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- Hacker News
- It's simple.
It's the laziest and easiest way to get alignment.
Plus, Not everyone hates it.
It's nice to finally ask Mr A why they said Mr B should be working on login v2 instead of fixing bug b.
Management feels empowered and feels like they know what's going on if everyone meets.
- Why do I feel every meeting has a rambling motormouth that will speak for at least 80% of the meeting, making the most obvious, remedial "points" (with illustrative anecdotes of course and repeating them over and over) and then keep the meeting running late?by runamuck
- Because we're social creatures. We're desperate to foster and measure social consensus. That's why we have so many meetings. We want to see the agreement / concession / enthusiasm / disagreement on people's faces, and then use the social forum to cow them into assenting.
Because this is a base intuition and inclination, we employ this clumsily even in cases where it's not really the right tool for the job.
by everdrive - Meetings are the broccoli of work – widely disliked, but probably good for us anyway.
If you don't like broccoli, it just means you're preparing it wrong. Don't steam it, boil it, or microwave it. Here's how I prep frozen broccoli.
Preheat your oven to 400ºF/200ºC.
As soon as the oven has preheated, put the frozen broccoli into a mixing bowl and drizzle 2tbsp / 30ml of olive oil over it, and toss with your fingers.
Spread the broccoli over a baking sheet, sprinkle a small amount of salt over it, and bake for 20 minutes.
- My dad used to joke that a meeting is where minutes are kept and hours are lost.
Buried in the pdf in different sections
> Managers attend meetings far more frequently and spend substantially more time in them than non-managerial employees.
> Separately, interactions with senior colleagues are associated with stronger wage growth
A meeting is called to coordinate or communicate. Wadge's law of meetings tell you which one is which.
But not all coordination is top down, sometimes you need your manager to go negotiate a point with another division.
And neither is all communication, most often you can impress on others the potential of a new approach or the problems with the existing one.
The only trouble for the neurodivergent among us is that "appearing to pay attention" is also communication, same goes for eye-contact or not stuttering.
Corolllary is that skip meetings at your own risk, decisions will be made and you won't be in the room where it happens. And don't be the person who is not welcome in meetings, that too eventually makes your pay suffer.
by gopalv - A big reason is a lack of agency. I work with large organisations where people cannot or do not know if they can make an executive decision. What to do? Call a meeting with everyone who might have a view on it so that you can then make a decision.
The problem, of course, is when an important person is not available so a decision is not made and then when something comes up mid-week, we need to wait another week to have another meeting.
Give people guiderails, let them try (and fail sometimes) and watch them flourish. On the other hand, tell them that they need permissions from X, Y and Z and watch them do the minimum amount possible.
by lbriner - A tweet I saw a few days ago: "This meeting could have been an email. In fact, it was. But no one replied. That's why it's a meeting now."
What bothers me most about meetings is their duration. There's no need to schedule hour-long meetings.
by edgarvaldes - One reason is that there are a lot of people that refuse to do anything unless there is a meeting.
I work with people that...
* When faced with some well-written, succinct email/text explaining both a problem and supposed solution, will "respond" with "let's discuss this" instead of an intelligent response, taking action as proposed, or even mentioning any particular concerns to be discussed / researched ahead of the meeting. They just need it to be spoon fed to them, and need to be "heard", before anything can happen.
* Will ignore requests to review PRs, or look into problems, for weeks on end. When I ask "what would be a good day next week to block off time to review this?", they'll suddenly spring into action, or say that a meeting is not necessary, but prove that in fact it is by refusing to do anything before the prospect of a meeting is raised.