Your meeting has an agenda. It's in the calendar invite, it has bullet points, and the meeting still opens with a welcome, a recap of the last two weeks, and "so, where should we start?" While you recap, everyone else is quietly trying to work out what you actually want from them: input, a decision, or just their attention.
This article covers how to write the outcome before you write the agenda, and a four-part opening you can deliver in under a minute. It also covers turning agenda topics into questions, and word-for-word openings for decision meetings, project reviews, brainstorms, and 1:1s. Pick one recurring meeting you run and try the opening next time it meets.
The advice comes from Wes Kao, co-founder of Maven and altMBA, who coaches executives on communication; Matt Abrahams, who has taught strategic communication at Stanford's Graduate School of Business for 25 years; Nancy Duarte, CEO of the presentation firm Duarte and author of Resonate; and the Mochary Method, the curriculum Matt Mochary uses to coach startup CEOs.
Decide the outcome before you touch the agenda
Before you list topics, write the sentence you want to be true when the meeting ends. For example:
- "We've chosen the launch option and named its owner."
- "Everyone understands the customer issue and the two questions still under investigation."
- "We have three testable approaches and picked one to prototype."
The Mochary Method asks for a named owner and a hoped-for outcome for every meeting, plus a check afterward on whether the outcome happened. Once you write "approve the three Q3 priorities and their owners" instead of "discuss Q3 plan," the agenda is just the list of steps that gets the group there.
Turn topics into outcomes
- Topic: Q3 plan. Outcome: approve the three Q3 priorities and their owners.
- Topic: churn. Outcome: agree on the two most likely causes and the next test for each.
- Topic: hiring. Outcome: decide whether to open the role and confirm the scorecard.
Open with four things in the first minute
Once you have the outcome, the opening has four parts, and you can say all of them in 30 to 60 seconds:
- Context. One or two sentences on why this conversation is happening now.
- Outcome. The decision, agreement, or work product you need by the end.
- Route. The two or three steps you'll take to get there.
- Participation. What you need from each person.
Wes Kao calls the context part selling. Even when everyone agreed to the meeting two weeks ago, they've thought about a hundred other things since, so she opens with a short reminder of why the conversation is worth having.
Sell the meeting in a couple of sentences. The player below is queued to 14:55, the exact moment Wes Kao explains it. Watch on YouTube.
"You can frame a conversation and sell a bit at the beginning very concisely. So I'm not talking about spending 15 minutes out of a 30-minute meeting selling. I'm talking about 1 to 2 minutes, even a couple sentences, and then transitioning into the main thing you want to talk about. So I am a huge proponent of doing that, and basically reminding people: why are we doing this? Why are we here today? Why does this matter? And then getting into the meat."
A minute later she gives a complete opening, including the part most people skip: saying what you need from the listeners.
A 15-second opening, word for word. The player below is queued to 16:17, the exact moment Wes Kao demonstrates it. Watch on YouTube.
"I also like asking or stating what I need from the other person upfront. So saying, you know, hey, we're here today because two weeks ago we were reviewing the product flow and realized that there were a couple parts that were kind of confusing. So I took a stab at fixing those areas, rewriting the microcopy, and I want to present them to you today, see if you agree with these changes, and then we're going to roll them out. What I'm looking for from you is feedback on the changes and if you agree."
She points out that the whole thing took about 15 seconds. Here's the same shape stretched to 45 seconds for a bigger decision:
A 45-second decision-meeting opening
- "We're here because the current onboarding flow is delaying enterprise launches. By the end of 40 minutes we need to choose one of the two redesign options and name an owner. I'll spend five minutes confirming the constraint, Priya will walk us through both options, and we'll use the last 15 minutes to decide and capture actions. From each of you, I need the options tested against your function's requirements, and then help making one company decision."
Build the agenda around questions
An agenda line that just says "metrics" leaves people guessing what you want from that segment. Turn it into a question, like "which metric changed enough to change the plan?", and people know what kind of thinking to bring. Matt Abrahams teaches this as a way to make a presentation feel like a conversation: open with the questions you're going to answer, then answer them in order.
Open with three questions. The player below is queued to 22:04, the exact moment Matt Abrahams explains it. Watch on YouTube.
"Many of us feel much more comfortable in conversation than we do in presenting, and conversation is a back and forth, so you can actually set up a lot of your communication situations, a presentation, a meeting, etc. as conversations. You don't even have to have a conversation with the audience. You can simply have it with yourself. For example, what would it be like if you were to start a presentation by saying, today I have three questions I'd like to answer. Question number one is, and you state the question, and then you answer it."
He suggests it as a way to feel less nervous while presenting, and it works just as well for designing an agenda. A decision meeting usually needs four questions in order:
A question-led agenda
- What changed since the last decision?
- Which constraint matters most now?
- Which option best addresses it?
- What will we do, who owns it, and by when?
Questions also make it easier to keep answers short. If your own updates inside those segments tend to run long, the guide to not rambling in meetings covers how to answer inside a structure like this.
