If you can't explain why someone's in the meeting, they shouldn't be there
This piece was originally shared on LinkedIn in response to recurring conversations with founders and leadership teams around this topic.
I’m publishing it here as part of an ongoing body of thinking around restaurant strategy, market entry, and operational decision-making.
Most businesses drown in meetings because nobody's clear on who actually needs to be there.
I've seen venue project meetings where every senior person is invited, regardless of relevance. Functional discussions duplicated across 12 different project meetings when it should be one.
The problem usually isn't effort - it's unclear accountability. There's a framework that helps clarify this: RACI.
- Responsible does the work
- Accountable owns the outcome
- Consulted gives input
- Informed just needs to know
The issue is that everyone assumes they're "Consulted" when most should just be "Informed." That's an email, not a meeting.
People get invited "just in case" or because someone's worried about offending them and nobody dares decline even when they know it's not relevant.
When accountability is clear, meetings shrink and decisions accelerate.
Since first sharing this, I’ve seen the same issue surface repeatedly — particularly with businesses entering new markets or scaling too quickly. The underlying challenge is rarely strategy itself, but how early decisions constrain execution later.