Start with the Ending

A Distributed Work Tool

The Tool

“Start with the Ending” is the practice of beginning a meeting by stating what the ideal outcomes of the meeting are. 

This helps meeting attendees understand the clear purpose of the meeting. It’s even more important to establish an outcome in virtual spaces, where people tend to start meetings without a clear purpose.

You don’t ever want people leaving a meeting and asking themselves, “What was that for?” The best way to avoid that is to start a meeting with people knowing exactly what it’s for.

Start with the Ending v. Start with the Topic

Lots of people start meetings with the topic. But it is not enough to just say “Today’s meeting is about new updates” or “Today we want to learn about our target market,” and then just dive in.

A good “Start with the Ending” has details. It is focused on objectives and process. While it doesn’t always need to be as detailed as the example below, you should often strive to establish an outline of the meeting goals at the beginning.

The Science of This Tool

Narrative: “Start with the Ending” creates a narrative that brings the audience into a story. It establishes the cause and effect of the meeting and the role the audience is meant to play. This practice fits well with how the brain works. The brain both processes information well in narrative form and is constantly seeking to understand its experience through narrative structure.

Structure: The tool fits people’s need for structure, which is especially strong when people are in novel or stressful environments.

Goal Focus: The mind has limited capacity and is goal-oriented. It attends to information that is relevant to one’s actively pursued goals and ignores information that is not relevant. If you do not begin with the ending, then everyone might have different ideas regarding the meeting’s goal(s), which means everyone in the room will be attending to information differently and may ignore important points. So you start with the ending to focus and align the ways your team members’ brains will process information.

For more on “Start with the Ending” and other tools, see OYF’s Distributed Work Toolkit.