By Linda Dulye, President/Founder, Dulye & Co. and Dulye Leadership Experience

Employees’ return to office has been called the most urgent concern for CEOs and their organizations. That’s PARTIALLY true.

RTO mandates, desks, and chairs won’t bring an office back to life. After years of remote and hybrid work, managers and employees are rusty, reluctant, or both when it comes to in-person interactions.

Having spent my career advancing the Spectator-Free Workplace™—working for and with Fortune 100s—I’ve seen firsthand that the biggest barrier to teamwork, morale, and communication isn’t office policies.

It’s BAD MEETINGS.

Meetings are broken. They drain time, energy, and motivation because participants are passive rather than actively engaged in planning, participating, and following up on a meeting experience.

Fix meetings, and you’ll fuel RTO engagement.

Get started by raising your self awareness. How many of these dynamics happened in your meetings today?

✅ Clear purpose with relevant discussion topics
✅ Structured agendas with time stamps
✅ Assigned facilitator, note taker and other roles
✅ Active and respectful conversations
✅ Identified outcomes and next steps
✅ Evaluation for continuous improvement
✅ Quick, effective communication of action items

If you didn’t check all the boxes, it’s time for a reset.

Performance change demands a shift in paradigms, standards and culture. Like the Philadelphia Eagles’ Super Bowl LIX win, great meetings require a total team effort–not just a top-down mandate.

Fix meetings and you’ll give RTO a real lift. The question is: What are you doing to make every meeting count?