Stop Wasting Meetings on Status Updates: 200+ Managers Share About Team Accountability

If you’re still using meetings to check in on project status, here’s a hard truth:
It’s not just inefficient—it’s a red flag.

Over the past year, I spoke with managers at more than 200 companies across industries. I asked how they run their teams, manage accountability, and stay aligned.

One pattern came up again and again:
Too many teams are using meetings as a crutch for poor accountability.

The Real Cost of Status Meetings

When meetings are used to check on tasks—"Did you finish that thing?" or "Where are we on this?"—it’s a sign that your team lacks a shared system of accountability.

And it’s expensive. Time spent in low-leverage meetings is time not spent on creative problem-solving, building relationships, or moving work forward.

According to Harvard Business Review, the average employee switches tools 1,200 times a day and loses nearly 4 hours a week just toggling between platforms. If you add status meetings on top of that? You’re compounding the problem.

What High-Performing Teams Do Differently

High-performing teams don't need meetings to track work—they do that asynchronously.
They:

• Align around a single, accessible task management tool

• Update action items before meetings (or instead of them)

• Use meeting time for strategic discussions, creative thinking, and real-time decisions

And the key driver behind all of this?

Accountability.
Not top-down micromanagement. Not tool overload. But a team-wide commitment to ownership and visibility.

Two Steps to Fix Your Meeting Problem

Here’s how to shift your team from meeting-driven updates to async accountability:

1. Choose one easy and accessible place to manage your team’s tasks

It has to be somewhere your team already works. If you’re relying on project management software no one checks, you’re just creating more noise.

2. Change the culture around meetings

Make it a norm to update task lists before each sync. That way, meetings start with full visibility—and if everything’s on track, you can cancel the meeting altogether.

Bonus: Use Chaser to Make Task Management Easy in Slack

If your team already lives in Slack, Chaser can take care of everything above—without requiring your team to learn a new tool.

Chaser lets you:

• Assign, manage, and update tasks directly in Slack

• Turn Slack messages into action items in one click

• Automate reminders and get status updates—before your meeting even starts

The best part? Chaser keeps your team accountable without adding friction. It meets them where they already work.

Try Chaser Free

Final Thoughts

Meetings should be used for collaboration,  not task tracking.
If your 30-minute check-ins are just status reports, it’s time to try something new.

Does your team have a way to track work without meetings?