Run Your First Meeting
A 45-minute agenda that ends with roles assigned, one action chosen, and a logged record. No Robert's Rules, no three-hour slog.
A meeting that doesn’t end in a decision is just a support group with worse snacks. This is a tight, forty-five-minute agenda that gets you from “we’re all mad” to “here’s what we’re doing, and here’s who’s doing it.”
Before you start
- Meet somewhere the boss isn’t: a break room off the clock, someone’s kitchen, a library room, a parking lot.
- Phones face-down and silent. The point of meeting in person is that no platform is in the room.
- Someone volunteers to facilitate (keep time) and someone to keep the log (write decisions down).
The agenda
- Name the grievance—10 min. Go around the room. Everyone says, in one sentence, the thing that brought them. Find the version everyone shares.
- Reality check—10 min. What do we actually know? Who else is affected? What has management already said? Separate facts from rumors.
- Assign the three rotating roles—5 min. Facilitator, logkeeper, sentinel (add a treasurer only if you’ll handle money). They rotate in thirty days, so nobody’s locked in. See Roles & Rotation.
- Pick ONE first action—15 min. Small and winnable. A question delivered to management by three people instead of one. A signed letter. A single coordinated ask. Winning small builds the trust you need to win big.
- Log and schedule—5 min. The logkeeper records the decisions and the owner of each. Set the next meeting before anyone leaves.
Facilitation rules that keep it flat
- Nobody runs the meeting twice in a row. Rotate the chair.
- Loudest voice doesn’t win. The facilitator’s job is to pull in the quiet people, not to referee a debate between the two who always talk.
- Decisions get logged, not whispered. If it isn’t in the log, it didn’t happen.
What “done” looks like
You leave with: one named grievance, four roles assigned, one action with an owner, a logged record, and a date for next time. That’s a functioning Orbit.
Next
- Vouching & Trust—how new people join without putting anyone at risk.
- Know Your Digital Rights—before you take that first action at work.