times bestselling author and host of the podcast Re: Thinking

From Rebecca Hinds, PhD--organizational expert who has helped Fortune 500 companies fix their fractured collaboration--comes a bold, battle-tested blueprint for tackling the workplace's biggest time-wasters: meetings.

Meetings are broken. They are relics from a bygone era of top-down hierarchies and factory-like procedures--designed to issue orders, flaunt power, and keep the hierarchy intact. In today's digital, collaborate-or-bust era, this model isn't just inefficient, it actively harms employees and organizations.

Drawing on decades of research and stories from leading companies like Google, Salesforce, Pixar, YouTube, and Dropbox, Your Best Meeting Ever provides a blueprint to transform your meetings from monotonous, soul-crushing time sinks into powerful tools for collaboration. The secret? Treat them like products. Using seven product design principles, you'll turn your meetings into well-designed products that actually drive work forward and serve your most important users--the people in your organization. You'll learn:

- Why every organization needs a "Meeting Doomsday" to reset collaboration, and how to strategically orchestrate one at your company.
- How to fix your communication system so meetings are a last resort, not a knee-jerk default.
- Which meeting metrics matter--and which do more harm than good.
- How to inject moments of delight into your meetings so people genuinely want to show up.
- When to integrate technology into your meetings so you enhance collaboration, rather than detract from it.

More than just a practical guide, Your Best Meeting Ever is a rallying call to rethink how we collaborate in the modern workplace. Whether you're a leader or an individual contributor, this powerful book will nudge you to be audacious--to challenge the existing norms and embrace new paradigms--so you'll never dread another meeting again.

Review Quotes

"Your Best Meeting Ever is the best book ever on the causes of crummy meetings and what we can each do to create great ones. This gem is relentlessly useful, weaves in compelling studies and instructive stories throughout, and Rebecca Hinds' delightful writing makes it the rare "business book" that is a joy to read. I am especially smitten with her ideas about how to "become a meeting minimalist" and applying "user centric-design," with proven solutions that range from stifling blabber-mouths, to including skills at running meetings when selecting leaders, to using AI to reduce meeting drudgery and to make better decisions."--Robert I. Sutton, Stanford Professor Emeritus and New York Times bestselling author of eight books including The No Asshole Rule and (with Huggy Rao) The Friction Project

"A low point in my career was realizing that everyone in my staff meeting felt it was a waste of time, and everyone who was not there felt sad, bad, and left out. If only I'd read Hinds's book! Full of practical tips, it will ensure your meetings help you get sh*t done and build better relationships."--Kim Scott, New York Times bestselling author of Radical Candor and Radical Respect

"Do you celebrate when a meeting gets canceled from your calendar? Most people dislike meetings because they're unproductive and take too much time. Yet collaborating, ideating, and deciding are critical for success in almost all we do. What if you could organize and facilitate great meetings? Your Best Meeting Ever provides a highly accessible and actionable toolkit to turn chaotic conversations into clear, concise collaborations. This book is an essential resource for any leader who wants to stop wasting time and start making meetings matter."--Matt Abrahams, lecturer at Stanford Graduate School of Business and author of Think Faster, Talk Smarter

"Everyone wants better meetings, but no one seems to know how--until now. Hinds not only diagnoses the root causes of bad meetings, but offers a brilliant core insight - we should design great meetings like we design great products - and practical tools based on both academic research and what's worked at real companies. Grab a copy of this book before your next week of meetings begins!"--Reid Hoffman, cofounder of LinkedIn and coauthor of New York Times bestseller Superagency

"Meetings are broken. This book fixes them--if we care enough to take action."--Seth Godin, author of This is Strategy

"This book is fantastic! It is well-grounded, compelling, and offers such a fresh take on the topic of meetings. Although it is sometimes cliché to call something a must-read, this book is truly a must read."--Steven Rogelberg, bestselling author of The Surprising Science of Meetings

"This delightful new book is an invaluable guide to making "your best meeting ever" a reality. Hinds tackles the essential challenge of how teams can move from playing it safe to speaking up, thinking together, and experimenting. A must-read for anyone serious about creating organizations that team up and learn, instead of retreating from honesty, effort, and risk."--Amy C Edmondson, Novartis Professor of Leadership, Harvard Business School and author of Right Kind of Wrong

"Too many meetings steal our time, energy, and focus. Your Best Meeting Ever shows you how to cut the clutter, redesign your calendar, and transform the meetings that remain into powerful tools for collaboration and results. With clear principles and science-backed tactics, this book will help you turn meetings from a mindless drain into a strategic advantage."--Nir Eyal, author of Indistractable

"Warning: This read may save you countless hours. As a professional meeting hacker, Hinds offers a wealth of knowledge for eliminating pointless gatherings and making the most of our time. Her book should be required reading for everyone who runs meetings."--Adam Grant, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Hidden Potential and Think Again, and host of the podcast Re: Thinking

"For anyone who is positively bedeviled with meetings, etc., this book is a lifeline." --Booklist

About the Author

Rebecca Hinds is a leading expert on organizational behavior and the future of work. She holds a BS, MS, and PhD from Stanford University. Her research is consistently featured in top-tier publications like Harvard Business Review, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Wired, and more. She is a trusted advisor to companies navigating the challenges of modern work--from meeting overload and hybrid dysfunction to the messy realities of AI adoption and organizational change.