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Jamie Dimon’s latest decree, ‘get back to the office, no exceptions,’ landed with all the grace of a lead balloon. Employees fumed, petitions circulated, and yet, the message was clear: Remote work is over. Get in line.
Whether you love or hate his take, the reality is that many companies are following suit. The Great Return is happening.
But let’s be real, forcing people back into the office doesn’t magically fix collaboration. If anything, it amplifies the dysfunction. All those bad meetings? The ones where people multitask, zone out, and leave without a single decision made? They weren’t better in person. In fact, they might have been worse.
Meetings Were Broken Before Zoom
We love to roast virtual meetings. Yes, people check email, browse Reddit, or, let’s be honest, walk their dog while half-listening to a quarterly review. But if you think office meetings were some beacon of efficiency, think again.
Ever sat in a conference room while a Managing Director rambled through 50 PowerPoint slides? Ever watched a decision die on the vine because the loudest voice in the room steamrolled everyone else? Ever played the game where a team meeting happens, notes get sent, and somehow every person remembers a different version of what was decided?
Yeah, me too.
The problem has never been remote vs. in-office. The problem is how we run meetings, period. And if companies are going to force people back into buildings, they owe them something better.
In previous blogs like The Great Meeting Delusion and Why Methods Matter More than Agenda, I’ve highlighted the staggering number of hours lost in meetings and the disconnect between senior leaders’ beliefs and the reality of their value. Forcing people back to the office in the name of “face time” won’t fix this, if anything, it might make it worse.
The $100K Question: If Meetings Were Optional, Would Anyone Show Up?
Let’s do a thought experiment. Imagine every meeting on your calendar was optional. Not in the vague “feel free to decline” way, but literally:
- No political fallout for skipping.
- No passive-aggressive ‘just checking if you saw my invite’ Slacks.
- You only go if you know it will be worth your time.
How many would you still attend?
That’s the benchmark. If people wouldn’t willingly show up, why the hell are we scheduling them in the first place?
Here’s what few leaders will admit: remote work actually exposed meeting problems that were hiding in plain sight for decades. When everyone was forced onto video calls, the dysfunction became impossible to ignore. The awkward silences. The meandering discussions. The lack of clear outcomes. Suddenly, these problems were magnified and measurable. The ‘return to office’ push isn’t just about collaboration, it’s partly an attempt to sweep these fundamental workflow issues back under the carpet where they’ve always been. But we now know better.
The Opportunity: Rebuild Meetings from Scratch
Dimon and every other executive forcing the in-office return has a choice:
- Drag people back into the same outdated, inefficient meeting culture.
- Use this moment to reinvent how work actually gets done together.
Because right now, the meeting model is broken in three fundamental ways:
1. Meetings Are a Stage for the Loudest, Not the Smartest
- The same people dominate every discussion.
- Introverts, deep thinkers, and dissenters get drowned out.
- Good ideas die because they don’t fit the immediate momentum.
The Fix: Silent Brainstorming → Every idea gets captured before the discussion starts. No more performative thinking. No more steamrollers.
2. Meetings Are Where Decisions Go to Die
- “Let’s circle back.”
- “We need more data.”
- “Let’s take this offline.”
Translation? Nothing happens. And we wonder why projects take forever.
The Fix: Decision Mapping → Before the meeting starts, everyone knows:
- What’s being decided.
- Who has the authority to decide.
- What happens next.
If none of those are clear? Cancel the meeting.
3. Meeting Outcomes Are a Game of Telephone
- One person takes notes.
- Half the room tunes out.
- A week later, nobody agrees on what was decided.
The Fix: Live Documentation → Every meeting produces a single, public source of truth. No more “I thought we agreed…” confusion. No more wasted follow-ups.
Make Meetings So Good, People Want to Show Up
Companies are pouring billions into office real estate, hoping shiny buildings and free snacks will lure people back. But if meetings still suck, none of that matters.
You want people excited about the office? Make it the place where real work happens. Where decisions get made. Where ideas actually move forward.
If that’s the future, I’d show up for that. Wouldn’t you?
