Lately, I’ve been hearing the same story from leadership teams: Everyone gathers for the weekly meeting. Each person shares what they’re working on. Everyone nods. The meeting ends.
And very little actually moves forward.
If divisions or groups are struggling to collaborate, I’ll bet the weekly leadership meeting is part of the problem.
Collaboration doesn’t just happen between meetings. It has to happen inside them. If your main leadership forum isn’t driving clarity, decisions, and forward motion, it can become a reporting exercise instead of a momentum builder.
Last month, I sat in on a meeting after we adjusted the structure. It was a very different vibe. You could feel the difference. After speaking to and coaching teams across industries, here are six practical keys to create Uncommon Collaboration in your meetings.
If you want to change the vibe and effectiveness of your meetings, read on.
- Report on objectives, not everyone’s activity.
Somewhere along the way, teams adopted a default structure: “Go around the table and tell us what you’re working on.”
It feels responsible. It sounds thorough. But it’s usually not very helpful.
It doesn’t matter what everyone is busy with. What matters is whether your most important objectives are moving forward.
Shift the conversation from activity to outcomes. Instead of reporting on tasks, review the handful of objectives that truly matter right now.
- Rate each objective green, yellow, or red.
If your team owns monthly financial reports, onboarding targets, compliance deadlines, or customer response times, together rate how those objectives are actually going.
Green: On track.
Yellow: At risk.
Red: Off track.
Don’t overcomplicate it. Your team already knows the truth.
Rate them quickly. No long explanations or discussion yet. Just clarity.
- Only spend time on yellow and red.
Your team’s time is valuable.
If something is green, you don’t need a 10-minute update. If something is red but already has a clear plan, you may not need discussion either.
What deserves the team’s time?
- When a decision must be made
- When tradeoffs are required
- When coordination across divisions is needed
- When something is stuck
Look at the yellow and red items and decide which ones actually require this group, today. Then discuss them one at a time.
- Separate tactical from the strategic.
We’ve all seen this happen. Someone raises a big idea or a strategic question. Suddenly, 30 minutes disappear on a topic that isn’t connected to this team’s priorities.
Create a visible “Strategic Parking Lot.”
When a strategic or ad-hoc idea surfaces:
- Capture it.
- Don’t debate it.
- Move on.
At the end of the meeting, decide whether it actually needs a separate session and who should be in that room.
Most won’t.
This simple discipline protects your tactical meeting and keeps it focused.
- Track decisions and action items in real time.
When a decision is made, write it down. When someone commits to action, write it down.
Not in someone’s notebook, but where everyone can see it.
This seems simple. Many teams don’t do it.
A week later, people remember the decision slightly differently. Or no one is quite sure who owned what. It’s a quick way to lose momentum.
- Finish the meeting intentionally.
Don’t just stand up and leave. Before you close:
- Review the decisions. Did we agree on what we just decided?
- Review action items. Who owns what, and by when?
- Clarify communication. Who needs to know what from this meeting?
- Schedule: Which ad-hoc or strategic meetings do we need?
- Ask: What worked well today?
- Ask: What would make the next meeting better?
Five minutes of discipline here can save hours of confusion later.
Meetings are where alignment and momentum either strengthens or erodes.
Fixing meetings is one piece of fixing collaboration across divisions.
Many of these principles were shaped by studying under Patrick Lencioni, putting them into practice with teams, and refining them through my own experience.
I’ve put together a simple meeting template that walks teams through this structure. If it would be helpful, just email me and I’ll send it over.
