Working Up

by Dwayne Phillips

There are occasions when we spend the resources to have everyone in the same room at the same time.

We can do this review and do this meeting asynchronously. The documents are online. Everyone review them when they have time today and leave your comments —said an eternal optimist.

We have some wonderful computer technology today. Networks connect people who are flung far and wide across states and countries and time zones and all that. The documents are online and several people can read and edit at the same time and the technology keeps folks from bumping into or stepping on each other. Wow!

Let’s use all this technology and save us the expense of all being in the same room at the same time. See the statement of the eternal optimist above. Sometimes it just doesn’t work.

Okay, asynchronous reviews of documents can work. You read now, I’ll read this afternoon, someone else will read a little now and then all day, and someone else will read tonight. Our comments are all in the document, so the person who corrects the document has all the information they need. Right?

Wrong. Experience has shown me that this only works if all the readers write their comments well. Of course all our employees write well. We only hire people who can write well. Do they write as well as William Faulkner? If not, forget it.

Commonly heard is something like, “I wonder what he meant when he wrote that?”

If the document or topic or whatever is important, spend the resources to have everyone in the same room at the same time. Get it out. Say what you want to say. Ask questions. Ask more questions. Gain some clarifications. Get messy. Facilitate the meeting. Do the work. The results will be better. We will save resources in the days following the gathering.

Let’s do better.