Cabinet Secretary T V Somanathan

Government officials have been advised not to hold important meetings the day before or after the holiday. Also, complex agenda should not be kept just or after lunch. These are part of an advisory sent by the Cabinet Secretariat to all the secretaries in the Central government.

The advisory, titled ‘Conducting Effective Meeting’, has been prepared by the Cabinet Secretariat with support from the National Centre for Good Governance. The 10-page document, as seen by businessline, compiled all the key issues under six heads. In one of the subheads, ‘Timing of the Meeting,’ it has been said that as far as possible, important meetings should not be held a day before or after a holiday, as there is “greater chances of necessary participants being on leave.”

Further, meetings to consult on an emerging situation can be held at short notice, but meetings to discuss a document or proposal requiring some prior study should be scheduled with adequate notice. Under the subhead of setting the agenda, the advisory said that complex agenda may be broken down into manageable parts for smoother deliberations. “Complex agenda should not be kept just before/after lunch,” it said.

One subhead poses a question, ‘is the meeting essential.’ Here it has been said that if there is requirement for certain specific opinions from specific people, possibly on a sensitive issue, then calling a meeting may not be useful. “People may suffer from herd mentality, and they may not come out with their inspiring ideas in an open meeting because no one wants to upset the status quo. In such cases, a one-o-one interaction may be more fruitful,” the advisory said.  

Time limit

It has called for avoiding long meetings. “A typical meeting duration should be 20/50 minutes so that in case some agenda gets extended or a new topic suddenly comes up for discussion, you may still finish the meeting in 30/60 minutes, excessively long meetings should be avoided,” it said while reminding that longer meetings may sometime be necessary.

The advisory categorized the meetings into two — good or bad, subject to what they have achieved. “At the end of the meeting, if you are able to clearly achieve the outcomes and/or decide the plan of action/timeline for each agenda, it may be called ‘good meeting’.” However, if there was no consensus on the agenda items or the attendees end up confused or if one person dominates the discussion or keeps repeating the points already made, or the required participants arrive late or leave early, or the ‘elephant in the room’ is deliberately not discussed, then such meetings are ‘bad meeting.’

In the accompanying letter to all the Secretaries in the Central government, Cabinet Secretary T V Somanathan called for civil servant taking care of small things and see by changing them in daily official routine, “we can achieve better output or reduce our stress level or both.” These small things could include how the meeting is conducted, time management, communication with peers/superiors/subordinates, engaging visitors, motivating teams and delegating important responsibilities to them.

Explaining why ‘Conducting an Official Meeting,’ has been chosen as the first guide, Somanathan wrote that meetings consume a lot of time for officials. “Many officers have told that me that many of our meetings tend to start late, be overstretched and directionless and often lead to no tangible takeaways,” he wrote.

Published on June 25, 2026