Hacker News Reader

Comment by W0lf | Hacker News Reader

In my experience (and coming just out of a meeting alike) these types of respectful and forward-moving meetings are typically in a case where each attendant has roughly the same level expertise in a given domain and knows the basics of scientific principles. Hence, everybody in the meeting brings in his or her unique view of the topic at hand and knows intrinsically when it makes sense to contribute something to the discussion. Usually things get out of hands, if somebody is talking just for the noise or, and this is worse, a clearly bad idea wins the discussion because politics or the messenger has shouted the loudest.

View on HN

Maybe it's not necessary for everyone to be at the same level, you just need to have everyone knowing everyone else's level and be humble about it. "Bob says the tractor can't pull this load, and he knows more about tractors than I do."

Even if participants have same level of domain understanding, it takes more to be willing to work towards a solution without their egos, their achievements, their alpha-ness getting in the way. I’ve seen the opposite more often than not. Where I do see this level of camaraderie is amongst close friends who know better about each other.

I think experts naturally tend to befriend each other, for the simple reason that they are the only one who can understand each other. And that even when there is rivalry in the ideas.

Maybe being alone at the top is good for the ego, and some people like that, but it is also boring. If you are at the top in some field, is is probably your passion, something you want to talk about all day, but no one understands you, you feel like you are talking to babies, repeating "obvious" things over and over. On the opposite, you can't find anyone to teach anything new to you, being a pioneer is nice, but if you get stuck, you can't count on anyone but yourself, and it can become tedious.

So, when you finally meet someone on your level, it is someone you want to keep. At last, you can talk with someone who understand you, who can provide a meaningful input, and even teach you a thing or two. And even if there is some rivalry, you have a worthy opponent, not an annoyance.

Overheard on such a meeting yesterday: "Well, an alternative would be to use the coordinate system named after me."

I feel these meetings work best when there is no career pressure, but when people have aligned goals and just want to make progress. It's easier to leave good points unsaid if everyone prefers having any conclusion to having no conclusion.

Can you get Descartes’ autograph for me? Thx

I don't want to dox the professor that uttered the quote, but he was talking about these coordinates ;-) http://fusionwiki.ciemat.es/wiki/Boozer_coordinates

It could also have been Dr Polar

It's also important for each participant to not be afraid to not be heard. I feel like that's a big issue in a lot of meetings, especially between developers, where it often feels like people are interrupting each other and talking over each other, where the strongest opinion wins, instead of letting each other finish and waiting your turn to speak. It reinforces people's tendency to talk over each other - "if I don't jump in now, the conversation will have moved on" - while at the same time reinforces less verbal / confident people to just keep their opinion to themselves while others talk over each other.

Don't hesitate to call others out for their behaviour, as it occurs. And involve those who seem to be withdrawn or quiet, ask them about their opinion and input. It takes concerted efforts, if not coaching and training, to get out of that habit.

There used to be meetings where I wished we could have installed those campaign debate buttons that buzz when someone's time is up. It could be infuriating. I have high hopes that remote meeting software will grow features like this eventually.

Two keys here I think. One is the way the team was built. The people selected had truly remarkable skills in their own domains such that everyone already had the respect of others. There was nothing to prove in part because the team fit together so well. Big credit should go to the person or people who selected the team.

Second is the chairman facilitating who didn't controlled the conversation, didn't leave time for bullshit, and probably had a very tight agenda.

I suspect it may partly also be cultural for that segment of people. Repeating yourself at seminars or other academic meetings was highly frowned upon in several instances I've seen, it was not just greatness/respect/intrinsic etc.

Perhaps sufficient greatness of attention span is a prerequisite to remember what everyone has said since the start of the meeting :-)

I suspect the men in the feynman meeting had been rigorously or even ruthlessly chosen to form an effective group (for such an important mission)

Reply on news.ycombinator.com