This Is Why Your Meetings Don’t Work

Meetings are where work should happen—but too often, they’re where time goes to die. In this episode of the ATD Accidental Trainer Podcast, host Alexandria Clapp* sits down with Rebecca Hinds, PhD, Stanford researcher, organizational behavior expert, and author of "Your Best Meeting Ever," to explore why meetings are broken—and how we can finally fix them.

Rebecca shares her accidental career journey from competitive swimmer to future-of-work researcher, and explains why meetings are the “most important—and most dysfunctional—product” inside organizations. Together, Alexandria and Rebecca unpack practical, research-backed frameworks from Rebecca’s upcoming book, including:

Why meetings should be treated like a product, not a habit
How to eliminate “meeting debt” (including the bold idea of Meeting Doomsday)
The Four D CEO Test for deciding whether a meeting should exist at all
How to measure meeting effectiveness using Return on Time Invested (ROTI)
When collaboration should be asynchronous vs. synchronous
The real role AI can play in improving (or worsening) meeting culture
How to build psychological safety, improve airtime equity, and reduce performative meetings
Simple ways to inject joy and humanity into everyday meetings

This episode is packed with actionable insights for learning & development professionals, leaders, consultants, and anyone responsible for designing better ways of working—especially in hybrid and AI-enabled environments.

🎧 Whether you’re overwhelmed by meetings or responsible for facilitating them, this conversation will change how you think about collaboration.

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