Moving from Hyper-Collaboration to High Impact
Breaking the "Theatre of Busy"
I recently recorded a new episode of the Level Up Leadership podcast titled ‘Meeting Culture’, where we tackled a challenge I see in almost every organization today: the difference between being busy and actually making an impact. We often find ourselves trapped in a “theatre of busy work,” where calendars are packed with back-to-back blocks and notifications never stop, yet we’re left wondering what we actually achieved at the end of the day.
(If the video doesn’t appear above, you can click here to view.)
The Core Concepts: Productivity Paranoia and Brain Drain
The root of this issue often stems from what Microsoft’s Work Trend Index calls “productivity paranoia”.
Research shows that while 87% of employees feel productive, only 12% of leaders share that confidence. This gap creates a vicious cycle: anxious leaders ask for more check-ins, and employees join more meetings to prove they are working. Since the start of the pandemic, the number of weekly meetings has soared by over 150%.
However, this hyper-collaboration comes at a physical cost. Brain-scanning technology has proven that back-to-back virtual meetings cause significant stress to accumulate in the brain. Conversely, taking even short breaks allows the brain to reset, dramatically improving focus and engagement. By over-scheduling, we are scientifically decreasing our ability to do our best work.
The Consequences: Diluted Accountability
The most concerning unintended consequence of this culture is the erosion of accountability. When we default to “collaboration by committee” - inviting 15 people to every decision\ - we aren’t truly collaborating; we are diluting responsibility.
In my book, Enhanced Leadership, I emphasize that human-centric leadership must be anchored by a clear purpose. As I state: “Purpose is the function you fulfil in an organisation, not simply the tasks you perform”. When decisions are made by committee, it becomes unclear who is the single person accountable for the outcome. This stifles the “bias for action” we value in capable people, teaching them to wait for consensus rather than taking initiative.
Practical Takeaways for Leaders
As leaders, we must remember that “the standard you walk past is the standard you set”. Every time we accept a meeting with no agenda or reply-all unnecessarily, we endorse a low standard of productivity. To reset this, consider these actions:
Model Ruthless Prioritization: Audit your own calendar first. For every meeting, ask: “What is the essential outcome and am I the right person to achieve it?”. If the answer is unclear, decline the invitation or suggest an alternative.
Actively Audit Team Calendars: Don’t just help team members “find a gap” for more work. Sit down with them and identify what is genuinely essential and what is “rubbish” that can be cleared out. Take the heat for them if they need to decline meetings.
Empower Decisive Action: Identify one decision this week that you would normally make and delegate it entirely to a trusted team member. Tell them: “I trust your judgment. You do not need to check back with me - just get it done”.
Redefine Collaboration: Break the link between “collaboration” and “60-minute committee meetings”. Encourage shared documents, quick one-to-one calls, or crisp emails with clear questions instead.
Practical Takeaways for Coaches
For those coaching and mentoring aspiring managers, use these concepts to help them find clarity:
Challenge “Busyness” as a Metric: Help coachees distinguish between activity and progress. Use the “AI-aware lens” from Enhanced Leadership to ask: “How could technology automate the ‘noise’ of scheduling to free you for deep, strategic work?”.
The “Human in the Loop” Test: When a coachee is struggling with a committee decision, ask who is the “human in the driving seat”. Reinforce that while AI or groups can provide data, the final call on high-impact human issues must remain with a single accountable leader.
Focus on the “Why”: As noted in Enhanced Leadership, leaders must most deeply engage with the “why”. Coach your team to communicate the purpose of a project so clearly that the “what” and “how” can be handled autonomously without constant meetings.
Conclusion and Call to Action
Breaking the culture of busy work takes courage. It requires the confidence to protect your time and your team’s focus. My leadership manifesto is clear: have the courage to focus on just the essential.
What one action will you take this week? Will you clear your own calendar as a model, or will you sit with a team member and help them clear theirs?
To dive deeper into these strategies, I invite you to listen to the full “Meeting Culture” episode of the Level Up Leadership podcast. You can also visit our website for more resources on building high-performing, empowered teams.
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That is so true and really good suggested strategies to help staff manage their meeting schedule and begin changing the culture of feeling they have to attend every meeting and looking at ways in which the purpose and outcome of the meeting could be achieved by different means. Also the importance of leaders modelling this behaviour themselves.
Spot on. The "meeting as default" culture is a hard habit to break because it provides a false sense of progress. Shifting the focus toward alternative means of achieving an outcome, like well-structured documents or voice notes, gives people their focus time back. As you say, if the leadership team doesn't lead the charge by protecting their own calendars, the rest of the organisation will never feel safe enough to do the same.