Group and engagement over individuals and interactions
It is estimated that companies lose 1/4 of their time in useless meetings. The problem isn’t the group; it’s confusing interaction with engagement. Chatting on Slack and scheduling a daily isn’t engagement. It’s organized noise.
The interaction theater
The situation worsens when the meeting’s focus drifts to unrelated topics, lateness becomes routine, and what is decided in the end is to schedule another meeting. Individuals interacting without direction produce motion, not progress.
Growing complexity
As a company grows, so does its complexity: products, services, responsibilities, hierarchies, roles, and above all, problems. Under these conditions, the engaged group prevails over individualities. Engagement isn’t everyone talking at once; it’s everyone pulling in the same direction.
The boat analogy
In a regatta, the winner isn’t the one who rows hardest alone, but the boat where everyone rows in the same rhythm. Engagement is collective cadence. Interaction without cadence is just splashing.
That is, as a rule, the more engaged and aligned a group is, the fewer scattered individuals and interactions it needs.