The 'two pizza rule' is a secret to productive meetings that helped Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos become one of the world's richest men

pulse

July 28, 2017 4:26 PM

Jeff Bezos, Amazon CEO and one of the richest men in the world, thinks large meetings are unproductive. That's why he has a "two pizza" rule.

On Thursday, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos became the richest man in the world.

When Amazon's earnings missed expectations and its stock fell later that day, Bezos was dethroned by Bill Gates. As of Friday, Bezos holds the not-too-shabby title of second-wealthiest man in the world, with a net worth of $85.9 billion.

One potential key to Bezos' success is that he minimizes the amount of meetings he takes.

He's said he meets with Amazon investors for just six hours ... a year. And he avoids early-morning meetings at all costs.

One of Bezos' more creative strategies for not losing entire days to unnecessary meetings is the "two pizza rule."

It's simple. The more people you pack into the meeting, the less productive the meeting will likely be. The solution? Never have a meeting where two pizzas couldn't feed the entire group.

Whether you work at Amazon or another company, gathering together a massive squad for your meeting will probably just stifle creativity. In Fast Company, Rachel Gillett writes that "the idea of working within small teams is believed to help diminish various innovation killers like groupthink and social loafing."

And as Business Insider's Rich Feloni reports, other ingredients for a solid meeting include appointing a strong moderator, setting firm ground rules, and ensuring the discussion is relevant to all attendees beforehand.

What's more, writing for Psychology Today, Dr. Adrian Furnham, a professor of psychology at University College London, says that it always helps to manage expectations for meetings.

"Always plan and circulate an agenda before the meetings," he writes. "Get everyone to agree beforehand what the outcomes of the meeting are to be. Take charge of the agenda and the outcomes. Be clear why some are, and are not, on it. Give some idea of the length of the meeting."

While the gist of Bezos' rule is that less is more when it comes to meetings, you can also feel free to take his advice literally and bring two pizzas to your meetings every once and a while. Pizza makes everything better.

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