Business acumen shows up everywhere.
Not just in how you read a P&L. Not just in how you allocate capital. Not just in how you talk about
strategy in an offsite. And, not just how you measure business performance.
At a very practical and tactical level It shows up in how you run meetings.
And in 2026, when most work happens in a virtual or hybrid environment, meetings are no longer a “soft skill.” They are one of the most expensive operating systems inside your company.
Think about it.
Every meeting consumes:
- Fully loaded labor cost
- Opportunity cost
- Cognitive energy
- Attention (which has become the scarcest resource in business)
Yet somehow, meetings are treated as “free” or without cost and investment.
As we all hopefully know, they’re not.
Meetings Are the Operating System of Strategic Execution!
In a virtual business environment, meetings are how strategy gets translated into action. They are how priorities get clarified, decisions get made, risks get surfaced, and alignment gets tested.
Or… they’re how time quietly disappears.
Here’s what I’m seeing more and more on client calls:
- Cameras off
- Emails being answered
- Teams and Slack messages are popping up
- People “listening” while clearly doing three other things
And then, to nobody’s surprise, things don’t move.
Deadlines slip. Decisions get revisited. Accountability blurs.
That’s not a culture problem. That’s not an engagement problem. That’s a business acumen problem.
People who truly understand how businesses work understand that meetings are not calendar events. They are economic events.
So, let’s talk about five meeting behaviors that signal strong business acumen, and why they matter far more than politeness or professionalism.
Here are five things you can do within the next hour to ensure you get a return on your meeting investment.
1) The Agenda Is a Strategic Document
If you don’t have an agenda, you don’t have a meeting. You have a conversation.
And conversations are fine. But don’t confuse them with execution.
A strong agenda answers one simple question: How does this meeting support the execution of the business strategy?
Not:
- “General updates”
- “Open discussion”
- “Let’s align.
But:
- What decision are we trying to make?
- What trade-offs are we debating?
- What risks are we mitigating?
- What outputs should exist when we’re done?
If an agenda item doesn’t connect to:
- Revenue
- Cost
- Risk
- Capacity
- Customer impact
- Strategic priorities
It probably doesn’t belong there.
Business acumen means recognizing that time is capital and that agendas determine how you allocate it.
2) Say This Out Loud: “I Expect Full Attention”
This makes people uncomfortable. Which is exactly why it matters.
Stating upfront that you expect full focus isn’t about control; it’s about economics.
When ten people attend a meeting, and only seven are paying attention, you’re paying for ten and getting seven. That’s a bad return. High-acumen leaders normalize focus. They say things like:
“This is a working session. I need full attention so we can make real progress.”
That simple sentence changes behavior.
It also signals something important:
- This meeting matters.
- The decisions matter.
- Your attention matters.
Relying on memory and handwritten, illegible notes is not a serious execution strategy.
Meetings move fast. Ideas overlap. Decisions evolve mid-sentence. Action items get implied but not stated.
Transcription isn’t about documentation for documentation’s sake. It’s about reducing friction after the meeting.
It allows you to:
- Capture decisions precisely
- Avoid “that’s not what I meant” debates
- Move quickly into action planning
High business acumen leaders design meetings with the end in mind, not just the hour itself.
4) Summarize in Real Time
If a meeting ends without a summary, alignment is assumed.
And assumed alignment is usually wrong.
Strong leaders pause and say:
“Let me summarize what I think we decided…”
This does three things:
- Confirms shared understanding
- Surfaces disagreements while everyone is still present
- Creates a clean handoff to execution
This isn’t meeting etiquette. This is risk management.
5) Follow Up Within Three Business Hours (Not Tomorrow)Speed matters. Momentum matters. If notes and actions show up the next day, or worse, two days later, the meeting is already decaying.
Three business hours is the sweet spot:
- People still remember the conversation
- Context hasn’t shifted
- Accountability feels real
The follow-up should be simple:
- Decisions made
- Actions assigned
- Owners named
- Timing clarified
That’s not being efficient, that’s being effective.
Summary
People with strong business acumen don’t complain about meetings; they engineer them.
They understand that meetings are where strategy either turns into execution…or quietly dies.
So, the next time you’re tempted to multitask, skip the agenda, or “circle back later,” ask yourself a more uncomfortable question:
Is this how a well-run business actually operates?
Because in 2026, meeting etiquette isn’t about manners.
It’s about results.
