Email should have been a meeting

justinjackson.ca

6 pointsduvander3 comments

Sometimes, a meeting is exactly what is needed. Sometimes, it's the opposite of what is needed. The tricky part is being able to tell which is which. I don't think many people or companies are any good at being able to tell which is the better method for any given issue.

Yes! And having too much of one in a given week (meetings vs. online chat) can throw off the balance too, especially for remote teams.

I also think there’s a benefit to being in-person depending on your age and career stage. Young people gain a lot from being around other humans. So much gets learned just by being in the room: how people talk to each other, how decisions actually get made, what good work looks like up close. You miss out on all that stuff in Slack.

I call meetings to force others to think about the contents of an email for more than 2 minutes.

I won't say there are zero times where face to face conversation is beneficial. But forcing someone to not be distracted by "multitasking" while they work through their inbox, is not one of them.

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