It’s not a trick question. Workplaces everywhere are full of people busy doing next to nothing . . . only they don’t realize it. What these people are doing is mostly shifting information around. They spend large parts of their days responding to e-mail and voice mail; they attend meeting after meeting after meeting; they watch scores of presentations and prepare still more. It all appears extremely important and productive, but when you look at it closely, what you see is an organization that spends nearly all its time swapping information from person to person, without having the time to consider fully what it contains, let alone act on it.

looking busy doing nothing: going to meetings, preparing presentations that no one reads, cc everyone. this piece has all the symptoms of a dysfunctional organization (ie, most of them).

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