Instagram head Adam Mosseri’s most recent internal memorandum extended far beyond the conventional corporate discussion on returning to office spaces. It ventured into an equally contentious and universally relatable workplace issue — the repetitive, recurring meeting, a fixture that countless employees and managers simultaneously depend upon and despise. The document, titled “Building a Winning Culture in 2026,” outlined a bold initiative: all ongoing recurring meetings would be systematically canceled every six months and only reinstated if leadership deemed them “absolutely necessary.” Mosseri further proposed that recurring one-on-one meetings, a staple of managerial oversight, should default to a biweekly schedule rather than occurring weekly. He urged employees to reclaim their deep work time by confidently declining any meeting that conflicted with designated “focus blocks,” emphasizing that undisturbed periods of concentration are essential to true productivity.

In his memo, Mosseri candidly acknowledged the collective sentiment felt across many organizations, writing that “we all spend too much time in meetings that are not effective, and it’s slowing us down.” His words underscored a growing awareness among modern executives that the excessive culture of meetings often dilutes impact and wastes valuable human capital. Mosseri’s decision to curtail unnecessary gatherings resonates with a rising tide of leaders who are actively challenging bloated corporate bureaucracies that stifle innovation and agility. In an era where artificial intelligence tools promise new paradigms of efficiency and where competitive pressures intensify daily, many executives are reevaluating every aspect of company culture. They are pruning outdated layers of process, streamlining communication pathways, and championing speed and precision as cornerstones of organizational success.

Across industries, this shift has sparked a wider revolt against meeting-heavy workplaces. Thought leaders and high-profile CEOs have long articulated their frustrations with the ceremonial nature of constant meetings. For instance, Jeff Bezos, Amazon’s founder, has argued that creative friction often emerges from what he calls “messy” meetings, whereas executives such as Airbnb’s Brian Chesky and Nvidia’s Jensen Huang have gone even further, advocating for drastically limiting or eliminating recurring one-on-one sessions altogether. To them, the traditional meeting often serves more as a distraction from substantive, results-driven work than as a catalyst for it.

Others in the business elite express similar disdain. Elon Musk has famously declared that large meetings should either be abolished entirely or kept “very short,” reasoning that extended gatherings often produce little of tangible value. Investor and entrepreneur Mark Cuban, a self-proclaimed “lover of emails,” has long maintained that meetings severely encroach upon his productivity. In 2023, he articulated his stance clearly, noting that he only agrees to meetings when a decision must be reached or when absolutely no alternative medium exists— the same rule he applies to phone conversations. “It kills so much time,” he lamented, capturing the irritation shared by thousands of professionals worldwide.

This ongoing debate over the place of meetings in the corporate landscape has gained even more urgency as efficiency and time optimization dominate executive priorities. JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon, in his 2024 annual letter to shareholders, declared his intention to “kill meetings” that encumber progress and flow. Similarly, Amazon’s current CEO Andy Jassy has articulated a wish to revive face-to-face collaboration, but without reintroducing the wasteful culture of “the pre-meeting for the pre-meeting” that often defines large organizations. Amazon, which recently reduced its workforce by 14,000 employees, is simultaneously striving to recapture a leaner, more entrepreneurial ethos — one where endless planning sessions give way to decisive action.

Academics and analysts have observed that this broad reevaluation represents more than momentary managerial frustration; rather, it is a structural rebalancing. Benjamin Laker, a leadership professor at Henley Business School who has studied meeting dynamics extensively, explained that the post-pandemic years saw a “huge acceleration” in both the number and duration of meetings. Psychological and social factors, including the pervasive loneliness and anxiety that accompanied remote work during the global crisis, drove people to schedule more virtual gatherings as a means of sustaining human connection. This emotional dependency on meetings, Laker suggested, created habits that persisted even as the world reopened.

Echoing this analysis, Petri Lehtonen, CEO of the meeting analytics firm Flowtrace, shared data revealing that between 50% and 70% of total meeting hours in large enterprises derive from recurring sessions. Many of those, he noted, often lack a clearly defined purpose or measurable output. For Lehtonen, the renewed scrutiny of meetings is not merely a “cultural trend” or a fleeting leadership fad but a “structural correction” in corporate behavior. As technology — particularly AI-driven summarization and asynchronous collaboration tools — evolves, companies are transitioning from viewing meetings as the default mode of teamwork to perceiving them as “escalation tools,” invoked only when asynchronous communication cannot suffice.

This recalibration has manifested in innovative and sometimes radical approaches across various organizations. After the pandemic, firms like Shopify adopted tangible measures to expose the hidden costs of meetings, introducing an internal plug-in that calculates and displays the estimated dollar cost of time spent during each session. According to Shopify’s chief operating officer, the intent behind this intervention was straightforward: reduce redundant discussions so that employees could simply “get stuff done.” Salesforce opted for a more moderate experiment, instituting a “no-meetings week” in 2021 to provide respite from the constant interruptions of the digital calendar. The apparent success of this policy led the company to repeat the initiative three additional times. Likewise, institutions such as Citigroup introduced meeting-free Fridays, encouraging employees to dedicate uninterrupted time to complex, strategic, or creative work.

Quantitative evidence corroborates these anecdotal successes. In a yearlong empirical study encompassing 76 organizations, published in the MIT Sloan Management Review in 2022, Benjamin Laker reported that overall productivity levels increased by 71% when meetings were reduced by 40%. However, he also cautioned that the benefits plateaued once reductions exceeded 60%, and in fact began to decline beyond that threshold, suggesting that some meetings remain essential to maintaining alignment and shared understanding. Laker concluded that the key lies not in eradicating meetings altogether but in practicing strong “meeting hygiene.” This involves adhering to clearly defined boundaries: limiting the number of attendees, ensuring that participants receive at least 24 hours’ notice, establishing a concise agenda, and respecting strict timeframes.

“As long as you have meeting hygiene,” Laker affirmed, “you don’t have to eliminate meetings altogether.” His assessment reflects a more balanced philosophy now emerging in forward-thinking organizations — one in which meaningful, well-designed gatherings coexist with sustained periods of focused, independent work. Collectively, these strategies aim to cultivate not only a more efficient workforce but a more thoughtful, deliberate corporate culture — one where time, attention, and purpose are treated as the company’s most precious resources.

Sourse: https://www.businessinsider.com/instagram-adam-mosseri-getting-rid-of-workers-dread-meetings-2025-12