Not every meeting needs to produce a decision. Some aren’t meant to move things forward, they’re only meant to bring people into the same picture.
That kind of meeting often feels quieter, the pace is a little slower and there’s time to ask questions that don’t have immediate answers. There's time to notice where people are interpreting things differently.
Shared understanding doesn’t necessarily mean everyone agrees. It does however, mean that people are aligned on what’s true, what’s uncertain, and what matters now. From there, better decisions can be made, but understanding must come first.
In teams where communication moves quickly, it’s easy to skip this part. It's easy to assume that because something was said, it was understood in the way it was intended.
Meetings that serve shared understanding resist that impulse. They create space to pause, clarify, and reconnect around what the team is working toward.
These meetings don’t always feel productive in the traditional sense, but they often do more to build momentum than a checklist of action items ever could.