The Meeting

You go to meetings; so do I. If the meeting is small with just a few attending, and if the meeting about a specific topic, much can be accomplished.  Attendees are not only on the same page but often on the same sentence or even same word.  Focus, sift, winnow, achieve, do.  Move on.  Love it.

Such is not the norm.  Let's talk about big meetings with lots of folks, with vague directives, with no clear focus, and without any central core other than generalized commands.  For example, "We need to get a grant," or “We need more profits for the third quarter,” or some such thing. I've been to lots of these meetings and you too.  

Much time is brainstorming; that is, with conversants storming all with a blizzard of ideas, most of which are little more than chaff or specks on the wall.  

Some do this just to participate.  A new idea is thrown out, not because it is relevant, but because it hasn't been mentioned earlier. (You get participation points.) The thrower feels good having said something, maybe believing it is key, knowing he/she contributed, but not having considered the few details on how it fits with the other specks on the wall. 

This is a hallmark of many participants. You get theoretical chit-chat.  No targeted ideas, just a new directions in an already highly dimensional tensor of stuff. Others listen politely but privately wonder how this fits; they know little about the idea and little is explained. So they shut up not wishing to expose themselves as ignorant. With a room full of such folks, each promoting the half-baked, the meeting notes extend page after page. The poor meeting manager, probably lost at the beginning,  is even more so at the end.  

Enter "cleaver-man/woman,"  the superhero that cuts through the fodder of ideas, and shows what should be the center core direction and cleverly demonstrates that the proposal wrapper can contain in some fashion much of what lies on the floor as chaff.  

Have you been to such meetings?  Often there is nothing but white noise, but suddenly someone sees a way.  Most often this comes not from the collective but a single person.  This unification serves not to deny the collective but to celebrate the individual. 

Current thinking tends toward the collaborative, thinking,  learning, developing, and solving, with the lonely individual left standing outside.  It is about time to recognize that both the group and the individual are integral components in seeking pathways forward.