> The dignity of knowledge work is rooted in our dignity as knowers, a concept from a branch of philosophy about the ethical implications of knowledge and belie

> The dignity of knowledge work is rooted in our dignity as knowers, a concept from a branch of philosophy about the ethical implications of knowledge and belief. Success in knowledge isn’t about the facts we know, but by how good we are at judging the truth of uncertain things. I mean, I agree with this in the abstract, but I’m very skeptical of the claim that this process is aided by meetings. Honestly, my experience after nearly a decade in the industry has led me to believe that the “democratic” approach to management that underpins meeting culture… basically doesn’t work. The idea that the whole team should convene and everyone should give their input and that this process converges on the truth, or the optimal path forward, or whatever… is just not rooted in reality. What we actually need are individual smart leaders who take responsibility for the vision and just tell everyone else what to do. The actual thing that makes a group of people productive is for everyone to know their place/role, and the truth is that the majority of people do not need to be at or contribute to “knowledge-making” meetings. I also don’t know if I buy that programming is knowledge work in the usual sense. It requires knowledge but the output is not just a report or something, it is the actual product. The only reason it seems more like knowledge work than it is, is that we’ve set up big tech companies in a way where your work is like 40% being an information router, 40% being a politician, and maybe 20% programming. In this context I’m sure it would seem like “meetings are the work.” But maybe we should change that, and not just shove people into more meetings.