Should you be using the Jeff Bezos silent reading technique?

People ask me all the time if they should use the Jeff Bezos meeting technique and here's my answer.

If you haven’t already heard about it, in meetings with Jeff Bezos, participants spend the first 30 minutes silently reading and making notes on a set of documents. Then they discuss them together.

(He's also famous for the Two Pizza Rule but we'll tackle that one another day).

The idea is to eliminate the requirement for preparation and bake it into the meeting. It’s also to encourage thorough consideration of the information as an individual, before discussing as a group.

If you’ve ever asked people to do some prep for a meeting (anyone?!) there is a fine line between "can't find the time" and "won't make the time" but often the outcome is the same. The prep you've asked for isn't done.

For that reason, there are definitely times where I incorporate meeting prep into the session itself. Clearly there are some efficiencies around doing this - less context switching for one. It also avoids that rock/hard place scenario where you end up punishing the people who did to the prep, by making them sit through the catch up required for those who didn't.

However, the Bezos silent reading technique is different.

Sure, it can work in some scenarios and I am ALL for finding an approach that works for your team. I’m also all for experimenting on your own meetings!

But I don't think it's a technique we should be pushing on our teams and our organisations, simply because it worked for Jeff Bezos.

Why I don't include it in my recommended list of meeting structures.

Simply, it's a board-level technique that doesn't translate that well across levels and functions. Here are four reasons from my experience - and one more that's just wild speculation 😂

1. First, someone has to write the friggin' memos! The prep is just getting shifted to one person. Realistically, who in your team is going to churn out well-structured, complete papers multiple times a week? It's a great skill, but it doesn't suit every content type and if people don't have time to write good papers, I can't see how this reduces the burden.

2. Second, not everyone finds it easy to process a vast quantity of written information, in the moment, with a tight deadline. At senior level, you might expect people to be able to do this but it's not a realistic expectation of every knowledge worker. It's not a particularly inclusive technique - though giving people time to consider information before they comment definitely IS inclusive.

3. The practice of starting meetings with silent reading aims to ensure everyone is on the same page. However, it can lead to a slow start and may not be the best use of collective time. Participants could read the memo in advance, saving valuable meeting time for discussion and decision-making. There is a pay off for executive level people whose life may be spent in meetings, making preparation impossible. But that's not true for most people.

4. The memo creates one version of the truth and slants the ensuing discussion in one direction. However much the author intends to present neutral facts, their voice - what they pay attention to, what they feel is worthy of note - is what sets the mould for the discussion. At board-level you would expect a very robust discussion, no matter the slant of the memo - but perhaps less senior people might find it harder to critique or break free from the thinking process laid down by the author.

And now for a little speculation...

5. If I may be so bold, I also feel that the CEO of Amazon can ask for any meeting tool that works for him and it shall be so. It's entirely possible that silent reading may not work as well for others in that meeting as it does for him. There is nowhere power shows up more in organisations then in meetings, in my opinion.

HOWEVER, there's lots we can steal from the concept.

Here's how I take the spirit of the Bezos memo technique and make it work in regular teams.
 

The Simplified Memo

If you like the concept of bringing people's heads into the room through quiet reading, eliminating the need for prep and giving people time to think before they speak, then hack the technique so it works for you.

All those bullets you would have put on a slide and said 'I'll just talk through these for 5 minutes' (25 minutes later....) - put them in a doc and have people read them on their own screens at the start of the meeting. Give people 7 minutes not 30 minutes. No endless memo writing. No extended silent screen time.

Or write a one page memo that gets some core facts on the table so everyone has the same starting point. Give people 3-minutes and then a couple of minutes for clarifying questions afterwards.

Working 'Alone Together'

Very similar to brain-writing (where meeting participants spend time jotting down their ideas in silence rather than sharing them out loud as they think of them in brainstorming) working Alone Together allows people to process their thoughts and work at their own pace on a shared task. I typically use this to get people to:

- add stickies (e.g. comments or questions) to a process map, diagram or table on a virtual whiteboard

- add content to a table in a shared doc I have created in advance (clearly labelling where rows each person will contribute on)

- add updates to the chat and then read all the updates and then discuss

These are all things that allow people to sink their head into the content in the meeting itself and consider their thoughts before they discuss them. I also do this when I need people to do a task to make the meeting possible but it's not realistic to get all of them to do it in advance.

A nice example from a meeting I led earlier this month: I gave people a high level gantt chart in a shared spreadsheet and asked people to create the detail of each section within the meeting. It was really energising to see all the data go in and within about 8 minutes, we had a fully assembled document which we were ready to discuss.

Create a Shared Memo

Finally, I like to create the memo - but live, as a group. This way we can gather lots of data/perspectives rapidly and gain the same shared context and detail... just without reading one person's version of it.

I do this by listing out on a real or virtual whiteboard, the headings that would have gone into the memo. e.g. problem summary, key issues, goals, constraints, options, pros, cons etc

We then rapidly assemble these as a group so we have a sequence of written lists, reflecting our group thought process. I sometimes do this in the meeting chat beforehand.

You don't get the silent thinking time - but you do get diverse perspectives and a well-rounded agreed context on which to base a richer discussion.

That's my list for today! As always, design for what delivers value for your team and your workflow. If Bezos works, GREAT! But if it doesn't, it's not you - there are probably some variations that may suit you better.

OK, now you - what do you think of the Bezos silent reading technique? And which of my three alternatives might you try out?