Be honest. Do you know how to run a really good meeting?

Most people don’t, says Sanjay Khosla, a senior fellow and adjunct professor of marketing at Kellogg. The majority of meetings spend too much time rehashing the past—which immediately puts teams in a defensive posture—and not enough time looking ahead to the future.

Khosla makes the case that aiming for a 70/30 split between agenda items focused on the future versus the past makes for a more productive, engaging, and motivating experience. But how to get started? We’ll dive into some of his advice this week.

Ditch the slides

To keep meetings efficient, Khosla offers a hard-and-fast rule about slide presentations: ban them.

“We don’t need them,” he says. “They minimize conversation and tend to waste too much time on topics that could have been reviewed beforehand. Banning slides sends a very clear message that just sharing information is a waste of time.”

In their place, Khosla recommends assigning pre-work for every participant. This is not a data dump for team members to sift through or a PowerPoint presentation in disguise. Instead, participants should send their colleagues crisp, synthesized pre-reading a few days in advance.

The reading materials should include scorecards, with clear metrics that show the progress that’s been made on various projects since the last meeting, along with commentary about what’s working and what needs adjustment. In the process of compiling their pre-reading materials, each team member is required to identify and be prepared to discuss specific areas in which they need help.

The packet’s simple templates remain relatively consistent over time. This simplicity limits the amount of time that is spent in preparing and pre-reading.

“Doing this advance work makes it very clear what we’re going to achieve and what success looks like in this meeting,” Khosla says.

Find a “conscience”

To keep everyone on the same page—and keep conversations from drifting off track—Khosla also recommends that leaders identify one individual to be the “conscience” at each meeting.

This person has several responsibilities: to make sure the pre-reading is delivered clearly and on time, to make sure the meeting maintains its 70/30 focus on the future, and to reserve time at the end of the meeting for leaders to make sure that each person understands expectations and accountability. This, of course, includes the leaders themselves, who will need to address any bottlenecks or resource gaps before their teams can proceed.

Having a “conscience” will help teams avoid having discussions derailed by “shiny bright objects,” Khosla says. For example, a team member may be asking for help with a marketing problem. A colleague might respond with a suggestion to try ChatGPT for ideas, which then devolves into a group tangent about the pros and cons of generative AI.

“If you don’t have a ‘conscience,’ it’s easy to get distracted,” Khosla says.

An added bonus? The “conscience” role is a great development tool for aspiring leaders looking to prove their mettle.

You can read more of Khosla’s meeting tips—like how to stay forward-focused while not glossing over past problems—here.