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Meetings Make You Dumber
Maximum Prophet writes "Robert Heinlein once said that the committee was the only life form in the universe with three or more bellies and no brain. MSNBC reports that his statement may have some statistical truth to it. Researchers are finding that meetings are actually bad places to be creative. You're not actually 'dumber' when you're in the meeting, just more likely to lose your creative edge. Studies have now shown that, as collaborative primates, the more often a possibility is mentioned the more likely the group is to go along with it. Individuals placed by themselves were more likely to come up with imaginative alternatives to products, for example."
Meetings Make You Dumber... Researchers are finding that meetings are actually bad places to be creative. You're not actually 'dumber' when you're in the meeting, just more likely to lose your creative edge.
Sounds like someone wrote this writeup while in a meeting...
The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
The point of the article wasn't that meetings are bad. The point was that group think at meetings is bad. The example they gave was that if people go off and develop a list of ideas on their own, the combined list of ideas is longer than if people develop a list of ideas together in the group.
There are two points that are important here. First, a group of people is likely to develop more ideas than a single person regardless of whether the group develops the ideas together or separately. Second, when it comes to choosing one idea from the list of many possible ideas, a well organized group is going to make a better choice than a single individual. In fact, the biggest problem in a poorly run group is that one person makes all the decisions so it is equivalent to a single individual make the choice.
That was basically the point of the article: for a group to be effective it needs to be organized to allow everyone in the group to have input.
Their function is to seek consenus, bring us all up to speed, get everyone reading from the same page, allocate division of labour etc.
Do not try to read the dupe, thats impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth
What truth?
There is no dupe
is that in private corporations there is no way to give a eral opionon and not be fired if it isn't what the boss had envisioned.
The boss want's hoola-hoops with razors on the inside? then you better be a team player and commit 125% to that goal.
You think it's dangerous? not a team player, get out
You think there isn't a market? not a team player, get out
you mention that 100% is pretty much all someone can give without physically harming them selves? not a team player, get out
Forgot to clean the fridge?not a team player, get out
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
It's called "Group Think" and it was a major factor of evidence in the destruction of the Space Shuttle Columbia. We've already read this, been over this, and done this. Is this a presentation of a new idea, or an idea restated in a new light?
Either way, it's always a good idea to realize that in most cases, people are in a situation to satisfy themselves first, then those who are most related to that self next.
I find that in meetings I lead, I spend more time chairing the discussion than growing the actual discussion from the seeds of creation. Group think tends to be the by-product of that one person in your meeting who wont let go of their own idea and continues to bludgeon the group into submission.
Just one loong meeting...
If brevity is the soul of wit, then how does one explain Twitter?
After much discussion we have decided to comment on this absurd proposition that a group cannot write anything creative. Towards responding to this accusation, we propose a set of action items which will form a roadmap for our final response which will be distributed and posted to Slashdot by next Thursday afternoon.
The first action item will be to define what "creativity" actually is. This issue will be discussed at a CD meeting (Creativity Definition Meeting) tentatively scheduled for Monday at 9:45 am. Donuts and coffee will be served.
The results of the CD meeting will be compiled into a compelling Powerpoint presentation and displayed at our weekly Status Meeting on Wednesday at 4:30pm. Please note, we'll all be going out for drinks promptly following the meeting.
Thursday will consist of a full day of intensive focus groups, follow up discussions, and satellite meetings which will put a fine point on the issue of our supposed inability to generate new and compelling ideas. That full day of meetings will be compiled in a pink sheet for distribution to top management prior to our official Slashdot response.
Thank you.
------ The best brain training is now totally free : )
But the Reality is that most meetings suck, are mis-managed and a waste of time. Why these things are true does not matter. They are and they aren't going to change.
So, avoid meetings as much as possible. Use email and the telephone and finally, talk to people in their cubicles/offices. Use the one-to-one means of communicating as much as possible. People will give you more information and more SENSITIVE information in person than they will in a group.
Once you have all of that and you've run through the email/telephone/cubicle cycle a few times, then call a short meeting to make sure that everyone sees everyone else agreeing in public to what they've agreed to.
Meetings suck. Avoid them.