Your Best Meeting Ever: 7 Principles for Designing Meetings That Get Things Done

"Everyone wants better meetings, but no one seems to know how--until now." --Reid Hoffman, New York Times bestselling author and cofounder of LinkedIn

"Warning: This read may save you countless hours." --Adam Grant, #1 New York Times bestselling author and host of the podcast Re: Thinking

From Rebecca Hinds, PhD--organizational expert who has helped Fortune 500 companies fix their fractured collaboration--comes a bold, battle-tested blueprint for tackling the workplace's biggest time-wasters: meetings.

Meetings are broken. They are relics from a bygone era of top-down hierarchies and factory-like procedures--designed to issue orders, flaunt power, and keep the hierarchy intact. In today's digital, collaborate-or-bust era, this model isn't just inefficient, it actively harms employees and organizations.

Drawing on decades of research and stories from leading companies like Google, Salesforce, Pixar, YouTube, and Dropbox, Your Best Meeting Ever provides a blueprint to transform your meetings from monotonous, soul-crushing time sinks into powerful tools for collaboration. The secret? Treat them like products. Using seven product design principles, you'll turn your meetings into well-designed products that actually drive work forward and serve your most important users--the people in your organization. You'll learn:

- Why every organization needs a "Meeting Doomsday" to reset collaboration, and how to strategically orchestrate one at your company.
- How to fix your communication system so meetings are a last resort, not a knee-jerk default.
- Which meeting metrics matter--and which do more harm than good.
- How to inject moments of delight into your meetings so people genuinely want to show up.
- When to integrate technology into your meetings so you enhance collaboration, rather than detract from it.

More than just a practical guide, Your Best Meeting Ever is a rallying call to rethink how we collaborate in the modern workplace. Whether you're a leader or an individual contributor, this powerful book will nudge you to be audacious--to challenge the existing norms and embrace new paradigms--so you'll never dread another meeting again.

Author: Rebecca Hinds
Publisher: Simon Element / Simon Acumen
Published: 02/03/2026
Pages: 288
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 0.80lbs
Size: 8.70h x 6.10w x 1.40d
ISBN: 9781668067482


Review Citation(s):
Booklist 11/01/2025
Library Journal 01/01/2026 pg. 64

About the Author
Rebecca Hinds is a leading expert on organizational behavior and the future of work. She holds a BS, MS, and PhD from Stanford University. Her research is consistently featured in top-tier publications like Harvard Business Review, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Wired, and more. She is a trusted advisor to companies navigating the challenges of modern work--from meeting overload and hybrid dysfunction to the messy realities of AI adoption and organizational change.