Last Tuesday, February 13th, was NYC’s first official “snow day” of the year.
While kids in the burbs got to bask in the childhood ritual of sleeping late, staying in their jammies, and having a cup of hot cocoa after sledding, city kids had to go to remote school.
As if that wasn’t bad enough, the tech wasn’t working and kids (and their parents) couldn’t log on.
How frustrating and unfair.
This got me thinking…just because we HAVE the tech, does that mean we should always use it?
And the answer is no.
One well-intentioned but unfortunate thing I’m seeing in my work with companies is giving every meeting a remote option.
Back in the day, when you were sick, you took the day off. Sometimes that meant you missed some meetings. Someone took notes for you and filled you in. Today we have AI to transcribe our meetings, so it’s even easier to stay in the loop without actually attending.
Why do I think that’s better than showing up to a live meeting on a screen, maybe even with your camera and audio off so nobody can see your runny nose or hear you sneezing?
Here are some benefits of not always optimizing to include everyone, everywhere, all the time.
- People who are actually sick can take care of themselves and get better. Check out New York Times journalist Emma Goldberg’s article about how Covid did away with sick days!
- The experience for the people IN the room is often better without always having to manage the technology and listen to things like, “You’re on mute.” “You’re frozen…I’m going to reboot.” And, in-person attendees don’t have to feel awkward about their colleagues being left out—they can focus on connecting with each other.
- If one can only attend the meeting in person, people will be less likely to skip it.
Now, with all of that said, if something is mission critical and time sensitive, by all means, leverage the technology. That’s what it’s there for, and it’s actually pretty incredible.
But here’s the thing: the default use of technology degrades connection.
So, the next time you find yourself defaulting to yet another hybrid meeting, ask yourself these three questions:
- Is a remote option necessary, or am I defaulting because I can?
- Are there benefits to making it a fully in-person or a fully remote meeting instead?
- Could it be hybrid for the parts of the meeting that lend themselves to that and not for the parts that don’t?
The bottom line is that left to our “devices” (pun intended), we just aren’t connecting as well as we can.
So the next time you find yourself worried about you or your employees missing a meeting, just remember that magic of a snow day and how it’s really okay to miss a meeting. In fact, it might be just what the doctor ordered.
2/20/2024
