Why Senior Leaders Should Stop Having So Many One-on-Ones: What Fertility Tech Can Teach Us About Smarter Communication
Are senior leaders drowning in one-on-one meetings? If you’re like many executives today, the calendar is packed with back-to-back personal check-ins. But a recent Harvard Business Review article, Why Senior Leaders Should Stop Having So Many One-on-Ones, argues this very habit might be doing more harm than good. Instead, small, cross-functional “capability meetings” are emerging as a smarter, more efficient alternative for decision-making and team alignment.
So, what does this have to do with fertility technology? Quite a lot, actually.
The Leadership Time Trap: A Fertility Tech Parallel
MakeAMom, a leader in at-home insemination kits, innovates in a highly competitive, fast-evolving fertility tech space. Their teams must be agile, data-driven, and highly collaborative to keep pace with breakthroughs and customer needs. Yet, if leadership falls prey to excessive one-on-ones, agility can stall, innovation can slow, and team alignment may falter.
The HBR article reveals that senior leaders spend an average of 60% of their time in one-on-one meetings. But these sessions often become routine, lack fresh perspectives, and consume energy that could fuel strategic initiatives. Fertility tech startups and companies like MakeAMom can learn from this by optimizing communication structures to unlock more creative problem-solving and faster product iterations.
Why Capability Meetings Win: Efficiency Meets Innovation
The key insight from the article is that small, cross-functional capability meetings facilitate better knowledge exchange across different areas of expertise. This approach reduces redundant conversations, surfaces diverse insights, and accelerates decision-making. For a company engineering advanced products like the CryoBaby and BabyMaker kits, breaking down siloed communication is critical.
Imagine a weekly capability meeting where R&D, customer success, marketing, and supply chain teams come together—sharing data, user feedback, success metrics, and roadblocks. This collaborative forum can rapidly identify trends like sperm motility challenges or usage sensitivities, informing product tweaks or entirely new kit designs.
Data-Driven Success — A Case in Point
According to MakeAMom’s internal data, their at-home insemination kits achieve a remarkable 67% success rate, a testament to both product quality and continual innovation. Maintaining or improving this rate is only possible when teams communicate effectively, informed by real-world outcomes and customer experiences.
Incorporating structured capability meetings means valuable feedback from users sensitive to conditions like vaginismus or those using low-volume sperm kits (CryoBaby or Impregnator) reaches product developers without delay. This loop minimizes time-to-market for enhancements and maximizes customer satisfaction.
The Cost of Inefficient Communication
Excessive one-on-ones aren’t just a time sink—they can also lead to decision fatigue, reduced morale, and slower innovation cycles. For fertility tech, where timing and precision can mean the difference between conception success or failure, organizations must minimize anything that detracts from focused innovation.
MakeAMom’s model of delivering discreet, reusable home insemination kits aligns with this philosophy. They offer cost-effective, user-friendly solutions that empower individuals and couples outside clinical settings — a prime example of how streamlined, user-centric innovation thrives when internal workflows are optimized.
How You Can Apply This Insight Right Now
Whether you’re leading a fertility tech startup, managing a team in healthcare innovation, or even navigating complex personal fertility journeys, asking yourself how you communicate matters.
- Are your meetings driven by clear objectives?
- Do you involve diverse team perspectives regularly?
- Could some one-on-ones be replaced by dynamic group capability sessions?
For those looking for practical tools inspired by this mindset, MakeAMom’s at-home insemination kits reflect the power of thoughtful design paired with user feedback and cross-disciplinary input—empowering users with effective, accessible fertility solutions.
Final Thoughts: Can Smarter Meetings Help Build the Future of Fertility?
In a world where innovation speed and user-centricity define success, it’s time to rethink how we spend our most valuable resource: time. The research highlighted in the HBR article is a wake-up call for leaders everywhere, including the fertility tech industry.
By adopting small, cross-functional capability meetings, organizations like MakeAMom can continue to deliver cutting-edge, empathetic products that truly meet the needs of their clients.
So here’s the question: Could your leadership style be the bottleneck to innovation? And what’s one change you could make today to unlock your team’s full potential?
Let us know your thoughts below, and if you’re curious about how product innovation in fertility tech is evolving, check out the latest advancements from MakeAMom that are already transforming conception journeys.
Inspired by: Why Senior Leaders Should Stop Having So Many One-on-Ones (Harvard Business Review)