[HN Gopher] Why Walking Meetings Work
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Why Walking Meetings Work
Author : kawera
Score : 56 points
Date : 2020-03-09 20:01 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (forge.medium.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (forge.medium.com)
| buboard wrote:
| It's 2020 , time for management science to learn how to do
| science. No, it isn't science to take a study of individuals
| solving problems and extrapolating that "walking meetings work".
| It's bs.
| GuiA wrote:
| Management science fundamentally cannot be science. There's
| nothing isolatable or replicable in humans in the workplace (or
| outside for that matter).
|
| The best you can do is apply statistical approaches to
| arbitrary abstractions, and the main thing we learn when we do
| that is that return to the mean is the only thing we can really
| be sure of?
| WFHRenaissance wrote:
| Alasdair Macintyre has a good chapter on this in After
| Virtue.
| buboard wrote:
| > There's nothing isolatable or replicable in humans in the
| workplace
|
| That needs proof
| bluGill wrote:
| While nothing might be too strong a statement, several
| studies have shown things like changing the light level in
| an office increases productivity - it doesn't matter what
| your started with or end up with. Given this how can you
| study the optimal light level in an office?
| buboard wrote:
| i think you already solved it, the optimal level is
| "fluctuating"
|
| (btw thanks for the tip! i work at home and will use
| that)
| ghaff wrote:
| What I assume is being referred to is the Hawthorne
| Effect: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawthorne_effect
|
| I admit that I was aware of the original interpretation
| but not the novelty/disruption effect.
| Proziam wrote:
| I pace when I'm thinking about work stuff. I find that being
| upright and mobile keeps me more alert and focused than slouching
| in my chair, in front of a distraction jukebox. Some people I
| work with like it (though, they joke that I should buy a school
| with a racetrack to walk around...)
|
| I would _love_ for walking meetings to become the norm. Though, I
| 'm aware that there's a lot of folks who are the exact opposite.
| jrumbut wrote:
| The effect of walking on improved conversation is so strong for
| me I have, for a long time, been wondering why it never caught on
| in the psychology community.
|
| I wonder how much more effective talk therapy could be if
| delivered while walking, at the driving range, over table tennis,
| etc.
| tomashubelbauer wrote:
| Walking meetings are not accessible. If you have blind, deaf or
| wheelchair-bound colleagues, walking meetings are a wonderful way
| to exclude them from participating equally in the workplace.
| That's of course unless you don't already "solve" this issue by
| just not hiring such folks.
|
| I really wish people would think about this. And not only in
| terms of their current workplace demography, but also their
| prospective future employees.
| Robotbeat wrote:
| Same for talking. Same for presenting visual information.
|
| The key is to be cognizant of the people on your team. It may
| be possible to take a "walk" in a wheelchair-accessible
| location or do some similar activity. The only way to address
| this is to ask your team and build a culture of trust on this
| issue.
| pmiller2 wrote:
| The solution is obvious: you solve the issue by not having
| walking meetings with people who can't effectively participate
| in them. Why is that so hard?
| Trasmatta wrote:
| Also I don't see why a blind or wheelchair bound colleague
| couldn't participate in a walking meeting (if they wanted to
| and were comfortable with it).
| gowld wrote:
| No one is wheelchair-bound.
|
| Some people are wheelchair-enabled to enable mobility.
|
| https://www.newmobility.com/2015/09/dont-say-wheelchair-
| boun...
| Traster wrote:
| Because it's not actually obvious who can effectively
| participate in them. Are you checking your meeting
| participants for suitable footwear, asthma, underlying
| allergies, chronic health conditions they'd rather not
| disclose to colleagues...
| jedberg wrote:
| Netflix's CEO loves to do walking meetings, and a lot of the
| other execs follow his example. It's especially nice since the HQ
| is next to a lovely creek trail.
|
| The only downside is that someone has to take notes, which can be
| hard while walking, unless you can remember everything.
| gopalv wrote:
| > The only downside is that someone has to take notes, which
| can be hard while walking, unless you can remember everything.
|
| For some reason, walking meetings tend to work like a memory
| palace for me.
|
| Though I walk down a pretty specific set of landmarks and write
| notes afterwards, which is usually ordered by the walk trail
| landmarks & a follow-up would usually not need a set of notes
| either.
|
| There was a time when the smokers used to be the ones to do
| this as a matter of habit - these days it is much healthier to
| do walk-talks.
| dvtrn wrote:
| I thought I'd heard the term "mind palace" before but
| couldn't remember from where (oh the irony). Google reminded
| me!
|
| https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/secrets-
| sherlock...
| jfengel wrote:
| Ah, so he's going for a nice walk rather than doing his
| meetings while walking from one task to another, Aaron Sorkin
| style. That makes more sense.
| jedberg wrote:
| No, we have meetings during the walk.
| tomjakubowski wrote:
| Yes, but it is taking a round-trip walk for the purpose of
| a meeting, not squeezing the meeting on the walk from "task
| A destination" to "task B destination", as would occur in a
| Sorkin show.
| jedberg wrote:
| Ah I see what you're saying. Yes, they are often round
| trips.
|
| But sometimes they can be from one task to another,
| especially if both people are going to another task
| (usually another meeting) in the same building.
| AdieuToLogic wrote:
| > The only downside is that someone has to take notes, which
| can be hard while walking ...
|
| Perhaps this is a good situation to use something like Voice
| Memos[0]. This way the scribe can speak the notes and
| transcribe later.
|
| 0 - https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT206775
| Traster wrote:
| I have a friend whose boss likes to 'go for a walk' or 'catch up
| whilst we head over to X'. Naturally she's wearing high heels and
| it's a fucking nightmare for her.
| speedgoose wrote:
| Is she forced to wear high heels at work or she simply likes
| it?
| NikolaNovak wrote:
| I'm afraid I feel my level of sympathy would be 100% correlated
| with how mandatory the heels are for your friend :-/
|
| On aside, I'm also (genuinely, not snarkily) curious to
| understand the "Naturally" part in front of "wearing high
| heels". Don't get me wrong - I personally think they're a
| fabulously attractive if completely impractical article of
| clothing, but it feels like in many places in the world they
| are far from the norm/regular/Natural assumption.
| pmiri wrote:
| Saw a comment long ago mentioning that our early nomadic
| ancestors must have spent much of their time wandering the
| landscape, probably for miles a day. What neglect do we bring to
| our brains when we don't do even a fraction of this?
| rurp wrote:
| I have learned that going for a walk is best way for me to
| think through a tricky problem. Something about the act of
| walking around almost immediately kicks my brain into a
| different mode that can do wonders for my thought process. It
| has to be a leisurely route though, meaning minimal dodging of
| cars or interacting with people.
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