Pre-pre-meetings
« previous post | next post »
The Indeed Editorial Team explains to us ("What Is a Pre-Meeting? (Plus Benefits and How To Host One", 8/18/2024) that
A successful meeting engages attendees, achieves organizational objectives and allows professionals to make informed decisions in an allotted time frame. Before the actual event occurs, employees may gather for a pre-meeting to help them prepare. Reserving time for a pre-meeting can enable you and your teammates to strategize for the official meeting by answering questions, developing checklists and preparing venues for presentations.
A 9/16/2024 note from Amazon CEO Andy Jassy ("Strengthening our culture and teams") explains that
As we have grown our teams as quickly and substantially as we have the last many years, we have understandably added a lot of managers. In that process, we have also added more layers than we had before. It’s created artifacts that we’d like to change (e.g., pre-meetings for the pre-meetings for the decision meetings, a longer line of managers feeling like they need to review a topic before it moves forward, owners of initiatives feeling less like they should make recommendations because the decision will be made elsewhere, etc.).
This reminds me of something that happened to me 25 years ago. As I wrote in "Recursive responsibility" (9/27/2009)
In 1989, shortly before I left the industrial research job that I had held for the previous 15 years, corporate headquarters appointed me to a committee to decide on a procedure for evaluating methodologies for prioritizing follow-up actions in the wake of a "technology portfolio fair" where researchers had explained new technologies to heads of product development in various branches of the company.
We weren't authorized to decide what to do, nor even to suggest priorities for alternative actions, nor yet to suggest a methodology for assigning priorities to alternative actions, nor for that matter to evaluate alternative methodologies for assigning priorities to alternative actions. Instead, we were tasked with designing a procedure for evaluating methodologies for assigning priorities to possible decisions. From a certain perspective, the mere ability to conceive and communicate such a task was a triumph of the human intellect.
My level of admiration for this achievement was not unconnected to my decision to move to academia.
Philip Taylor said,
September 25, 2024 @ 9:44 am
"My level of admiration for this achievement was not unconnected to my decision to move to academia" — where, if you were as unlucky as I and my colleagues were, you would find that after several idyllic and productive decades, management consultants were brought in. After which, being "tasked with designing a procedure for evaluating methodologies for assigning priorities to possible decisions" would not only be typical but which would in fact be amongst the least of the new evils that said consultants wrought upon your establishment — somewhat more disturbing would be the fact that you were constantly reminded that you were now working for a business, which had clients or customers, rather than an establishment devoted to research and teaching and which had students, post-grads and staff ("faculty", in <Am.E>).
jin defang said,
September 25, 2024 @ 10:05 am
alas, good folk, academia has been beset by the same proliferation of 'teams'—an icon for which spontaneously inserted itself onto my computer screen several years back—and administrators whose 'duties' encompass things jin would never have guessed needed attention. They write lots of memos to each other and to us who, to borrow Dr. Taylor's words, thought we were an establishment devoted to research and teaching and which had students, post-grads and staff ("faculty", in ). The students are our customers, to be kept happy by all means possible, and their tuition or donations as alumni, the basis of our business model.
Victor Mair said,
September 25, 2024 @ 10:26 am
Reminds me of prenuptial agreements.
From The American College of Trust and Estate Counsel:
=====
A prenuptial agreement, commonly known as a prenup or premarital agreement, is a legally binding contract signed by a couple before marriage, specifying how their assets, debts, and spousal support will be handled in the event of divorce or death.
=====
Seems like it would take much of the fun out of marriages / meetings even before they happened.
David Marjanović said,
September 25, 2024 @ 12:01 pm
Well, yeah. American universities, and British ones increasingly, really do have customers – the students' parents have to pay so much money for the students' right to study that they feel like they've purchased an academic title. They'll even come in and complain, instead of sinking through the floor in shame, if their child was given a grade other than A.
Tuition fees lead to grade inflation. Unexpected, but observed.
Yuval said,
September 25, 2024 @ 12:25 pm
2024-1989 != 25…
Yuval said,
September 25, 2024 @ 12:38 pm
@DM: According to this documentary film, this problem has been pervasive already in the 1960s.
Roscoe said,
September 25, 2024 @ 12:43 pm
Curb Your Enthusiasm re: "having a meeting about having a meeting":
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sS8TOdMCf38
J.W. Brewer said,
September 25, 2024 @ 2:08 pm
Just as it is naive (cf the entire sociolinguistics literature) to assume that the sole or primary purpose of human language is to facilitate the unambiguous communication of truthful information, it seems naive to assume that the sole or primary purpose of a supposedly imortant "meeting" in the corporate world is to "allow[] professionals to make informed decisions in an allotted time frame." Bring in the anthropologists, and they'll be able to explain how sometimes the purpose of the meeting is to ritually enact and publicly solemnize a decision that was already made de facto before the meeting started. (So you naturally need other, generally more low-key events/gatherings to make the "real" decision beforehand.)
