Most leaders don’t need more meetings, they need better ones. Yet, leaders and teams tolerate the same symptoms week after week—updates no one listens to, conversations that drift, and a mysterious ability for an hour-long meeting to end with no meaningful decision made. The problem isn’t the people. It’s the prompts.
Meetings shape how a team thinks, behaves, and prioritizes. However, most agendas unintentionally reinforce the wrong things. Status updates over insights, activity over outcomes, and safety over candor. If you want meetings that actually improve performance, alignment, and momentum, you don’t need a new methodology. You just need three questions. These questions cut through the noise, get past politeness, and help teams think critically about where they’re heading and what’s getting in the way.
1. What’s something stupid that you need to stop doing?
Yes, stupid. Not inefficient, suboptimal, or in need of improvement. By using the blunt term, it does something powerful. It liberates honesty.
Organizations accumulate bad habits the way garages accumulate junk. No one remembers why something was put there. It’s just been there forever. This question gives permission to challenge legacy processes, outdated rules, pointless tasks, and the silent “we’ve always done it this way” mentality.
It reframes improvement from a critique to a shared pursuit. When a team identifies behaviors to stop doing, two things happen: They reclaim time and energy. They also signal that challenging the status quo is not only safe but expected.
Stopping something is often more productive than starting something.
2. What’s one thing you need to overcome your current challenge?
Most teams talk about challenges in vague, surface-level terms. However, rarely do they articulate one thing that would unlock progress. This question forces people to move from explanation to action. It also gives leaders valuable insight:
- Do people lack clarity?
- Do they need resources?
- Is there a skill gap?
- Is the real obstacle structural, cultural, or interpersonal?
Individuals get clarity on what they need, and leaders get clarity on how to support them without guessing. The question turns challenges into solvable problems and reduces the mental load that comes from carrying unspoken obstacles.
3. What’s one thing you need to keep doing and double down on?
Teams rarely take time to identify what is working. They fixate on problems, and in the process, they unintentionally abandon their strengths. This question ensures you don’t throw out the good while trying to fix the bad. It shines a light on behaviors, processes, and strategies that are delivering a return-on-investment — so you can amplify them.
When teams double down on their strengths, engagement increases, focus sharpens, and high-value behaviors become part of the culture instead of accidental wins.
Why these three questions lead to better team meetings
Because they accomplish three things most meetings fail to do: eliminate waste, remove obstacles, and focus on what drives value. These questions are simple, but they’re not simplistic. They work because they’re designed for candor, clarity, and forward momentum. They reshape meeting culture from passive updates to meaningful dialogue.
How to use them
You can integrate these questions into:
- Weekly team meetings
- One-on-ones
- Project kickoffs
- Retrospectives
- Leadership roundtables
The key is consistency. When teams expect these questions, they start paying attention differently. Instead of hoarding frustrations, they come prepared with solutions and become more strategic by default. Perhaps most importantly, they build trust. Because when people feel empowered to speak honestly, ask for help, and celebrate wins, the team gets better—not incrementally but exponentially.
The opinions expressed here by Inc.com columnists are their own, not those of Inc.com.
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