Speaking of: The Start of a Meeting

I'm convinced all meetings are made or ruined in the first 30 seconds.

Every so often, you join a Zoom call at work, the meeting begins, the person leading screws up the first 30 seconds so nobody really knows what is supposed to be accomplished, and the meeting ends an hour later without any substantial conclusions.

And other times, you join a call, the person leading has an extremely clear agenda and lays out what needs to be decided on the call extremely precisely, and everything goes swimmingly. And I think it's all because of those first 30 seconds.

I guess what I've really realized is this: you're never completely on the same page as everyone else in a meeting. It doesn't matter what the topic is. You might think you are on the same page as everyone else. But you're not. Everyone has different context on the topic or prior experience or initial thoughts. And using the first 30 seconds of a meeting to get everyone to at least a similar starting point is crucial.