Why work doesn't happen at work – and conference rituals rarely spread new ideas
I just listened to Jason Fried’s interesting TedX talk ‘Why work doesn't happen at work’ : Jason Fried has a radical theory of working: that the office isn't a good place to do it. At TEDxMidwest, he lays out the main problems (call them the M&Ms) and offers three suggestions to make work work. Although he mentions charities and non-profits at the beginning he is clearly focussing on the classic corporate setting of offices, meetings and 9-5 work. But what he also does is to describe the rituals around meetings, why they are organised, how they are implemented and that they are often an expensive performance that does ad very little to productivity, knowledge or information sharing. The key part for me that is also relevant for development work and learning is between minute 10 and 11: So they go into a meeting room, they get together, they talk about stuff that doesn’t really matter usually, because meetings are at work, meetings are things you are talking