Move background reading out of the meeting
Send anything the group doesn't need to discuss live before the meeting. The Mochary Method has participants write the issue and the proposed solution before a decision meeting, so live time goes to questions, pushback, and the decision itself.
Send prework early enough that people can actually read it. Tell them how long it takes and what to look for. Then don't reread it at the opening. Ask whether anything needs clarifying and move to the first agenda question.
Kill the meeting if the memo is late. The player below is queued to 11:11, the exact moment Francis Davidson describes the rule his team uses for prework. Watch on YouTube.
"The memo must be sent 24 business hours before the meeting, otherwise the meeting is canceled. It seems silly the first few times you cancel something, but otherwise it's a slippery slope."
Opening when prework was sent
- "The memo covers the customer data and both options, so I won't repeat it. Before we compare the options, does anyone need a factual clarification that changes how they read the recommendation?"
Time how long before you name the outcome
Work Coach records the meetings you run and shows you how many minutes passed before you said what the meeting was for. Rehearse the first minute against a stand-in room.
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Tell each person why they're there
Nancy Duarte's rule for presentations applies directly to a meeting opening: the audience decides whether your idea goes anywhere, so build the message around them. Her shorthand for it, from her 2011 TED talk, is that the audience is the hero and the presenter is the mentor (17:09 in the episode, embedded below).
The audience holds the power. The player below is queued to 19:00, the exact moment Nancy Duarte explains it. Watch on YouTube.
"Who really holds the power in the room of a presentation is the audience. Like, the audience gets to make a choice if they accept or reject your idea, so the balance of power is with them and not you. So it really is the role of the presenter to be the mentor. In myths and movies, the mentor comes alongside the hero. In other words, the presenter should come alongside the audience and help them get unstuck or bring a magical tool."
For a meeting, that means presenting the agenda in terms of what each person is there to do: the customer consequence they care about, the risk they own, or the help only they can give. If several teams are at the table, call each one out by name. "Finance, I need your read on the acceptable downside. Sales, I need you to test the rollout against customer commitments." That gives people a reason to pay attention beyond their own update.
Openings for common meeting types
Weekly project review
- "Our goal today is to confirm whether the launch is still on track and resolve anything that needs cross-team help. We'll review outcomes against the plan, spend time only on red or yellow items, and close with owners and dates. Please keep updates to what changed since last week."
Brainstorm
- "We need three approaches worth testing for first-week retention. For the first 15 minutes we'll generate ideas without evaluating them. Then we'll sort them by impact and effort and choose one experiment to design. Bring evidence, and build on ideas before arguing against them."
1:1
- "I have three things today: a decision on the enterprise account, feedback on last week's presentation, and a career question. The account decision is time-sensitive. What do you want to make sure we cover?"
For the 1:1 case there's more to say than an opening line. The guides to running a 1:1 with your manager and building an agenda when you have nothing to discuss cover the full structure.
Close by checking the outcome
Reserve the last five minutes. Restate each decision, the owner, and the due date. Name anything unresolved and where it gets handled next. Then compare the result with the outcome you stated in the first minute, out loud, so everyone leaves with the same understanding.
Meeting close
- "We chose option B. Priya owns the revised plan by Thursday, and Marco will confirm security capacity tomorrow. The open question is pricing approval, which I own with Finance. That gives us the decision and owners we came for. Is anyone leaving with a different understanding?"
Frequently asked questions
Should I read the agenda aloud?
Explain the route and any time constraints briefly. Don't read every bullet when the list is already visible. What's worth saying out loud is how the sections lead to the outcome.
What if someone wants to add an agenda item?
Ask whether it's required for today's outcome. If yes, adjust the route or the time and say so explicitly. If no, park it, name who owns it, and say which meeting picks it up.
Who should own a meeting?
One person should be accountable for the outcome, the preparation, the facilitation, and the close, even when other people lead parts of the discussion. That matches the Mochary Method's requirement of a named owner for every meeting.
How do I stop a meeting from becoming a series of updates?
Move routine status into prework. Use live time for exceptions, questions, decisions, and work that actually benefits from having everyone together.
The meeting-opening checklist
Before the meeting
- Write the sentence that should be true when the meeting ends.
- Turn each agenda topic into a question or a decision.
- Send prework early, with a reading time and what to look for.
The first minute
- Context: why this conversation is happening now.
- Outcome: what you need by the end.
- Route: the two or three steps that get there.
- Participation: what you need from each person, by name or function.
During the meeting
- Spend live time on exceptions, questions, and the decision, not on rereading prework.
- Park off-route items, name an owner, and say where they go next.
The last five minutes
- Restate decisions, owners, and due dates.
- Name unresolved questions and where they go next.
- Check the result against the outcome you opened with.
Sources
- Lenny's Podcast: Become a better communicator, with Wes Kao (Apr 2025)
- Lenny's Podcast: How to speak more confidently and persuasively, with Matt Abrahams (Mar 2024)
- Lenny's Podcast: Storytelling with Nancy Duarte (Jun 2023)
- The Mochary Method curriculum: meeting guidance sheet and team meeting template
- Mochary Method: Strategies for Successful Executive Meetings, with the CEO of Sonder (Sep 2021)