Saturday, February 24, 2007

Meetings make us dumber

I have to enter the echo chamber and write about this article that was also mentioned on Slashdot. I had to write about this because it really resonated with me. I hate "brainstorming" meetings, unless they are very small (as in me plus one other person.) Whenever I need to participate in such meetings, I do a lot of homework before the meeting, i.e. I do all my brainstorming ahead of time and then just present my ideas in the meeting. I've always thought that was a product of my personality type (intj.) Sometimes I've wondered if it indicated a weakness in me, i.e. that I'm not good at "thinking on my feet." I decided a long time ago that I didn't care if that was the case or not. I knew that I was much better at thinking things through on my own ahead of time rather than in a group. Now I wonder if this wasn't just my personality, but something that is true for most people.

Further, when somebody else brings up significantly different ideas than me, I am very reluctant to agree with them in the meeting. Again I've thought that maybe that was product of my personality. I think my education made me skeptical by default. Of course that kind seem obnoxious -- the only ideas I support in a meeting are the ones I brought to it. But this article again makes me think that I've probably adopted this approach through experience. Jumping on a bandwagon has few advantages besides being easy to do.

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