Choosing the Right People and Excluding the Wrong Ones

29 Sept 2026 · 2 min

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2:22

In this concise presentation, TJ Walker explains why many meetings drag on: they include too many participants who are not essential to the decision at hand. He proposes a simple two‑step pre‑meeting process. First, review each attendee and ask what specific role they play in the decision—either providing input or making/approving the decision. If a clear role cannot be identified, the person should be removed from the meeting. Second, ensure that anyone who must make or approve the decision is invited. Walker warns against both over‑inclusion, which leads to redundant opinions, interruptions, and slower decisions, and under‑inclusion, which can leave out a required approver and force a follow‑up meeting. For those who still need to stay informed, he recommends sending a summary, video, or audio recording after the meeting. The overall message is that smaller, purpose‑driven meetings are faster, clearer, and more effective.

Chapters

Ultimize. Most meetings are slow, not because people are bad, but because there are too many of them in the room. Yeah, sometimes way too many. Here's a simple way to fix that. Look at your attendee list and ask one question for each person. What role does this person play in the decision? Seriously, what role do they play in this decision? If you can't answer that clearly, Remove them from the meeting. Bye-bye. There are only 2 valid roles. Someone is providing input or someone is making or approving the decision. Everyone else is optional. I've seen meetings where someone like Shania invites 12 people to a discussion that really needs just 5. Now you have more opinions, more interruptions, And more explanations and just more of, you know, everything. People start repeating points. The meeting slows down and the decisions become harder, not easier. Now compare that to a smaller group. The people who are directly involved show up prepared. They're ready to do business. They know why they're there. The discussion is tighter. The decision happens faster. Sometimes a lot faster. Another common mistake is leaving out the one person you actually need. Someone like Daniel, who is final approval, and oops, he's not invited. So the group talks, agrees on a direction, and then says, we'll need to confirm this later. That means the meeting didn't finish its job. You now need another meeting. So before every meeting, do 2 things. Remove people who are not essential to the decision. You're not blackballing someone. It's not a popularity contest. You're just removing them if they're not essential to the decision that has to be made in this meeting. Add anyone who is required to make or approve it. And if you're worried about keeping others informed, don't invite them. Send them a summary afterwards. Send them a video or an audio of the meeting. Smaller meetings are not just faster, they are clearer because the people in the room actually matter to the outcome.