Why Meetings Turn into a Game of Musical Chairs - The 'Invisible Music' Playing in the Conference Room

The agenda is perfect, and preparations are complete. Yet, for some reason, by the time the meeting ends, the only thing left in the air is the question of who holds the power.

Have you ever experienced that?

Perhaps we are exhausted every day by invisible battles—not over the logical arguments written on the whiteboard, but over who has secured which position.

In the workplace, there are several clear dynamics at play when a meeting that has lost its original purpose devolves into a game of musical chairs.

First is the obsession with a limited resource called evaluation.
Within the structure of an organization, the number of chairs (i.e., positions that receive recognition) is fixed. It is rare for everyone to be praised equally; if someone sits in the chair of 'competent,' someone else inevitably cannot.
When that happens, the desire to show off 'how valuable my contribution was' takes precedence over the substance of the discussion.

Next is the instinctive guard of self-defense.
Who will be forced to take the 'chair no one wants to sit in'—the responsibility for failure? Once that game of passing the buck begins, the meeting suddenly takes on a cutthroat atmosphere.
The act of trying to secure a safe zone by claiming to have foreseen risks may be a rational survival strategy for a business person, but for the project, it is nothing more than stagnation.

Furthermore, particularly in IT environments, there is the construction of a 'privileged class in the name of expertise.'
Intentionally turning complex specifications or technical backgrounds into a black box to create a domain that only you understand.
This is nothing more than an act of forcibly creating a chair that no one else can take by leveraging information superiority.
The superiority gained through monopoly is prioritized over the sharing of knowledge.

To end this fruitless game, it is more realistic to rewrite the program called 'the system' than to wait for individual consciousness to change.

One way is to forcibly shift the focus of inquiry from 'people' to 'events.'
The game of musical chairs happens because the participants are looking at each other's faces.
Direct this focus toward a single 'canvas,' such as a whiteboard or a shared document.
Place the problem to be solved in the center of the table and redefine it as something for everyone to hack together. It is necessary to form a consensus that the enemy is not the colleague sitting next to you, but the unsolved problem in front of you.

Also, breaking the fixation of roles is an effective measure.
For example, try assigning roles like 'the person who always plays devil's advocate' or 'the person who organizes the points' on a rotating basis. Instead of making people fight for chairs, you are providing different types of chairs for everyone from the start.
Once roles are clear, there is no need to engage in forced posturing to prove your own significance.

Finally, efforts to maximize information transparency are indispensable.
Keep the discussion process as a log to visualize not who said what, but the logic used to reach a conclusion. By making the meeting process reviewable, just as IT engineers review code, you can gradually shave away the margins where emotion and politics can enter.

Even if you win the game of musical chairs, if the organization sinks, you will sink into the ocean along with the chair you are sitting on. Such an obvious fact is often forgotten in the heat of the conference room.

What is important is not who sits in the chair, but where that chair is heading.

Tomorrow, when you open the door to the conference room, try looking at the scene from a slightly higher perspective.
Stop the music and have everyone start building new chairs together.
Such a small change might actually be the shortest path.

Book Introduction

・Peopleware: Productive Projects and Teams, 3rd Edition (Kindle Edition)
by Tom DeMarco and Timothy Lister, translated by Tomoo Matsubara, Tsuneo Yamaura, and Takahiro Nagao
Nikkei BP (2013/12/24)
What is more important than technology in a development project? It is 'people.' This book humorously discusses the importance of people-centered project development from six perspectives: respecting the personality of each individual, offices suitable for people who use their brains, how to select and nurture talent, the effects brought about by a cohesive team, the idea that work should be fun, and creating an organization that generates work. This is the revised third edition of a classic that has resonated with many software engineers since its first publication in 1987.
(* Book descriptions are generally based on the descriptions provided at the link (Amazon). Please refer to the link for detailed content.)

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