I'm going to say three things, all true, and that seem completely disconnected.

1. Most people hate going to meetings (me included).
2. We go to a lot more of them than we think
3. Being good at meetings is good for life (mostly)

There's a new study from Harvard about meetings and money.

Researchers tracked how much time people spend in meetings and how that impacted their income.

The Guy Defending Meetings

The study comes from David Deming, who’s in charge of all undergraduate education at Harvard. He just sent out a big email about the classroom that runs opposite to what a lot of other colleges are doing.

He is proposing a barbell approach: yes, use AI, put it to work on the things it's good at. And at the same time, write in blue books, write essays, and spend more in-person time. Heavy on both ends.

His bet, as far as I can tell, is that the more work AI takes over, the more the in-person stuff matters.

And to go with this, he just ran a study with some other researchers about the most in-person thing at any job: how people spend a ton of time in meetings at work.

They asked about 9,000 workers and tied the answers to real payroll records. Meetings take up 12% of the workweek. The best-paying companies hold the most of them. More time in meetings meant faster wage growth, while formal training barely moved the needle.

You want to make more money? You make it to more meetings.

Or as the researchers put it themselves: "Meetings are the broccoli of work. Widely disliked, but probably good for us anyway."

I'll take it a step further than the researchers did. Broccoli undersells it.

Because we all go to meetings that are kind of awesome too. The ones where you leave more energized than when you got there.

Last weekend I drove to Connecticut to meet with a camp family. We hung out in the backyard, shot some baskets, talked about what their kid wants out of a summer, and got sidetracked about Jalen Brunson. That was a meeting. It was awesome.

I have the other kind too. I dread sitting down with my accountant to finalize my taxes. We've all sat in the one where the topic has nothing to do with us, or where two people keep talking over each other. Brutal.

Usually, the difference between a good meeting and a bad one is who's there and how they show up.

Which is important, because if all this in-person time really does move the social and financial needle, then doesn't it figuratively and literally pay to be the best person in the room?

The Great Hang

What K&E does better than anyone is help kids be a great hang.

Camp gives kids people to hit ping pong balls with. People to sit around the table and eat lunch with. It puts them in social situations where there is just the right structure, those first five or ten minutes where nobody's telling anyone what to do, and they have to figure it out.

A good hang can tell a joke and has a story. They remember things about you and ask you a question. They can mess around, and they can get serious when it's time.

That's the person everyone wants at the table.

You don't get great at meetings by sitting in rows at school. You get great at meetings by being a good hang. And you learn how to be a good hang at camp.

A Thousand Meetings

There are a thousand meetings that happen for kids at camp. Who's going to be in charge of sweeping the bunk? What the plan is for tonight? How the bunk wants to handle Lip Sync? Who's doing what for Rope Burn? That kind of thing.

And remember, no one has a phone at camp. When kids are in one of these, they're all the way in it. They just get reps on being in a meeting, seriously.

So back to my three things. Most people hate meetings, and I'll keep disliking some of mine. But if life really is built to favor the people who are good at going to them, the kids here are in decent shape.

You Got This,

Jack

PS - The Year of K&E Gear is still rolling. Sign up for summer by October 1st and get this K&E hoodie. Register here!​

114 Eagle Pond Rd, Wilmot, NH 03287
​Unsubscribe · Preferences​