rethinking meetings and decision making

what’s the purpose of calling (council/committee/team) meetings? decision making is one primary reason.

why decision making only during meetings? cos these decisions often need discussions to make meaning of best course of actions

why does “meeting” exist? cos pple who need to make decisions are busy with many other things in life, and meetings “guaranteed” and forced pple to set aside time, locked tgt in a space to discuss.

in the pre-internet age, this is absolutely essential. in the post-COVID19 age, workplace are already relying on WhatsApp and other messaging/meeting tools to discuss things and make decisions instead of only at “meetings”.

some held strongly to the idea of “decisions already made at meeting” = cannot be changed. why?

in the pre-internet era, there’s no way to conduct discussions without pple meeting (again).

in the post-COVID19 era, with group messaging apps such as WhatsApp, are discussions to enable meaning-making not possible? 

but no, the counter argument is cos meetings are recorded and noted (cf. minuted) and are “official”. in the internet era, digital records can be served as evidence in courts, are “meetings” necessarily more serious business than courtrooms? 

but again, no, cos face-to-face interactions lead to deeper discussions!? well, more dynamic perhaps; deeper, is questionable. cos meetings are time-limited and one hardly has time to draw additional references/resources to bring discussions deeper beyond that space and time defined.

a meeting is a gathering of humans, and thus human behaviours and psychology come into play. there’s always pple who are more passive and some who are more vocal at meetings. and gathering in a group hearing the more vocals can easily end up in group-think. why? it’s easier to agree than disagree, that’s the ‘lazy’ nature of brains, not to mention if one has some other things (family/workplace/whatever) on her/his mind. and no prize for guessing what’s the outcomes/decisions made in such “meetings”?

formal meetings are still needed. cos the society expects it, and there are decisions that would warrant deeper deliberations face-to-face dynamically. but the argument that decisions made at meetings are cast in stone and cannot be changed warrants a rethink as discussions are now enabled by technologies and “recorded”. especially for decisions made when the more knowledgeable others are absent and the rest are discussing “in the blind” if not less knowledeable.

if ideas can be improved and decisions can be improved outside “meetings”, why do some pple dearly hold on to meetings (and the decisions made at meetings) conceptualised by last century definition? well, mindset, beliefs, and values are the most difficult to shift (not impossible), not any amount of SkillsFuture credits would make it easier. something all too familiar to educators and researchers in the field of educational psychology and learning sciences (:

visit to central library

thanks 8bro R for establishing the connections and making our visit to central library possible. it’s been a while since my last visit to national library (aka central library, or officially central public library). eye-opening to see how a brick and motar library (of yesteryears) is renewing itself relevant in this digital era, where pple consume, if not overwhelmed by, multimedia more than words-only media. and my theory behind this sight – the power of mission (aka v&m).

so what’s the takeaways from the visit to personal l&d? well, it’s not new but more of a reminder perhaps, that connecting mission (& vision) for your pple (from a leadership perspective) is key/critical. what’s the meaning of ‘library’ today or tomorrow? how does that laying one brick contributes to the building of a skyscraper. how many pple look at a building and think of the individual bricks (or blocks)? cos it doesn’t really matter. but to the worker, it may mean something (aside than the salary $ of cos).

mission gives meaning to who are we? why are we ‘here’. and leaders remind pple of meaning with the mission (it’s part of their job). otherwise, it’s easy for individuals to forget why they are doing what they’re doing (forgetting is human nature; possibly neuroscience evidence too). say, looking ard us now, it’s the mission clearly articulated (and regularly reminded)?

(image credit: https://nus.edu.sg/osa/keviihall/open-house-2024)

a final random thought that pops up — even when i was a hostelite, we had a ‘mission’ – “we are full-time hostelites, part-time students”.

C-C-C-C

inspired by and adapted from PPAP; sing to the tune:

🎶i have a coffee, i have a clementine
uh! coffee-clementine!

i have a coffee, i have a comp
uh! comp-coffee!

clementine-coffee, comp-coffee
uh! coffee-comp-clementine-coffee 🎶

a reflection on “芸芸众生,日日忙忙碌碌何为?”

there’s only one certainty in life since birth — death.
but the time in-between birth to death is unknown to the individual (while some pple may argue that some higher beings/deities know/control/pre-determined it).
what would then one need to do to pass the time in-between?
ironically, the first thing is to find sustenance, to sustain the ever-dying shell; regardless if you are humans or prokaryotes, you do the same. in the grown up world context, it would mean “earning a living”, for most is to find a job(s) to earn an income to find sustenance and obtain things, to prevent the shell from dying too fast.
when one is able to find sustenance, and there’s still energy and time and not yet time to rest/sleep to regain energy for finding sustenance, pple begin to choose things to do (e.g., entertainment, interests, hobbies).

and life goes on like that, day in day out, excluding ‘sudden death’ events, the shell slowly crawls towards the certainty.

so back to the question, 芸芸众生,日日忙忙碌碌何为?the answer is perhaps 为了不死,或知道会死但不要想太多?
so what’s death? would death means ‘nothing’ at t+1? i wouldnt know for sure, but perhaps ‘nothing’ is the conception for those who seek early ‘termination’ on the journey to certainty?

different religions (generally defined as a set of beliefs, practices, and moral codes that relate to the nature of the universe and the place of individuals within it) would have shed different lights on the question of “芸芸众生,日日忙忙碌碌何为?”. from a buddhist perspective, one is trapped in the worldly cycle of death and rebirth (aka samsara). and one truth in this trap is suffering (dukkha), which can refer to “direct suffering, being liable to suffering, a bodily painful feeling, or unsatisfactoriness, deficiency, insufficiency.” not sure if there’s another religion where suffering is absent, not there at all?

how to attain the end of suffering, the end of the cycle, and thus the 芸芸众生,日日忙忙碌碌? it would be to work towards enlightenment through eliminating ignorance and craving. the method is to follow the eightfold path (八正道): right understanding, right intention, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, and right concentration.

so if you are a 芸芸众生 like me reading this in the midst of 日日忙忙碌碌, perhaps you can find a way in your (religious) beliefs to explain the purpose of your 日日忙忙碌碌 and if there’s a way to seek an end to it, of cos unless you love work so much and also there’s no ‘suffering’ in life. for me, the eightfold path (八正道) would be a good start, if not a reminder (:

references:
https://www.britannica.com/topic/Buddhism/The-Four-Noble-Truths
https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/guides/zg7297h/revision/3
https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/guides/zyhmk2p/revision/1

in the distant gotham south primary school …

there’s 3 depts – teaching, admin, and tech team.
fries is the only teacher-HOD (without another teacher!) in the teaching dept with 2 other sch counsellors.
one of the counsellors randomly appears in office, while another counsellor’s on permanent wfh arrangement.

in the staff room, fries is the only one designing lesson, preparing worksheets, and her movement creates echoes in the room cos she’s the only teacher (cf. counsellors’ job)

the admin dept is next to the staff room, so randomly fries sees them but other times don’t. and anyway, their job’s totally different from hers.
the tech team sits on another level so fries also don’t see them, not forgetting, their jobs’ different from hers too (and they probably din know fries also led a tech life, and whatever they’re doing, fries can also do)

as fries admires her own lesson design, feeling proud of the worksheets, fries also imagines herself being the HOD with at least one other teacher working with her in the vision painted for her.

the painted future is, however, akan datang and the echoes sounded more solid than this fiction occurring in gotham.