When I was pitching Big Green Rabbit to the President and CEO of Rocky Mountain PBS and his leadership team, I learned something that changed the way I think about meetings.

Rocky Mountain PBS had one simple rule:

No meeting lasted longer than one hour.

At first, I assumed the rule was about saving time.

It wasn’t.

It was about respecting everyone’s time.

Because everyone knew the meeting would end in an hour, something interesting happened before it even began.

People came prepared.

They knew why they were there.

They had already thought through the issues.

There was no time for rambling, wandering conversations, or endless detours.

The one-hour limit quietly forced everyone to focus on what mattered most.

Ironically, the rule wasn’t really about meetings.

It was about discipline.

I’ve never forgotten that.