Hear in Taiwan

To stand or not to stand?

Unless, of course, we’re talking about standing up during a meeting in order to make it go by more quickly. At least that’s what we thought.

Recently, Taiwan’s Chinese-language media began reporting on the concept of a stand-up meeting. It had run in the Wall Street Journal, and seemed like a good idea. So we decided to try it.

The English Service gathered in the office where we hold our meetings, and at first we were all seated waiting for everyone to arrive. Once everyone was there, with a bit of laughter, we all stood up.

In general, the meeting went pretty well and I, for one, forgot that we were standing. But when we reached a confusing discussion that involved scheduling, standing just seemed silly. We were all pointing at this tiny piece of paper in the middle of the table, hemming and hawing.

The meeting did seem to go by pretty quickly, but then again none of our weekly meetings lasts much more than 30-40 minutes.

So what was the verdict? Well we never voted on it, but judging from our next meeting — which was conducted with all of us seated — I think that we probably won’t be trying the stand-up meeting any time again in the near future.