Spotify banned 2 popular words in meetings — it increased efficiency by several times

Interestingly, the restriction applies only to meetings involving executives.

It turns out that Spotify’s daily executive meetings include a ban on the use of the words «offline» or «later», as they allegedly greatly reduce work efficiency.

«You can’t say the words “offline” or “later” — because that person is in the room», — Gustav Semestram, co-president and COO of Spotify, told the «Invest Like The Best» podcast (via Business Insider).

Such meetings take place every Tuesday and last about three hours — long, since all issues are resolved immediately, without postponement.

«This real-time solution to the problem — is very simple in theory, but incredibly effective in practice. Most companies don’t do it»,” adds Söderström.

Other «strange» the rules of management meetings prohibit bringing direct reports with them — because bosses should be knowledgeable enough about the issues they oversee to explain everything on their own.

At Spotify, the marathon meetings every Tuesday are called the «bets» — process, a structured way to decide what the company will build next. Every six months, one of the vice presidents has to hold their own.

«It’s very similar to the processes of a startup,» says Söderström. «You can’t use the fact that Gustav, Alex or Daniel might like you. It’s like meeting a venture capitalist, we have to be convinced».

During the meetings, «leaders rank» 30-50 presentations from the teams, from which they select the most interesting ideas and return them to the teams for resource allocation and implementation.

«It’s a good mix of bottom-up innovation,» says Söderström, explaining that instead of relying on top managers, Spotify solicits ideas from the entire management team and «all lower levels.«You’re much better at implementing something if you say: “I can do it” than if your boss says you can do it».

Earlier, Söderström spoke about Spotify’s attitude to music created by AI — the platform «welcomes» its presence when it is legally generated, but will never do so itself.

Spotify — is a Swedish media and technology company founded in April 2006 by Daniel Ek and Martin Lorentzon. Its most popular product is its eponymous audio streaming service, one of the largest in the world — by the end of 2024, Spotify will have had 263 million paid subscribers and 675 million monthly active users.

The company’s shares have grown by almost 116% over the past year. Last year in November, Ek sold Spotify shares for $35.8 million — months after reports that he had earned more from them in a year than any other artist on the platform.