The Rashomon meeting!

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Imagine a bunch of really, really smart people in a room... but they also had me. :-/

They meet, talk to leadership, feel like they had a great meeting and then go away. They're pumped and excited about the great discussion they had.

Now fast forward to a week later - I find the Rashomon effect in full force.

Everyone agreed (more or less) on what was said at the meeting, but most had drawn slightly (in some cases significantly) different conclusions as to what to do next.

This is hardly unusual and extremely understandable - everyone came in with slightly different view points and ideas, and so focussed on (or extrapolated) different parts of the discussion. As a result they drew different conclusions.

Now this shouldn't have happend and wouldn't if we'd run the meeting like all Google meetings should be.

Moral of the story:

  1. Take notes - always. Make sure you appoint a note-taker at the start of the meeting or before it.                                                                                                                                   
  2. Make sure the note-taker distributes notes quickly right after the meeting to everyone that was there and everyone else that may be relevant.
    That way there are no surprises and everyone leaves on the same page - or the debate on what to do next happens right away.
Else the punishment could be steep  - you may need to have another meeting.

Ick.





Comments

Shailesh said…
I think its also worth discussing the format of meeting notes. Verbatim transcription vs. a summarized bullet point list of status updates, decisions taken and action items assigned.
5:02 PM
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