Green Light and Red Light in Meetings: A Practical Guide

In previous posts, I’ve discussed the importance of letting the team do the talking and the need for leaders to stay quiet in meetings. It’s human nature to trust the person with the most authority in the room, so when leaders speak first, it often steers everyone else’s thinking. That’s why, when you’re working through problem-solving or planning for the next quarter or year, it’s essential for the leader to step back, ask open-ended questions, and let the team explore their ideas fully.

One effective approach I’ve adopted is dividing meetings into “green light” and “red light” phases. In the green light phase, there are no bad ideas—none. I tell the team that this is a safe space where we aren’t commenting on or criticizing any ideas. We’re simply collecting them. We write every idea on a whiteboard, whether I’m jotting them down or someone else volunteers. During this time, it’s important to avoid interrupting, even if an idea seems off-base. Often, what sounds outlandish becomes the seed of a breakthrough.

Embracing the silence is key. In green light, silence means people are thinking, and as a leader, the best thing you can do is keep quiet and let them continue thinking. The green light phase may take 20–30 minutes of a meeting, or however long the team needs to get all their thoughts out. After that, we consolidate ideas, grouping similar ones into buckets. Once everything’s organized, we move into the red light phase.

In red light, the team starts evaluating and narrowing down ideas. This part can be tricky since leaders naturally want to take charge, but it’s essential to keep the team engaged in the process. To help, I use a simple grading system: which ideas have maximum impact with minimal effort? These are the low-hanging fruit—the ideas we can act on quickly with a high return. Then, we consider ideas that will require significant effort but have the potential for maximum impact. These go on a longer-term action list. Finally, we set aside ideas that offer minimal impact and low effort—those get saved as “maybes” for future consideration.

Throughout the red light phase, ask questions like: Will this idea make it easier for clients to work with us? Will this remove friction from our client experience? Will it simplify our team’s work? If it doesn’t, it’s likely not a constraint that your team needs to tackle now. With this structure, we allow for open brainstorming and constructive evaluation, ensuring that the best ideas emerge while staying focused on what truly moves the business forward.

A great example of this process in action was a meeting with my team at a previous business, where we were discussing how to increase conversions. Our marketing leads were coming in strong, and our inside sales team was booking appointments at a steady rate, but conversions at the appointment stage were slipping. We did a green light meeting and threw out a ton of ideas. Interestingly, someone from a completely different department totally divorced from the sales department suggested an idea they called “the first five.” The idea was for sales directors to support new team members through their first five transactions. They’d review every detail—from paperwork to competitive market analysis and proposals—and, whenever possible, even join them on appointments.

When we narrowed down ideas in the red light phase, we realized “the first five” was the one we wanted to pursue as a team. It had an immediate positive impact on our conversions. One of the best parts of green light/red light meetings is that the best ideas can come from people who aren’t directly connected to the problem. Sometimes, that distance from the problem allows them to see solutions more clearly.