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Online Minute Taking Training vs. In-Person: Which Works Best?
The Hidden Truth About Corporate Note Taking - A Business Consultant's Honest Take
Sitting through another endless management session last month, I observed the familiar ritual of talented individuals reduced into expensive documentation devices.
Let me tell you something that will likely contradict your executive leadership: most minute taking is a absolute waste of resources that produces the illusion of professional practice while really blocking productive work from being completed.
After spending time with businesses throughout all region in Australia, I can tell you that the documentation crisis has achieved levels of workplace madness that are directly sabotaging operational effectiveness.
The challenge is not that record keeping is worthless - it's that we've converted meeting documentation into a pointless exercise that helps no one and destroys significant quantities of useful time.
The incident that convinced me that meeting documentation has reached absolutely mad:
I was hired to assist a financial services organisation in Melbourne that was struggling with major project issues. During my analysis, I discovered that their management group was holding regular "planning" conferences that lasted over three hours.
This individual was paid over $100,000 per year and had fifteen years of sector expertise. Instead of participating their valuable knowledge to the conversation they were functioning as a expensive note taker.
But here's where it gets completely ridiculous: the organisation was simultaneously employing several separate automated recording tools. They had automated transcription systems, digital recording of the complete meeting, and several team members making their individual comprehensive minutes .
The session discussed critical topics about project development, but the individual best positioned to guide those discussions was entirely occupied on capturing all trivial detail instead of contributing strategically.
The cumulative investment in professional time for recording this single meeting was nearly $2,500, and absolutely not one of the documentation was ever referenced for any meaningful reason.
The irony was completely lost on them. They were wasting their highest qualified contributor to create documentation that no one would actually reference subsequently.
The technological advancement has made the record keeping disaster exponentially worse rather than simpler.
We've moved from simple typed summaries to sophisticated multi platform documentation systems that consume departments of people to maintain.
I've worked with companies where employees now invest longer time processing their digital documentation outputs than they used in the actual sessions being recorded.
The administrative overhead is unsustainable. People simply aren't engaging in discussions more meaningfully - they're merely processing more documentation burden.
Here's the provocative assessment that will probably upset most legal team in professional Australia: extensive minute taking is usually a legal exercise that has minimal connection to do with meaningful accountability.
The obsession with comprehensive documentation often comes from a complete ignorance of what regulatory organisations really require.
Businesses implement sophisticated record keeping procedures based on vague fears about what potentially be required in some imaginary future legal scenario.
When I investigate the actual compliance obligations for their type of business, the facts are typically significantly more straightforward than their elaborate systems.
Real accountability comes from specific commitments, not from detailed documentation of all word spoken in a session.
What are the solutions to detailed minute taking dysfunction?
Record conclusions, not processes.
I advocate for a streamlined system: document commitments, document tasks, schedule timelines. That's it.
Everything else is administrative bloat that adds absolutely no benefit to the organisation or its outcomes.
Rotate minute taking duties among appropriate employees or use specialist resources .
The habit of making highly paid professionals take extensive minutes is financially insane.
I've consulted with organisations that hire specialist minute takers for strategic sessions, or distribute the task among junior employees who can build useful experience while enabling senior contributors to engage on what they do best.
The cost of specialist documentation services is usually significantly cheaper than the opportunity cost of having expensive staff spend their mental energy on administrative tasks.
Determine which meetings genuinely require formal documentation.
If you absolutely must have detailed conference records, employ professional administrative personnel or allocate the task to appropriate employees who can benefit from the professional development.
Limit formal minute taking for sessions where decisions have legal implications, where multiple stakeholders must have shared documentation, or where detailed implementation initiatives require monitored over time.
The key is creating intentional choices about record keeping levels based on actual need rather than defaulting to a standard procedure to all meetings.
The daily cost of professional documentation support is typically significantly cheaper than the productivity impact of having high value executives waste their expertise on documentation duties.
Select digital tools that truly improve your workflows, not platforms that demand constant maintenance.
The best automated tools I've seen are unobtrusive - they automate the administrative aspects of documentation without demanding extra complexity from session participants.
The critical factor is selecting systems that support your decision making purposes, not systems that create ends in themselves.
The goal is digital tools that supports focus on meaningful conversation while seamlessly recording the essential documentation.
The aim is digital tools that facilitates engagement on important problem solving while efficiently managing the required documentation tasks.
The realisation that totally changed how I approach workplace documentation:
Good accountability comes from clear agreements and regular follow up, not from extensive transcripts of conversations.
The organisations with the best performance aren't the ones with the best session minutes - they're the groups with the clearest commitment systems and the most reliable follow through practices.
In contrast, I've worked with companies with sophisticated minute taking systems and terrible follow through because they mistook documentation for actual accountability.
The value of a meeting exists in the effectiveness of the decisions made and the actions that follow, not in the detail of the minutes produced.
The true worth of each session lies in the quality of the outcomes made and the implementation that follow, not in the detail of the records produced.
Prioritise your resources on facilitating processes for excellent decision making, and the accountability will develop naturally.
Direct your energy in creating optimal conditions for superior problem solving, and suitable documentation will develop automatically.
After investing over fifteen years helping companies optimise their workplace performance, here's my firm conviction:
Documentation should support decisions, not become more important than decision making.
Documentation must facilitate outcomes, not replace productive work.
Any different method is merely organisational ritual that consumes precious time and distracts from genuine productive
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