I’m not sure if ‘Tricks’ is the right word. I think I’ll go with ‘strategies’.
If your team is getting swamped with unnecessary meetings -
Strategy 1:
Pick one day a week to not have any meetings for your team. No standup, no touch bases, working groups. Nothing. Take the pressure off for one day where people can actually do the work we hired them to do instead of talking about it.
Sadly this does not apply to leadership.
Strategy 2:
This is a little more sneaky. Tell your team they are not allowed to do more than two hours of meetings per day. If they want to go to more then they need your permission.
Here’s the sneaky part. Do NOT enforce this rule. Let your team enforce it as they feel the need. People setting up meetings will need to contact you to get your folks to join. This slows down meetings for your people by putting one more obstacle in the way when they want to enforce it.