Meetings Before the Meeting

There is a meeting before the meeting because the actual meeting cannot be trusted. Not because the topic is too complicated, not always. Sometimes it is complicated, sometimes there are approvals, politics, client sensitivities, budget consequences, legal landmines, and one person who will absolutely ask the question everyone hoped would die quietly in the deck. But often, the meeting before the meeting exists because the organization has stopped believing that a meeting can contain a decision without first constructing a smaller ceremonial enclosure around it.

So we pre-align. Pre-alignment is one of those phrases that sounds responsible until you notice how often it means, 'Let us rehearse the conversation because nobody wants to be surprised by a human being having a reaction in real time.' It is not always useless. A little preparation can save everyone. A private gut check can prevent public chaos. The problem begins when the preparation becomes a second project with its own attendees, risks, emotional weather, and follow-up items.

First there is the pre-read. The pre-read is sent with optimism. It is labeled clearly. It has bullets and context. It has a note that says, 'Please review before our discussion.' This is adorable. The pre-read then enters the inbox swamp, where it is immediately buried under newsletters, automated status updates, system alerts, a reply-all incident, and three messages marked urgent by people with different definitions of urgency.

This is why the meeting before the meeting exists. It is not merely about preparation; rather, it is about damage control. It is a rehearsal for comprehension. It is a controlled burn before the wildfire and it is everyone standing around the deck saying, 'How do we think this is going to land?' while secretly knowing that no one can predict how anything will land once the room contains the full cast of characters.

Then comes the meeting before the meeting before the meeting. This is where the whole thing becomes theater because we are no longer preparing the decision. We are preparing the preparation. We are reviewing the path we will take to review the thing we will later discuss with the people who may or may not have read the material. At this point, the calendar has developed a recursive illness. The work is still waiting outside, smoking a cigarette, watching us schedule one more touch-base about how best to touch base.

There is a strange comfort in this ritual because it gives the illusion of control. If we talk enough before the real talk, maybe the real talk will behave. Maybe the stakeholder will not derail. Maybe the senior person will not ask for a completely different framing. Maybe the client will not reveal a hidden assumption. Maybe the person who approved the thing yesterday will not rediscover uncertainty today. And just maybe the meeting will stay inside the little fence we built for it.

It rarely does. The official meeting still goes sideways. Someone introduces a concern that should have surfaced two weeks ago. Someone asks whether we considered an option that was ruled out in March. Someone says, 'I may be missing this, but...' and everyone instantly understands that they are, in fact, missing this. The deck becomes a crime scene. The pre-read becomes evidence nobody handled properly. The agenda looks up from the table and whispers, 'I tried.' And yet, the meeting before the meeting is not the villain. The villain is the culture that requires three conversations to say one true thing. The villain is the room where clarity is considered risky, accountability is considered abrupt, and every decision has to be softly escorted into existence like a nervous horse.

A good prep meeting has a purpose. It answers: what are we deciding, who owns the call, what information matters, what objections are real, and what can wait. A bad prep meeting becomes a feelings rehearsal for people who refuse to decide until they have safely sampled everyone's anxiety. It converts leadership into choreography. It replaces ownership with vibe-checking.

That is the real cost. Not the thirty minutes. The multiplication. One unclear decision creates a prep meeting. One fragile prep meeting creates a smaller prep meeting. One ignored pre-read creates a recap. One sideways discussion creates a follow-up. Eventually the project is not moving through work. It is moving through rooms.

The cure is not to ban preparation. Preparation is sacred. The cure is to stop confusing pre-alignment with progress. Before scheduling the meeting before the meeting, ask the dangerous questions. What needs to be decided? Who can decide it? What is actually unknown? What are we afraid someone will say out loud? If the answer is, 'We need to make sure everyone feels good,' fine. Say that. But do not call it alignment if what you mean is emotional risk containment with a calendar invite.

Sometimes you need the meeting before the meeting. Sometimes the room is politically loaded, the stakes are real, and a little air cover saves everyone from walking into a fan blade. But if every meeting needs a pre-meeting, the organization does not have a preparation problem. It has a trust problem. Or a decision problem. Or a reading problem. Possibly all three.

The meeting before the meeting before the meeting is funny because it is absurd.

It is exhausting because it is real. It is tragic because somewhere underneath all that choreography is usually a simple sentence trying to get born: Here is the decision we need. Here is who owns it. Here is what happens next. Everything else is noise.