We’ve all been in the meeting that could have been an email. And sure. Sometimes it absolutely should have been.
If you need to tell me something, ask a quick question, send me a status update, or get a simple answer, please send the email. I don’t need 30 minutes on your calendar. You don’t need 30 minutes on mine.
But somewhere along the way, “this meeting could have been an email” became shorthand for “this meeting was a waste of time.” I’m not sure those are the same thing anymore.
Especially with AI in the mix.
I’m not trying to have a relationship with you through Outlook. I’m trying to tell you the thing, answer the question, or get the information we need so we can both get back to work. My emails are very transactional.
Copilot’s coaching feature occasionally seems concerned about this. Apparently, I could be friendlier. Maybe. But Outlook still doesn’t have a sarcasm font.
When I’m actually talking to you, I can ask how your weekend was. And you can actually answer me.
I can hear whether you’re excited about an idea or merely agreeing to it. I can catch the hesitation before you say yes. You can see that I’m joking instead of wondering whether that sentence was passive-aggressive. We can interrupt each other, clarify something immediately, change direction, laugh, disagree, and figure out what we actually mean.
That matters.
Most of the work still doesn’t need to happen in the meeting.
Give me 30 minutes with the people who actually need to contribute to the conversation. Let’s get to a shared understanding of what we’re doing and why. Then we can all go away and do the work asynchronously.
And AI makes that 30 minutes different than it used to be. AI can take the notes. It can summarize the conversation. It can pull out decisions and action items. It can give the people who weren’t there a way to catch up afterward.
We don’t need another person in the virtual room just because somebody has to take notes. We don’t need to invite everyone who might eventually need the information just so they can hear it firsthand. We don’t all need to spend the meeting half-listening while trying to capture what was said.
Which means we can be much more deliberate about who is there.
Invite the people who contribute. And then let them contribute.
Listen instead of transcribing. Watch the reactions. Ask the follow-up question. Notice when three people are using the same word and clearly mean three different things. Spend five minutes talking about someone’s weekend if that’s what humans who work together happen to do.
Then send the terse email tomorrow.
Sure. The meeting could have been an email. But the email could also have been six emails, three misunderstandings, and a meeting next Thursday to sort it all out.
Sometimes 30 minutes together is the faster way to understanding.
Especially now that nobody has to take notes.
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