<story><title>Ask HN: Why do I struggle to follow corporate meetings?</title><text>Hi HN, I&amp;#x27;ve just got out of a meeting and like almost every non-technical meeting I have next to no idea what the discussion was about.&lt;p&gt;I find a lot of non-technical meetings go something like this:&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;Hi guys, as you might be aware [Robert Smith] of the [communications department] has recently released his [quarterly review] of our ongoing [transformation strategy]. We&amp;#x27;ve received a lot of positive feedback so far, but I wanted to give you all an opportunity to share your thoughts in this meeting. Would anyone like to go first?&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;Then about half of the team (normally the same people) will jump into the discussion and somehow seem to know what the hell is going on.&lt;p&gt;Meanwhile I&amp;#x27;m there wondering who is this [Robert Smith] of the [communications department]? What is the [transformation strategy] and why does it need a [quarterly review]?&lt;p&gt;Occasionally someone will ask what the [transformation strategy] is, but typically it won&amp;#x27;t be answered in a way that helps me understand what&amp;#x27;s going on because even more names and departments will be dropped and the strategy itself will be described in such a vague way that it means nothing.&lt;p&gt;I guess a concrete example that comes to mind was from a place I worked previously where they would talk about their &amp;quot;omnichannel&amp;quot; strategy a lot. Whenever someone asked what &amp;quot;omnichannel&amp;quot; meant it was described in a way that seemed to mean nothing, &amp;quot;a multichannel sales strategy&amp;quot;, etc. About 6 months into the job I finally figured out we were just using it to refer to some extra functionality that we were working on that would allow customers to collect and return online orders from our regional stores. But this was never how it was referred to in corporate meetings.&lt;p&gt;Am I the only one who experiences this? I can&amp;#x27;t work out if there&amp;#x27;s a part of my brain that&amp;#x27;s missing that prevents me from understanding what&amp;#x27;s being discussed in these meetings or if this is a common experience. I&amp;#x27;m very practically minded which probably doesn&amp;#x27;t help, but I worry I&amp;#x27;m not making enough of an effort to understand what&amp;#x27;s happening in the business outside my personal bubble.&lt;p&gt;Does anyone struggle with this, or do you have any recommendations for people like me who do struggle to understand what&amp;#x27;s happening in corporate meetings?</text></story><parent_chain><item><author>anigbrowl</author><text>It&amp;#x27;s kind of deliberate. there&amp;#x27;s bullshitters, and bullshit-takers, and you are in the latter group. Setting the agenda and defining the terms is a way to exert power, in many ways far more important than any substantive outcome to the meetings. That said, quite a few managers are just high on their own supply and chasing a fashionable idea or doing a poor job of trying to explain whatever they were told in their last meeting. You don&amp;#x27;t have to assume malice.&lt;p&gt;You can try using some BS of your own; for example, say modestly &amp;#x27;I love [the strategic thing] but I&amp;#x27;ve struggled to communicate it effectively to my team. How can I make it easier for them to understand?&amp;#x27; which flatters the person running a meeting enough that they might be tempted to show off. Don&amp;#x27;t have a team? Invent one, just evoke the existence of some confused and dissatisfied co-workers who you are eager to motivate.&lt;p&gt;Keep notes on different people&amp;#x2F;ideas and give them a BS score out of 10 (nothing complicated). After a while you&amp;#x27;ll get a sense for what actually impacts productivity or business outcomes vs what&amp;#x27;s just the corporate cheer squad.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>PragmaticPulp</author><text>This is a painfully cynical worldview. If you find yourself in a company where management is this ineffective, get out. Or at least move to a different department where people are genuinely working together. Companies (or departments) wouldn&amp;#x27;t actually last very long if management teams were as bad as you described.&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; Setting the agenda and defining the terms is a way to exert power, in many ways far more important than any substantive outcome to the meetings.&lt;p&gt;No, setting an agenda is a way to give people a chance to prepare for a meeting and to keep the meeting on track. A meeting with an agenda sent out ahead of time is far more efficient than a meeting where people just show up and think of things to chat about.&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; You can try using some BS of your own&lt;p&gt;Please don&amp;#x27;t do this. Believe it or not, it&amp;#x27;s actually really easy from the management side of the table to tell when someone is just laying on the flattery and trying to say all the right things to butter people up.&lt;p&gt;Engineers who try to &amp;quot;play politics&amp;quot; usually overestimate their ability to manipulate other people and underestimate other people&amp;#x27;s ability to see right through it. You may think you&amp;#x27;re just playing the game, but I guarantee it&amp;#x27;s coming off as patronizing to the genuine employees around you. Those genuine employees are the people you need to build trust with, and these political manipulation games will only do the opposite.&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; Don&amp;#x27;t have a team? Invent one, just evoke the existence of some confused and dissatisfied co-workers who you are eager to motivate.&lt;p&gt;Now this is pure keyboard warrior fantasy material. Doing anything resembling this will destroy your reputation at the company in short order. Chronic liars and manipulators may not be called out in public, but their negative reputation will spread quickly among people in the know.</text></comment>
