World Vision Canada: Meeting Madness

In late 2019, the chief people officer at World Vision Canada was feeling overwhelmed. Eighteen months earlier, she had exited her intense and successful career in the private sector to join World Vision Canada, a leading international development charity. While she embraced the organization’s mission-driven ethos of collaboration and collegiality, it had led to an excess of meetings. In just the past week, she had attended more than 100 meetings. Was it time to resurrect the organization’s previous attempts to address its meeting culture? What roadblocks had prevented the success of those previous attempts? How could the chief people officer continue to be an advocate for a culture of collaboration and inclusivity while also ensuring a change to the meeting culture?