156: The Psychology of Business Meetings with Christen Gilchrist

Meetings are one of the biggest hidden costs in any organisation, yet they are rarely examined with the same rigour as finance, sales, or operations. In this episode, we’re joined by Christen Gilchrist, an organisational psychologist, to explore why so many meetings feel unproductive and what’s really going on beneath the surface. Together, we discuss why focusing solely on agendas, minutes, and process often misses the point.

From who speaks first to how safe people feel challenging ideas, we explore how leaders can rethink meetings as an investment, not just a diary commitment, and use them to genuinely move the business forward.

Chapters:

00:00:00 – Welcome & why meetings matter
00:02:00 – Introducing Christen Gilchrist, organisational psychologist
00:04:30 – The real cost of meetings
00:06:45 – Meetings as social systems
00:09:00 – Who speaks first and why it matters
00:11:30 – Psychological safety in meetings
00:14:00 – Preparation, pre-reads, and information overload
00:17:30 – Why busy doesn’t mean productive
00:20:30 – Too many people and social loafing
00:24:30 – Transparency, trust, and leadership behaviour
00:28:30 – Face-to-face vs online meetings
00:33:30 – Practical ways to run better meetings
00:36:00 – Final reflections & key takeaways

Key Topics Discussed:

• The true financial cost of meetings and why most businesses underestimate it
• Why “meetings for meetings’ sake”, damages focus and performance
• How hierarchy and senior voices can unintentionally shut down discussion
• Psychological safety and its role in better decisions and innovation
• Why preparation and clarity of purpose matter more than slide decks
• The limits of long, crowded meetings and the problem of cognitive overload
• Face-to-face vs online meetings, and why hybrid meetings often fail
  

Quotes To Remember:

“A meeting is an investment, if you wouldn’t spend the money, why spend the time”?

“When senior leaders speak too early, everyone else edits themselves”.

“If people don’t feel safe to challenge, you don’t get better processes, you get silence”.

Actionable Takeaways:

• Put a cost on your meetings: Calculate what recurring meetings actually cost and ask whether they deliver a return.
• Be ruthless about purpose: Every meeting should have a clear reason, outcome, and decision attached to it.
• Change who speaks first: Invite junior or quieter voices in early to avoid groupthink.
• Simplify pre-reads: Replace long slide decks with concise one-page summaries that focus on insight, not activity.
• Reduce numbers: Only invite people who are genuinely needed to recommend or decide, share outcomes with others afterwards.
• Lead by example: Show it’s acceptable not to have all the answers, and model curiosity over defensiveness.
• Rethink hybrid meetings: If some people are remote, consider making everyone remote to level the playing field.
  

🎓 SME Growth Podcast Homework: Further Reading & Resources

Check out more of Christen’s thinking, along with FREE resources, including toolkits, guides and worksheets, on organisational psychology and improving meetings, at Core Potential Solutions:

👉 https://www.corepotentialsolutions.com/free-resources

Read The Five Dysfunctions of a Team by Patrick Lencioni, which discusses trust as the foundation for healthy teams and business culture:

👉 https://www.tablegroup.com/topics-and-resources/teamwork-5-dysfunctions/

Read Amy Edmondson’s Harvard Business Review article, to find out more around what Psychological Safety really is?

👉 https://hbr.org/2023/02/what-is-psychological-safety

🎧 Listen on YouTube & Apple Music here:

 https://anchor.fm/wellmeadow

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