451. “Meetings Are a Lazy Substitute for Real Thinking” | Designing Work That Actually Gets Done with Rebecca Hinds

We sat down with Rebecca Hinds, a leading expert on organizational behavior and the future of work, whose research has shaped how some of the world’s most influential companies think about collaboration. With degrees from Stanford and a career that includes founding the Work Innovation Lab at Asana and the Work AI Institute at Glean, Rebecca brings both academic rigor and real-world insight to the way we work together. She joined us to discuss her new book, Your Best Meeting Ever, a practical guide to fixing one of the most universally dreaded parts of modern work.

Our conversation challenged the assumption that bad meetings are inevitable. Rebecca reframed meetings as the most important product an organization creates, yet often the least intentionally designed. From cutting meeting debt and measuring return on time investment to applying systems thinking and user-centered design, she shared how small, deliberate changes can radically improve collaboration. We also explored how technology and AI can either amplify human potential or automate dysfunction, depending on how thoughtfully they’re used.

At its core, this episode was a call to stop defaulting to meetings out of habit and start designing them with purpose, clarity, and respect for people’s time.

The Biggest Helping: Today’s Most Important Takeaway

“We need to treat our meetings like a product. We need to treat them intentionally.  And we can't just default to using meetings as a lazy substitute for real work and smart thinking.”

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Thank you for joining us on The Daily Helping with Dr. Shuster. Subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and YouTube to download more food for the brain, knowledge from the experts, and tools to win at life.

Resources:

• Your Best Meeting Ever: 7 Principles for Designing Meetings That Get Things Done By Rebecca Hinds

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