Ever left a meeting and thought, “That was a waste of time”? You’re not alone. Over 70% of employees rate meetings as a waste of time; only 11% find them productive. That’s a failure of leadership.

As a young CEO I focused on customers, selling our products and gaining input for improving them. I hired good people and expected them to do their jobs well. But they weren’t getting much of my time during our brief and irregular meetings and that wasn’t working. So I turned to what most management experts consider a best practice: weekly 1:1 meetings with my Direct Reports. I’ve never turned back, though I have continually improved the process.