[dcatx]

This feels like an odd assumption to make about my comment. I don't think all meetings are a waste of time and I certainly don't think people with different work preferences than me are dullards.

My experience has been heavy on people who skip reading in favor of a meeting even when the reading is to provide historical context, summarize learnings, and present what we know about a situation. Not reading turns what should have been a productive, forward looking discussion into a meeting rehashing old information for the folks who didn't do their homework.

In my professional life, I've encountered far more people who prefer to have meetings that could have been emails than I have people who think a strategic decision isn't worth 30 minutes of time for a discussion but perhaps my use of "default behavior" was a bit strong.

I suspect the meeting-heavy cultures and aversion to reading I've encountered are largely driven by discomfort with writing, not reading which is where articles like this one could add some value.

[notahacker]

> This feels like an odd assumption to make about my comment.

I mean, "refuse to read more than 3 sentences" (or "the TLDR of the business world" and "I-didn't-bother-reading-your-email-so-please-spend-an-extra-30m-explaining-it session is less so" in others' comments in the same subthread) seems like unrealistic as well as incredibly uncharitable assumptions to make about people's general motivations for requesting followup calls. Especially if the subject matter of the original email was something as non-trivial as "a clear set of strategic choices"

Indeed, if it ends up actually taking 30 minutes to explain an email, it's obvious both that the other person is putting far more time and effort into the call than they would have done into scanning the email text, and that the email itself couldn't possibly have communicated all the information the caller [felt that they] needed to know in sufficient detail.

Which doesn't guarantee that the "quick call" was actually a productive use of time, or that the caller's questions are particularly good ones or that the caller couldn't have included followup questions in their reply, but if somebody can't think of any reason why colleagues receiving their email would call for clarification other than lack of interest in reading, there's a decent chance it's not [just] the colleagues with the communication problems. Even if the colleagues don't have additional information to add and seem fixated on something which point 11b was supposed to rule out.

Sure, as the number of people in a group meeting grows the probability someone hasn't read (or has read and has completely forgotten) the meeting prep notes approaches 1, but that's a separate issue from people receiving an email and calling for one-to-one clarification.

[abathur]

Have you entertained the possibility that we can tell, in said call, that the person who immediately requested the call needs the email explained to them (or asks multiple questions recapitulating the basics of the email) before they can contribute?

I'm not complaining about people asking questions to clarify or build on their understanding of the email. (Or even a lack of understanding; it's hard to build enough shared context to communicate well.)

You're the one here uncharitably projecting the assumption that we're punishing people for asking reasonable questions about something they made an effort to read.