From Fortune · Preston Fore · · 2m
Databricks CEO: pack your calendar, lose your mind
Ali Ghodsi says cramming meetings into every slot means leaders stop doing real work and become slaves to their schedules.
In brief
Ali Ghodsi says cramming meetings into every slot means leaders stop doing real work and become slaves to their schedules. Databricks CEO Ali Ghodsi compresses his calendar to protect time for strategic work, joining other tech leaders in pushing back against meeting-heavy schedules that prevent actual productivity…
Databricks CEO compresses his calendar
Ali Ghodsi, CEO of the one hundred ninety billion dollar valued Databricks, says the key to scaling isn't more meetings but protecting time from them. He tries to keep his calendar empty so blocks remain free for strategic work.
“I try to compress the calendar. What I mean by that is I try to put nothing on the calendar.”
Monday, Wednesday, Friday focus meetings
At eight a.m. on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, Ghodsi and his team meet to identify the biggest bottleneck facing the company and work together to solve it. He calls this the main thing that will drive ten times growth.
“I want to unblock that big thing that I think is the thing that's going to get us ten x.”
Back-to-back meetings mean lost control
Ghodsi says a day filled with consecutive meetings from eight a.m. to five or six p.m. means he becomes a slave to his calendar, working through everyone else's demands instead of his own priorities. He calls this having monkeys on his back.
“I consider those days I've just been a slave to my calendar. Monkeys on my back, right?”
Most meetings are ineffective anyway
A two thousand twenty-four survey by Atlassian found that nearly three out of four meetings are ineffective at disseminating information. For seventy-seven percent of respondents, meetings simply create more meetings.
Other CEOs are pushing back too
Southwest Airlines CEO Bob Jordan warned that leaders can mistake being busy for being effective. United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby caps his meetings at four hours a day and runs them conversationally without slides. JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon simply says kill meetings.
“Kill meetings.”
Dimon demands full attention when meetings happen
Jamie Dimon says when he attends a meeting, he has done the pre-reads and gives one hundred percent attention. He tells people to close devices if they appear to be reading email or getting notifications, calling it disrespectful.
“When I go to a meeting, I've done the pre-reads, and you get one hundred percent of my attention.”
The one thing
Databricks CEO Ali Ghodsi compresses his calendar to protect time for strategic work, joining other tech leaders in pushing back against meeting-heavy schedules that prevent actual productivity.
