The Meeting Book: How the Best Companies Meet Better

Proven lessons to make meetings worth it from Kayak.com co-founder Paul M. English

We've all experienced them. Meetings with no clear agenda, too many attendees with no clear role, unprepared presenters, chaotic social dynamics, and no resulting decisions. These kinds of meetings are a millstone around your company's neck.

In The Meeting Book, serial entrepreneur and Kayak.com co-founder Paul M. English shares a bold new vision for transforming meetings from timewasters into engines of innovation. Drawing from decades of experience building and scaling startups, the book combines engaging, first-person stories and hands-on best practices you can apply to your meetings immediately.

You'll learn how companies like Amazon, Intuit, and OpenTable revolutionized the way they run meetings. You'll also discover how to set an agenda that works, inspire your team members, accommodate cultural differences in international settings, and take and analyze informative notes.

The book reveals:

• The habits, formats, and cultural shifts that make meetings energizing and productive
  
• How intentional gatherings can drive clarity, creativity, and connection, illustrated through stories from his ventures and nonprofits
  
• Lessons from his six successful startups: Kayak, Lola, Moonbeam, GetHuman, Boston Light, and Intermute

The Meeting Book is a must-read practical guide for leaders who want to build better teams―one meeting at a time. It shows you how to present information-rich roadmaps, set lofty and realistic goals, make high-stakes decisions, energize people, and grow your company. You'll never look at meetings in the same way again.

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Paul M. English (Author)

Paul English is best known as the cofounder of Kayak, the travel search company. The founder of Boston Venture Studio, Paul has launched and successfully sold six software startups - Boston Light Software, Intermute, GetHuman, Lola Travel & Expense, Moonbeam and Kayak.

Paul has recently cofounded Supercal - software to let you love your calendar, and to help improve your business meetings!

Paul is also the founder of five nonprofit organizations: Embrace Boston, Summits Education in Haiti, The Winter Walk for Homelessness, the Bipolar Social Club, and the Institute for Applied AI.

While The Meeting Book is his first book, Paul is the subject of Pulitzer Prize−winning author Tracy Kidder’s 2016 bestseller, A Truck Full of Money: The Life of an American Entrepreneur.

Paul grew up in Boston, as did his parents, and his first job was delivering The Boston Globe. He is a graduate of Boston public schools and received his BS and MS degrees in computer science from the University of Massachusetts, Boston.