Jeff Bezos is not a fan of meetings. Business Insider reports the founder of Amazon avoids early morning meetings at all costs and hardly meets with Wall Street investors at all. “We don’t meet with our biggest investors,” he told Business Insider CEO Henry Blodget. “We meet with investors who have low portfolio turns.”
When he does call meetings, he limits the number of participants by adhering to what he calls the “two pizza” rule. As Bezos sees it, the more people that participate in a meeting, the less productive the meeting will likely be. His solution: Never have a meeting where two pizzas couldn’t feed the entire group.
Harvard Business Review offers these tips for identifying the right people – and only the right people – into meetings:
- The key decision makers for the issues involved
- The ones with information and knowledge about the topics under discussion
People who have a commitment to or a stake in the issues - Those who need to know about the information you have to report in order to do their jobs
- Anyone who will be required to implement any decisions made
If you follow these guidelines and still find that your group does not adhere to the two-pizza rule, determine who can be left off the invite list and informed about the substance of the meeting afterward.
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