There’s always that moment right after a meeting ends when everyone walks away acting like, yeah, that definitely all made sense. Then an hour later, someone’s like, “Okay, so… what exactly are we doing again?” and then it’s basically unfolded that nobody’s sure anymore. Well, a good chunk of people at least. Okay, so what gives here? What are the mistakes here? Well, meetings move fast, and honestly, the details just slip away before anyone even realizes it happened.
Multitasking During Meetings is Kind of a Trap
Well, the only reason it’s a trap is because people are still expected to. Like, the meeting itself is productive, but it’s still not good enough for whatever. So it’s still expected to listen and engage in the meeting, but maybe respond to emails and texts (if it’s a client or coworker, only of course), maybe do some paperwork, maybe even take notes or transcribe what people are saying. The average person can’t really do all of these at once, but it’s expected to; that’s the problem here.
The brain tries, but it can’t keep up, and while it might help to have transcription services to transcribe the meetings (if it’s being recorded), you’ll still need to stop the expectation of people still being “extra productive” or “productive’ during the meeting itself. Let it actually be a time to engage just within the meeting, and not everything else on top of it.
Big Points Get Lost in Fast Conversations
Well, keep in mind that meetings have this way of jumping around like crazy. Well, most of the time, at least it seems to be that way. So, just think about it for a moment, like one minute, a decision’s made, then the topic flips before anyone actually writes it down. You see the issue here? So people forget, things move on really fast. Besides, people always assume they’ll just remember the important stuff later, but the brain doesn’t exactly care that something was important in the moment.
Remote and Hybrid aren’t Any Different
No, really, it doesn’t make a difference if it’s only or in person; it seriously doesn’t make a difference in the slightest. But it doesn’t necessarily mean there aren’t issues with these (and again, there’s no one that’s better than the other). So, maybe half the team’s in the room, the rest are small rectangles on a screen.
Someone’s on mute, another person’s Wi-Fi glitches right when they’re explaining the plan, and everyone’s trying to pretend that’s normal. Sure, some tech challenges, but outside of tech challenges, just like in person, there’s still communication issues (and even in-person can still have tech challenges too).
Everyone Remembers Things Differently
Well, that, and just generally speaking here, they just all remember different things, too. So, even when everyone’s fully listening, they all latch onto different details. One person hears the deadline loud and clear. Another only remembers the idea they pitched. Someone else barely caught the plan at all because they were still trying to make sense of what happened earlier. Now, you can probably see for yourself here how this could possibly create confusion, right?