<story><title>Ask HN: Why do I struggle to follow corporate meetings?</title><text>Hi HN, I&amp;#x27;ve just got out of a meeting and like almost every non-technical meeting I have next to no idea what the discussion was about.&lt;p&gt;I find a lot of non-technical meetings go something like this:&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;Hi guys, as you might be aware [Robert Smith] of the [communications department] has recently released his [quarterly review] of our ongoing [transformation strategy]. We&amp;#x27;ve received a lot of positive feedback so far, but I wanted to give you all an opportunity to share your thoughts in this meeting. Would anyone like to go first?&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;Then about half of the team (normally the same people) will jump into the discussion and somehow seem to know what the hell is going on.&lt;p&gt;Meanwhile I&amp;#x27;m there wondering who is this [Robert Smith] of the [communications department]? What is the [transformation strategy] and why does it need a [quarterly review]?&lt;p&gt;Occasionally someone will ask what the [transformation strategy] is, but typically it won&amp;#x27;t be answered in a way that helps me understand what&amp;#x27;s going on because even more names and departments will be dropped and the strategy itself will be described in such a vague way that it means nothing.&lt;p&gt;I guess a concrete example that comes to mind was from a place I worked previously where they would talk about their &amp;quot;omnichannel&amp;quot; strategy a lot. Whenever someone asked what &amp;quot;omnichannel&amp;quot; meant it was described in a way that seemed to mean nothing, &amp;quot;a multichannel sales strategy&amp;quot;, etc. About 6 months into the job I finally figured out we were just using it to refer to some extra functionality that we were working on that would allow customers to collect and return online orders from our regional stores. But this was never how it was referred to in corporate meetings.&lt;p&gt;Am I the only one who experiences this? I can&amp;#x27;t work out if there&amp;#x27;s a part of my brain that&amp;#x27;s missing that prevents me from understanding what&amp;#x27;s being discussed in these meetings or if this is a common experience. I&amp;#x27;m very practically minded which probably doesn&amp;#x27;t help, but I worry I&amp;#x27;m not making enough of an effort to understand what&amp;#x27;s happening in the business outside my personal bubble.&lt;p&gt;Does anyone struggle with this, or do you have any recommendations for people like me who do struggle to understand what&amp;#x27;s happening in corporate meetings?</text></story><parent_chain><item><author>anigbrowl</author><text>It&amp;#x27;s kind of deliberate. there&amp;#x27;s bullshitters, and bullshit-takers, and you are in the latter group. Setting the agenda and defining the terms is a way to exert power, in many ways far more important than any substantive outcome to the meetings. That said, quite a few managers are just high on their own supply and chasing a fashionable idea or doing a poor job of trying to explain whatever they were told in their last meeting. You don&amp;#x27;t have to assume malice.&lt;p&gt;You can try using some BS of your own; for example, say modestly &amp;#x27;I love [the strategic thing] but I&amp;#x27;ve struggled to communicate it effectively to my team. How can I make it easier for them to understand?&amp;#x27; which flatters the person running a meeting enough that they might be tempted to show off. Don&amp;#x27;t have a team? Invent one, just evoke the existence of some confused and dissatisfied co-workers who you are eager to motivate.&lt;p&gt;Keep notes on different people&amp;#x2F;ideas and give them a BS score out of 10 (nothing complicated). After a while you&amp;#x27;ll get a sense for what actually impacts productivity or business outcomes vs what&amp;#x27;s just the corporate cheer squad.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>734129837261</author><text>&amp;quot;I really love your strategic approach, and I think we should seamlessly impact our intrepid cloud-ready technology with another meeting to go more in depth. I would like you, or John Smith from Marketing, to restore backward-compatible partnerships between our team leads. That way we can continually seize efficient human capital. That will really synergise with our stakeholders. What do you think?&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;And you can respond to whatever they say with a thinking nod while stroking your chin. And street-kids would say &amp;quot;bet&amp;quot;, you simply say &amp;quot;hmhm, very agile.&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;You&amp;#x27;ll be CEO in no-time.</text></comment>