102 lines
3.2 KiB
Markdown
102 lines
3.2 KiB
Markdown
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[VISUAL]
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"Welcome back to The Readme. Today we are talking about a corporate epidemic. We are talking about trading time for the comfort of 'busy'."
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"This is the case against undefined recurring meetings."
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[CLICK]
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"We all know the 10:00 AM grid. You log in, and you look at a screen of boxes. One person is talking, while the rest are nodding, checking their phones, emailing, or just completely zoned out."
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"We need to be honest with ourselves. Status updates are not work."
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[CLICK]
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"What this really is, is organizational procrastination disguised as collaboration. It feels like work, but nothing is actually getting done."
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[CLICK]
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"The biggest issue is how we account for the cost of these meetings. We look at a one-hour calendar block and think it costs one hour."
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[CLICK]
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"But if there are ten engineers in that meeting, the actual cost is ten hours of cumulative labor."
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[CLICK]
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"Think about it in financial terms. Would you pay a $25,000 invoice with no proof of services rendered? Because that is exactly what you do when you run a year of undefined weekly syncs."
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[CLICK]
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"Beyond the raw time, there is a hidden tax. These meetings destroy deep work."
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"First, we have context switching. It takes 20 to 30 minutes to recover focus after an interruption."
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[CLICK]
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"Second, your flow state is interrupted. The actual work we do, such as coding, writing, and designing, requires long, uninterrupted blocks of time."
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[CLICK]
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"Finally, there is recovery syndrome. This is the mental fatigue and increased cortisol spent cooling off after a bad meeting."
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[CLICK]
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"So why do these meetings go off the rails? It comes down to human psychology."
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[CLICK]
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"The first culprit is Parkinson's Law of Triviality. Groups gravitate toward the easiest topics to discuss, not the most important. For example, you will spend 45 minutes debating a $500 bike shed while rubber-stamping a $10M project."
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[CLICK]
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"The second is Social Loafing. When you pack a room, there is a subconscious belief that someone else will pick up the slack. The result is a group less productive than the sum of its parts due to diffusion of responsibility."
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[CLICK]
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"Now, the common defense is that we need alignment."
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"If one person is talking and everyone else is listening, you are solving a Data Transfer problem."
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[CLICK]
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"And a meeting is a massive inefficiency for transferring data."
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"Synchronous communication is the most expensive medium."
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"Round-robins hold the room hostage to the slowest speaker."
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"And the simple fact is that the average adult reads much faster than they speak. Put it in a document."
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[CLICK]
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"To fix this, I use a strict framework. Before sending the invite, answer these 5 questions."
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[CLICK]
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"One: Why are we having this meeting?"
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[CLICK]
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"Two: What specific decision or deliverable will come out of it?"
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[CLICK]
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"Three: How will the time allocated actually be used?"
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[CLICK]
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"Four: Who needs to be there and why?"
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[CLICK]
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"And Five: Who has the final say on the decision or deliverable?"
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"If you cannot answer these, delete the invite."
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[CLICK]
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"Presence does not equal productivity."
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"Stop trading your most valuable resource for the comfort of appearing busy. Cancel your undefined meetings, and get back to work."
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