Your new manager is a transcript

There is a particular kind of sentence that becomes a decision by appearing in the minutes. In the meeting it was a possibility, accompanied by a raised eyebrow and the sort of silence that means several people will complain about it afterwards. In the summary it is an action. By Friday, somebody has a deadline.

An automatic transcript can be enormously useful. It gives us a way back to the words instead of everybody’s competing recollection. The trouble comes when we allow the summary to settle a question the meeting did not settle, or mistake a neat list of actions for an agreed plan.

Before turning the conversation into instructions, somebody needs to ask what counts as agreement. Who checks attribution? Can the people involved correct the record before it starts directing their work?

Human note-takers can make the same mistakes. They have an advantage when they know the people, recognise a joke and remember that the person saying “fine” has never sounded less fine in their life. The software’s fluency can make its account feel more authoritative than the uncertain conversation it describes.

Keep the recording where appropriate, check the summary and ask somebody with authority to confirm the decisions. The machine can help us remember the meeting. It should not quietly become the person who ran it.