The Guesthouse Meeting Practice

Our Philosophy

At Guesthouse, we believe your time is sacred—and we believe it should be spent on what matters most: delivering best-in-class hospitality. Every hour in a meeting is an hour not spent refining an experience, solving a guest challenge, or being present in The Hall.

If something can be communicated in writing, it should be. If it requires discussion, we come prepared. This isn't about creating bureaucracy. It's about protecting the time we need to practice hospitality at the level we aspire to.

Meetings are more than necessary—they are essential for collaboration. But they require work to allow us all to be great in the meeting. That work happens before we walk in the door.

The Core Principle

Before scheduling a meeting, ask yourself: "Can I communicate this in a brief?" If yes, write the brief. If the brief reveals the issue is more complex than you thought, then you've earned the meeting—and everyone will arrive prepared.

The Structure: Situation-Complication-Resolution

This three-part framework comes from management consulting (popularized by McKinsey in the 1960s) and has been adopted by Amazon, many startups, and high-performing teams because it works. It forces you to separate what's happening (situation) from what's wrong or changing (complication) from what should be done about it (resolution).

When you write this way, fuzzy thinking becomes obvious. Gaps reveal themselves. And the people reading your brief arrive ready to engage with your actual thinking rather than trying to figure out what you're asking for.

The Amazon Story: Why Writing Matters

Writing Forces Clear Thinking

In 2004, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos banned PowerPoint presentations from executive meetings. Instead, he required teams to write six-page narrative memos. The meetings would begin with 30 minutes of silence while everyone read.

His reasoning was simple: writing forces clear thinking. You can't hide behind vague bullet points when you have to construct complete sentences. If you can't articulate the situation, the complication, and your proposed resolution in prose, you haven't thought it through yet.

"There is no way to write a six-page, narratively structured memo and not have clear thinking."

— Jeff Bezos

How This Works at Guesthouse

We use a simpler format than Amazon's six-page memos, but the principle is identical: writing forces clear thinking, and clear thinking leads to better decisions.

THE GUESTHOUSE BRIEF FORMAT

Situation: What's the current state? What context does everyone need?

Complication: What's the problem, opportunity, or decision? Why does this matter? What happens if we don't address it?

Resolution: What's your recommendation? This is where you show your thinking—not just state an opinion.

A resolution might be a sketch—a potential addition to the campus, or annotations on a photograph showing what could change. It might be technology that solves the problem you've identified. It could be something to read—an article, a case study, a framework from another industry. It might be a recipe, literally (Quinten proposing a new breakfast approach) or figuratively (a repeatable process for handling a recurring situation).

The resolution should also address: What are the alternatives you considered? What would you do if you were deciding alone? What do you need from this meeting—a decision, input on tradeoffs, help identifying what you're missing?

When to Write a Brief vs. Have a Meeting

Write a Brief When:

You need to inform, propose, or recommend something. The brief might be sufficient on its own. If people have questions, they can comment or reply. You've saved everyone time.

Schedule a Meeting When:

The brief reveals complexity that requires real-time discussion, multiple perspectives need to align on a decision, or creative problem-solving needs the energy of being together. But send the brief first.

Meeting Structure (When You Need One)

Length: 30 Minutes Maximum

If you need longer, you probably need a different format or clearer scope. Respect that everyone has work to return to.

Calendar Invite Must Include:

Link to the brief (required reading)
Clear decision or outcome needed
Who needs to attend vs. who should be cc'd on outcomes

Optional Attendance:

If someone is optional, say so explicitly. They can read the brief and outcomes without attending. This isn't rude—it's respectful of their time.

Meeting Structure:

First 5 minutes: Silence. Everyone reads or re-reads the brief.
Next 20 minutes: Discussion focused on the resolution needed.
Final 5 minutes: Confirm decision, next actions, who owns what, timeline.

Why This Matters for Guesthouse

We're building something that requires both operational excellence and creative thinking. That combination only works when we're thoughtful about how we use our collective time and intelligence.

Writing a brief before a meeting isn't extra work. It's the work. If you can't articulate the situation, complication, and resolution in writing, you're not ready for the meeting. The brief will show you what you don't know yet.

This practice honors two things simultaneously: the complexity of what we're building, and the value of everyone's time. Both matter at Guesthouse.