The Importance of Human Connection

The Importance of Human Connection

As I wrote about recaptcha, a tool meant to differentiate between humans and AI, I realized that humans are not really in charge of so many things. The whole point of Recaptcha was to distinguish humans from AI but it has now been proven that AI is better at it than humans. Which is definitely sad for humanity but not the point I’m trying to make today. AI is now showing up in many forms and one alarming form (to me) is in team meetings. Instead of showing up, people will send an AI note-taker to take notes, summarize, and list next steps. Which has advantages. It’s efficient. But, what it can’t do is connect with other people on your team. What it can’t do is show up for someone who is presenting. What it can’t do is be human. That is not AI’s fault. That is ours if we choose to deprioritize human connection at work. If our meetings aren’t efficient enough, fix the meetings but keep the connection.

References and Resources

How AI finally won its war on CAPTCHA images by Dr Peter Bentley/BBC Science Focus; Type: Article

Bots Are Better at Solving CAPTCHAs Than Humans, Research Shows by Emily Price/PC Mag; Type: Article

Agendas – Who Needs Them?

Agendas – Who Needs Them?

Unless you are dealing with a complete narcissist, the main reason someone takes over a meeting is because they didn’t understand the purpose of the meeting in the first place. Pre-reads and Agendas can help address a lack of understanding. And, as most people jump from one meeting to the next, it’s easy for some to be unclear on the goals of any given meeting.

Learning: Pre-reads and Agendas are signposts of intention and can help keep meetings focused.

References and Resources

How to Finally Make Meetings More Productive (Re-Release) by Anne Morriss and Frances Frei/Fixable; Type: Podcast

It’s all Fun and Games…Until Someone Dies

It’s all Fun and Games…Until Someone Dies

There is a growing trend of converting stand-up meetings into plank meetings. It has been proven to reduce meeting times, which makes sense. I may be the only one out there, but combining a meeting with exercise will only result in me not talking. Either because I’m dead or because I can’t talk/breathe/think (trying to prevent my own death). It’s an interesting concept to keep meetings brief, but the truth is that this incentivizes not raising issues because, well…death (or the avoidance of death) will always be the greater concern.

Disclaimer: To our knowledge, no one has died in a plank meeting. We just don’t want to be the first. That’s not the way to go out.

Learning: Get in shape.

References and Resources

Daily plank meeting by William Liu; Type: Article

Does this resonate with you? What are your thoughts on “The plank meeting”? Have you ever had one of these? If so, we’d love to hear from you.

And You Get A Meeting

And You Get A Meeting

We all know this person. We might even be this person. If you know someone who constantly schedules meetings for things that can easily be handled over email – please send them this link.

This is a particularly vanilla perspective, as most people wouldn’t say they love meetings. And yet, according to Microsoft, from 2020-2022, we saw an increase of 3x in time spent in meetings. We can stop this trend by adding some scrutiny around meetings.

Learning: Let’s make it okay to say “NO” to meeting invites that don’t have agendas and/or pre-reads. Agendas and Pre-reads help in 2 ways: 1) They provide a clear structure and mandate prep work by the meeting scheduler, and 2) Your audience can fully participate: Introverts, for example, think to speak and need time to process information.

References and Resources

The No. 1 workplace distraction that kills productivity, according to Microsoft by Morgan Smith/CNBC; Type: Article

Will AI Fix Work? by Microsoft WorkLab; Type: Annual Report

Does this resonate with you? Have you figured out how to handle the onslaught of perpetual meetings? If so, we’d love to hear from you.