A leader of an online meeting just said \u201cI think we can just\u2026\u201d and I got tense. In this particular case, it turned out to be fine (this post is not about the specific case today), but my reaction made me think it was worth exploring that kind of phrase a little more.<\/p>\r\n
My strong association with phrases like that is that the meeting leader is about to discard some system that was put in place to help meeting participants.<\/p>\r\n
I think I most often encounter it during convention panels and work meetings, especially in phrases like \u201cI think we can just speak without the microphones. You can all hear us, right?\u201d<\/p>\r\n
I think people who say that sort of thing are generally well-meaning but ignorant about the importance and value of using microphones. Microphones are generally much easier to hear than unaugmented voices, which is hugely important for attendees who don\u2019t hear well; also, microphones are generally necessary for letting remote attendees hear what\u2019s being said.<\/p>\r\n
And when a meeting leader says there\u2019s no need for microphones, it can cost attendees substantial time and energy to correct them\u2014someone has to be willing to speak up, and then get the leader\u2019s attention, and then explain what the problem is, and then sometimes deal with the meeting leader rolling their eyes and sighing.<\/p>\r\n
So from the meeting leader\u2019s point of view, \u201cI think we can just\u201d is just a casual decision made on the spot (probably intended to reduce formality and improve belongingness) and stated in a quick aside that has no significant effect on anything; but from the point of view of the affected attendees, it\u2019s a big deal that can add substantial stress and a significant barrier to participation.<\/p>\r\n
In the above, I\u2019m focused on microphone use because that\u2019s the context in which I most often hear this kind of casual throwing-away of an important system. But I feel like \u201cI think we can just\u201d is also used in other related ways. Such as: \u201cI think we can just skip the system for submitting questions and instead you can yell out any questions you have.\u201d Or: \u201cI think we can just get together in person and take our masks off.\u201d Or: \u201cI think we can just leave our seats and all gather in a standing-up circle here at the front of the room.\u201d Or: \u201cI think we can just skip the agenda and instead I\u2019ll tell you a funny story.\u201d (None of these examples are quotes; they\u2019re just my fictional examples of the kinds of things I feel like I\u2019ve heard meeting leaders say.)<\/p>\r\n
I know that a lot of people have a lot of resistance to systems and rules, and I know that when you\u2019re in charge of a meeting, it can be very tempting to discard anything that feels like it\u2019s restricting you, and to try to make things more relaxed and casual. And in some contexts, making a meeting more relaxed and casual can be really great.<\/p>\r\n
But if you go into a meeting that has established systems in place, and you casually shut down those systems without finding out why they\u2019re in place, you often make things harder on the participants rather than easier.<\/p>\r\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[110,11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21354","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-disability","category-improving-society"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/jed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21354","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/jed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/jed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/jed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/jed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21354"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/jed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21354\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21355,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/jed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21354\/revisions\/21355"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/jed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21354"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/jed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21354"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/jed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21354"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}