Self-editing in meetings

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2021-06-17 00:00:05

Ever since the pandemic started and we've embraced being fully remote, the hand-raise feature has become a fixture of most meetings.

If you're unfamiliar, there's a button you can press in Google Meet that notifies everyone that you have something to say. As people raise their hands, a queue forms in the order hands were raised. When the person is done talking, people have a chance to speak their mind.

It comes at the cost of flow. There's a slightly awkward pause between speakers, waiting to make sure the person is really done talking.

It puts a slight amount of friction into the process of speaking your thoughts. When you have to raise your hand it makes you consider if it's really worth taking a turn for it. This is probably a good thing for most meetings 1 .

Sometimes you'll raise your hand for one thing, and then the conversation will move on, and you'll have to revisit it.