The Vegas Rule and 4 Other Proven Rules for Great Meetings

Successful teams have a high degree of psychological safety. Here are five ground rules to help you run more successful meetings.

I've been coaching for more than 20 years now, working with dozens of teams and facilitating hundreds of meetings, both large and small. Although each meeting varies with different people and different objectives, there are some core principles and practices I use in all of them.

One of the key meeting practices I use is establishing ground rules. Simply put, these are agreements that the team makes about how they will conduct themselves to ensure they stay focused, be productive, and achieve desired outcomes.

Here are five key ground rules focused on creating safety in the meeting, as safety is critical to addressing the real issues a team needs to discuss. Without these ground rules, a team is either likely to avoid the issues altogether, or if they do tackle them, they risk creating more issues than making progress.

1. The Vegas rule

The foundation of safety is knowing that what you say will be held in confidence. If you're worried that what you say could reach someone you don't expect or want, you'll quickly edit and limit what you say to protect yourself. Worse, if you assume confidentiality and it's broken, you'll likely never trust the person or situation again, killing open and honest communication.

Don't just assume confidentiality. At the start of every session I run with any team, we explicitly state the Vegas rule. We agree that what happens and is said in a meeting stays in the meeting. If anything comes up that someone needs to take outside of the meeting, they must get everyone's permission first.

2. Tackle issues, not people

While I want everyone to be nice and respectful, I also want them to address issues directly. I want them to lean into these topics and express what they think and feel. The challenge is if people make personal attacks or perceive things as personal attacks, then everyone will get defensive and likely counterattack and/or shut down.

The solution is to ensure people focus on the issue and don't make things personal. Comments and criticism should address the issues, behaviors, and dynamics, not the people. If something comes across as personal or someone takes something personally, we stop, reframe, and create safety until we can proceed productively.

3. Yes, and ...

Years ago, I took an improv workshop. While I didn't last long in doing comedy, I carried with me an idea that I've applied to the meetings I facilitate today. When doing an improv session with others, one of the foundational rules is not to contradict or negate the other partner's storyline. If someone says the sky is green, you don't correct them. You just build on it. This allows the scene to grow and evolve rather than fall flat.

In meetings, I have people remove "but," "however," "no," and "maybe" and have them use the phrase "yes, and ..." to start any response. Even if they are going to completely contradict the person, they just need to start with "yes, and ..." This keeps the conversation going and prevents things from shutting down and people clamming up. Give it a try.

4. Equal airtime

One key habit of the best teams is that everyone has a chance to speak, and everyone's voice is truly heard. Research shows that when everyone on the team speaks about the same amount of time during the meeting, team performance improves. Members regulated themselves from monopolizing the conversation and made a point of engaging and sharing their thoughts.

I encourage my teams to strive for an equal airtime policy. For some, this means they need to think about their point, be focused, and not ramble. For others, it's about speaking up, saying what they are thinking, and participating more in the discussion.

Generally, people know who is in which camp. If you want to get fancy, there are some fun apps and virtual meeting plugins that track talk time and will publish the data after the meeting. It's great feedback.

5. Enter the danger

Often, I find that teams want to avoid difficult and sensitive topics. Typically, they want to decrease friction or hard feelings. While keeping things pleasant is understandable, it usually leaves a team stuck and unable to improve. The issues that typically hold a team back are often complex and can come with some strong feelings. But avoiding them doesn't fix the problem.

By invoking "enter the danger," we agree not to shy away from difficult conversations or topics. I encourage members to check in with their gut. If something feels uncomfortable or gives someone a sinking feeling, it probably means we need to talk about it. By taking the risk and bringing it up, we create the opportunity for important issues to be discussed and resolved.

I have dozens of other ground rules I use in meetings to keep things focused and on topic, but these are the most important ones, and I always start with them. Without safety and ensuring we can really dig into the topics and issues that are holding a team back, we'll stay on the surface, and the team will remain stuck. If we want higher levels of performance, we need to dig deeper into the issues.