Marissa Mayer's no-nonsense approach to Google meetings

It seems like when I read stories about Google's internal culture, there are always little nuggets that stand out in my mind. Just like the "80/20" rule that lets most (if not all) Google employees spend 20% of the workweek on personal pet projects (Fridays I believe?). This article over at BusinessWeek got me thinking. Rarely do I see such chaos and structure in the same company, from the founders on down. Is this Jekyll and Hyde behavior reason for Google's ultimate success?

As one who has attended his fair share of meetings -- the majority of which were a complete waste of time due to ineffectual facilitators and inattentive managers -- reading about Marissa Mayer's structure in meetings is quite inspiring. The VP of Product Development at Google holds an average of 70 meetings a week (unlike most managers) -- and one of her main goals is to make sure teams have a firm mandate, strategic direction and actionable information. All this while making participants feel motivated and respected.

That is no small order, and in fact, it is quite a challenge, to say nothing about the meeting subject at hand or the time pressures to continue moving things along. All this, and Mayer is not even 32 years old.

So, just what are Mayer's keys to success at running Google meetings? Below are the six keys, which are apparently more than just words to Mayer:

• Set a firm agenda
• Assign a note-taker
• Carve out micro-meetings
• Hold office hours
• Discourage politics, use data (this one is a kicker in the dog-eat-dog world of corporate America)
• Stick to the clock