I agree completely, but to me, this speaks to an organizational design issue as much as a scheduling issue. If you have direct reports in N different timezones,

I agree completely, but to me, this speaks to an organizational design issue as much as a scheduling issue. If you have direct reports in N different timezones, and there's almost no functional overlap between some of those timezones and your own, then why are they your direct reports? You are fundamentally incapable of directly managing them, and they are incapable of directly reporting to you. Put a better org structure in place, and shed whatever reasons you have for insisting on those people's directness -- be they playing to people's vanity, an overreaching desire to be "flat," or something else entirely. (Obviously, this is easier said than done. At that level, the politics of moving around direct-reporting lines is going to be a nightmare.) But I do agree. The complexity of scheduling increases dramatically as the number of timezones N increases. You try the best you can to schedule a standing meeting that accommodates everyone. Someone's going to have to make a sacrifice in convenience. As the leader, you should try to find a time that makes a sacrifice on your end, provided it's not too ridiculous.