Keeping up in meetings

Post Reply New Topic

Keeping up with the pace of meetings, especially constant mind-changing or course-changing, is one of the most challenges aspects of work that I can think of, with my having Aspergers. I'm wondering if you have any stories to relate, or more importantly, any coping mechanisms.

Like many working professionals with Aspergers, I will write virtually everything down due to problems with short-term memory, central coherence and processing speed, then analyze it later to find themes of relevant information. The rare time, people find this odd but the majority of time it passes OK.

But where I struggle, as a business systems/process analyst, is in meetings - where there are like seven people in the room and I try to facilitate the discussion but it keeps ping-ponging around ideas of how something should be, then when they land on consensus, I frantically try to process it and return a summary response: "so you're agreeing/saying that the solution should contain attributes B and C, but if the user gets into situation X, then B is cancelled it returns D instead subject to a fee of S on the user's account. - more than once, this has been met by a chorus of "No's", which is REALLY embarrassing - I mean, it's one thing if you're doing an interpersonal meeting of no more than 2-3 people, but for a meeting of 7 people, this kind of thing makes you cringe, like you just revealed that you're the only one who can't keep up. I find using a whiteboard works during such discussions, but something they ignore my attempts to illustrate their thoughts for my understanding. One time when I got the chorus of "No's", I tried illustrating my comprehension of their agreement on the board and explaining why/how I reached that conclusion, but it resulted in a lot of harried comments from my audience to change this, or change that, to get my understanding "just right".

The trouble is, despite my use of notes and a whiteboard to compensate for lack of executive function, I can't very well tell my audience to "slow down" if the rest of them are otherwise keeping pace amongst themselves. It's that whole "democracy" argument. Sometimes I sense that some of them are resentful of my subtle attempt to slow things down and/or catch up with comprehension of their latest trajectory, because it's inefficient use of their time. That was in fact something I've gotten before on performance reviews as criticism, sometimes people feel that I'm not making efficient use of their time. Well what I'm doing is a heck of a lot better than pretending I understand (which I've done before, and that was deadly) and getting burned later - might as well reveal my true thoughts now, I figure. I've tried saying "whoa, slow down, you're going a bit fast for me" but then they think you have some sort of problem or even 'ret*d', even though we know full well that IQ has nothing to do with processing speed.

It doesn't happen rampantly, I mean there have been times more often than not where I HAVE followed through the thread of discussion's dynamics to an accurate current comprehension of what's needed. But the problem is, I fail to do so enough times to be noticed. The trouble with organizations, if you can call it that, is they're so big on efficiency that they expect it to be perfect before the quality of work output. They value efficiency over quality which is the bane of our work-life existence. And this keeping up with meeting dynamics challenge is a perfect example of that. I don't know what recourse there is to deal with it better, I really don't.

There's nothing wrong with being a more organized, visual thinker. Remember that you can do things that other people can't, and it could be that your way of thinking is faster or more efficient. It just doesn't seem that way when other people process things in a completely different way.

I had an aspie classmate last year who illustrated her thought process on a topic she was presenting in a very complicated flowchart. The whole class and the professor were fascinated and we all wished we could organize ideas like that. Different sometimes comes across as better. In my grad school environment, we're always interested in alternate points of view. That's not always true in a corporate environment. So if they don't understand you they may seem to blame you for not keeping up when on the inside they may feel inadequate for not being able to keep up with YOU.

I think what you did by illustrating on the whiteboard was good. I might not spend much time in justifying why I came to a conclusion (it makes it look like you're telling them they're wrong), but if you can draw it out or do bulletpoints and then ask them to tell you where you didn't understand, it would go a long way toward helping them communicate with you and vice versa.

People seem willing to help you get a clear idea even if their methods need a little polishing. It has been found that effective meetings have a published summary memo and action plans distributed to the participants. People have an opportunity to respond in writing if they disagree. And the memo is updated. You could learn about them and proposed them to your management. If no one else is willing to take on the role, you could. I have hearing problems so never could.

Sucks... I live off of the minutes. My recordings of meetings are rarely accurate and I live off of them.

You can possibly present it as a good idea in future, so that newbie who are hired later on can know what was discussed when so as to not waste time?

Sucks... I live off of the minutes. My recordings of meetings are rarely accurate and I live off of them.

You can possibly present it as a good idea in future, so that newbie who are hired later on can know what was discussed when so as to not waste time? or with other good reasons?

You may also be perceived as not being a team player by not validating the group consensus. Sometimes meetings are more about feeling good the consensus instead of picking apart the details to make sure it will really work. Being the guy who spoils the party won't make you popular.

I had another thought. I have a neurological disease which makes it hard for me to listen and write at the same time. I've gotten permission at school and when I was working to carry a hand recorder. I'd relisten to the meeting or class later while I was making notes and that way I could be sure I wasn't missing anything.

One great thing it helped me with is that often people will not finish an idea but think they did. When you try to remember it you may have trouble remembering the point and blame yourself for not paying attention. But when I had these holes documented in my notes I could go back to that person later and say, "I didn't fully get what you were saying about X, could you tell me again?"

It also helps if you put the blame (deserved or not) on yourself when you ask for explanations. It makes people WAY more likely to help.