So the secret to working effectively is passive aggressive nonverbal cues and interrupting people frequently who may be busy doing something else and weren’t expecting an impromptu meeting?
Has the physical world discovered how to replay past conversations where important decisions were made? Has it become socially acceptable to have long silences of 5-10 minutes while people formulate thoughtful replies in a conversation?
I’ve literally never seen a meeting grind to a halt like that. Instead, meetings are full of half-baked ideas, and I sometimes notice show-stoppers hours later when it’s quiet.
Maybe not in the middle of a meeting but Amazon commonly has the first half of a meeting (I've experienced as long as 20 mins) to read a document by the host altogether silently before starting. People commonly would add comments during this time.
At google, doc reading is done before the meeting along with comments/replies, but during a design review, the host will go through each comment and then open a live discussion if needed.
Both of these formats allow for productive meetings but it does require a culture to support it and people to write down their thoughts ahead of the meeting and share it around.
those don't convey nonverbal communication, and they are so unstructured that they interrupt too frequently
there's something positive about setting time on the calendar and then sitting down with someone (or a group of people) to talk about a specific subject that we've all prepared for. yes, you can do that with Zoom, but then you miss the ability to speak simultaneously and the body language / nonverbal.
not everything should be a meeting, but not everything should be IM / phone calls either. being able to mix and match is what makes in-person somewhat positive (even if I personally prefer a hybrid model)