Ebenezer Scrooge said,
September 25, 2024 @ 3:42 pm
This reminds me of oral arguments in appellate courts. Typically, the case is briefed by the lawyers well in advance of oral argument. As the wisdom goes, lawyers win appellate cases on their briefs, not on oral argument. But a lawyer can easily lose a case in oral argument.
Similarly with meetings. The relevant decision is usually made before the meeting. But if management has three neurons to rub together, the decision is a tentative one, subject to a reading of the room.
Benjamin E. Orsatti said,
September 25, 2024 @ 4:02 pm
Let us not forget government meetings, which — according to most state Sunshine Acts and their Federal equivalents — CANNOT be mere pantomimes of former, secret deliberations.
J.W. Brewer said,
September 25, 2024 @ 4:23 pm
Note that Mr. Orsatti is using "CANNOT" in its "is not permitted or authorized" sense rather than in its "would be logically or physically impossible, logistically impracticable, or even so unusual in practice as to be unexpected" sense(s). Although I am not one of those who peeve at those who phrase questions seeking permission as "Can I" rather than "May I" since I accept the existence of those multiple senses.
Benjamin E. Orsatti said,
September 25, 2024 @ 4:50 pm
Isn't "cannot" the inverse of "shall"? To wit:
65 Pa. Stat. and Cons. Stat. Ann. § 704
Official action and deliberations by a quorum of the members of an agency shall take place at a meeting open to the public unless closed under section 707 (relating to exceptions to open meetings), 708 (relating to executive sessions) or 712 (relating to General Assembly meetings covered).
J.W. Brewer said,
September 25, 2024 @ 5:29 pm
@Benjamin O.: Some other Pennsylvania statutes use "shall not" to express prohibition and related concepts. Not saying "cannot" doesn't in some contexts bear the meaning, but for statutory-drafting purposes I might favor "shall not" as less ambiguous. Even though "Grammatical errors shall not vitiate a statute." 1 Pa. C.S. § 1923(a).
Benjamin E. Orsatti said,
September 25, 2024 @ 5:44 pm
See, that's the rub, then, isn't it? I agree 100% from the POV of statutory construction, but it just doesn't sound "colloquial" to say, in a blog comment, "government meetings […] SHALL NOT be mere pantomimes of former, secret deliberations", so what have I got left other than "CANNOT"? "MAY NOT"? The potential for ambiguity nearly shouts itself.
Languagings is toughly.
Julian said,
September 25, 2024 @ 6:20 pm
There's this naive stereotype that private enterprise is lean and efficient, while the public service is stodgy, rulebound and authoritarian.
I've never worked for a big private company, but I suspect (correct me if I'm wrong) that the truth is more like, small organisations tend to be be lean and efficient, while big ones tend to be stodgy, rulebound and authoritarian, across the spectrum.
J.W. Brewer said,
September 25, 2024 @ 7:03 pm
@Benjamin O.: Well, I think, for example that "you MAY NOT drive over 25 mph within the city limits" is a bit better than "you CANNOT drive over 25" ditto. In your comment upthread, maybe recast the sentence from "government meetings CANNOT X" to "it is illegal for government meetings to X." Or "government meetings CANNOT legally X," so the relevant sense of "cannot" is made so overt and blatant by the addition of the adverb that no one can get distracted by "CANNOT, you say? but in practice they do it all the time!" concerns.
Jenny Chu said,
September 26, 2024 @ 2:03 am
@Julian, I have worked for private enterprises both large and small. Big ones can move fast and powerfully when they want to. But they turn very slowly. Meanwhile, small enterprises can pivot and be nimble, but it's difficult for them to get big things done because they are rarely powerful enough. For example, small firms come up with new corporate jargon but big firms popularize it. The "aircraft carrier vs sailing sloop" is a common and accurate comparison.
Peter Taylor said,
September 26, 2024 @ 4:46 am
Does "MUST NEVER" sound colloquial enough and unambiguous?
Mark P said,
September 26, 2024 @ 9:05 am
Back 50’years ago when I was a newspaper reporter, it was routine for the rural county commissions I covered to have pre meetings before the official meeting. They would discuss or argue about issues, come to a decision, and then go into the official meeting, go through the motions, and then make the decision official. The pre meeting was not closed to the public, but it was not publicized. I attended the pre meetings as a reporter.
Julian said,
September 27, 2024 @ 4:55 pm
"We weren't authorized to decide what to do….."
Great writing, incidentally.
JPL said,
September 28, 2024 @ 1:02 am
Since the university is (and has been) the only place, certainly not in the business world, which is devoted to pure inquiry, I suggest we start a movement to take it back, with the rallying cry, "Make the world (and especially the university) safe for enthusiasts!" (in George Sarton's sense).