On the flip side, it’s somehow easier to get people to attend scheduled meetings.
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I wish all my work meetings got cancelled due to scheduling conflicts.
Most of the time in meetings I think, “this should’ve been an email…”
“Can I use my Sick Day to take a half day Friday to start my 24 hour Star Wars marathon this weekend?”
“So, Rules as Written, absolutely not. But… we’re gonna go with the Rule of Cool on this one. See you Monday.”
The rule of cool helps with honesty too.
My team knew well in advance that we would be short-staffed on the day the Switch 2 released.
This whole campaign could have just been an email.
GM/DM/Ref’ing makes you think about everybody’s experience at the table. Are they engaged? Having fun? Invested? Getting to do the stuff they’re here for? Feel safe and able to talk freely?
It should be the same for the chair of work meeting.
Managers do not learn these skills. Professional managerial class culture devalues them.
Running games has definitely helped me run meetings.
- Establish turn order.
- let people finish their thought instead of immediately following some dumbass tangent
- take notes
Well that had a surprise ending.
I live in a set of apartments (60 in all). Once a year we have an “AGM” where everyone’s supposed to show up, and we go over stuff like the resident’s association finances, and plans for future works and changes to policies. (e.g. we had to remove a tree because it died, or the council want to put parking restrictions in our neighborhood, or the bike sheds need repainting, etc.)
It’s not really as oppressive as a HOA, because your interaction with it is once-a-year, and if you have an issue you just email the people running the committee, you don’t really have to contend with constant complaints and jockeying about whether your driveway is tidy enough or any of that nightmare stuff… but the once-a-year-meeting can sometimes drag on for hours and it’s very tiring.
There’s sometimes a discussion around an issue before we vote on it. Sometimes particularly beligerant residents get into circular arguments where they’re not listening to each other, and neither of them are going to change their mind, they’re just taking up air in the room going back and forth and making no progress, sometimes the argument is in spite of a lack of needed information and everyone is just speculating on what might happen etc etc.
From my extensive time DMming, more than anything else, it’s become very easy to spot when such discussions have no chance of resulting in a productive outcome, and I’ve started to notice that a quick interjection that summarizes the situation and suggest we move on and deal with it via email, is invaluable. “Look, we don’t know yet if the change to the renter’s rights bill is going to pass at all, or what exactly it’ll contain. We should wait for that before trying to figure out how to handle it.” or “The motion we’re discussing is for the committee to research how much this installation will cost, not whether or not we’re going to do it.” or “That information sounds useful, you should email it to the committee after the meeting so they can make sure it’s considered.”
I think, just having anyone in the room who’s focused on staying on task can save you a huge amount of time, in basically any group-discussion forum. Our AGMs are almost an hour shorter now, and there’s an increasing number of attendees who are on board with my philosophy of “are we going to be able to solve this now? no? email the committee and move on.”
Most jobs are easy.
Most people in positions of power are literally too lazy to work.
you haven’t had a work meeting with me
I get her username reference! Gnome Anne’s Inn from Quest for Glory V: Dragon Fire.
