The fluorescent light above the conference table has a flicker that vibrates at exactly the same frequency as the dull ache in my lower back. I spent four hours on the cold bathroom floor at 3am, hands slick with grey sealant, trying to convince a porcelain gasket to stop weeping. It was a simple mechanical failure. A leak. But sitting here in the ‘Weekly Portfolio Alignment’ session, watching Mark scroll through row 48 of a spreadsheet we all saw yesterday, I realize the plumbing of this company is far more broken than my toilet.

We are here to ‘sync.’ That is the corporate euphemism for the manual transport of data from one brain to another through the medium of vibrating air. It is the most expensive, least efficient, and most error-prone method of information transfer known to man. Mark reads a number. Sarah asks if that number includes the late fees from the Northwest account. Mark says he thinks so, but he’ll have to check the other tab. He spends 38 seconds clicking. We wait. The flickering light continues its staccato assault.

The Sanctity of Data vs. The Meeting-ization of Care

This isn’t collaboration; it’s a ritual performance. It’s a seance where we try to summon the spirit of ‘Awareness’ without actually building the infrastructure to sustain it. I find myself thinking about Adrian E., an elder care advocate I met last year. Adrian spends 48 percent of his week navigating the labyrinthine bureaucracies of healthcare systems to ensure that a single 88-year-old woman gets her physical therapy on time.

“The greatest threat to his clients isn’t a lack of medicine, but the ‘meeting-ization’ of care. When doctors, nurses, and social workers have to sit in a room for 58 minutes to decide what could have been checked on a real-time dashboard, the patient is the one who pays the price in neglected hours.”

Adrian E. isn’t just fighting for better beds or cleaner facilities; he’s fighting for the sanctity of the data record. He knows that if the information isn’t centralized and instantly accessible, it effectively doesn’t exist.

We pretend these meetings are about ‘human connection’ or ‘nuance.’ We tell ourselves that we need to hear the tone of voice behind the numbers to truly understand the risk. That’s a lie we tell to justify our lack of systems. If your data is so fragile that it requires a 58-minute emotional interpretation every Tuesday, your data is garbage.

The Hidden Cost: Losing the Architect Role

My back twinges again. The toilet at home is a binary system: it either holds water or it doesn’t. There is no ‘status update’ for a leaking valve. You fix the seal, or you mop the floor. Business data should be the same. Instead of waiting for the weekly review, teams using a system like factor software see the numbers as they happen.

If we had a real-time dashboard… we might actually innovate. But innovation is scary and hard. Reading numbers off a screen is safe. It’s the corporate equivalent of staring at the leak in my bathroom and calling a ‘Family Alignment Meeting’ to discuss the rate of the drip instead of just replacing the damn gasket.

Adrian E. once described a situation where a care facility had 88 different paper forms for a single patient intake. The staff spent so much time ‘aligning’ the forms in meetings that they forgot to check if the patient had actually eaten lunch. We are doing the same thing. We are so busy ‘reviewing the portfolio’ that we are failing to manage it.

Transparency, Fear, and the Middleman

[A dashboard is a window; a meeting is a wall.]

There is a fundamental contradiction in how we view technology. We buy the fastest laptops and the most expensive software, yet we still rely on the ‘town crier’ model of information distribution. We have the internal combustion engine of data analytics, but we’re still hitching it to a horse and buggy.

I think back to the 3am leak. It didn’t care about my ‘narrative’ or my ‘alignment.’ It just leaked. The only thing that mattered was the integrity of the system. Our businesses are the same. They are systems of flow-cash, information, talent, energy. When those flows are obstructed by unnecessary meetings, the system begins to stagnate.

Adrian E. managed to cut the administrative overhead in his care network by 38 percent simply by insisting that no data be shared via email or meeting that wasn’t first entered into the central record. He didn’t just save time; he saved lives.

The Disrespect of Time

I realize now that my frustration with this flickering light and this $1,208 hour isn’t just about the waste. It’s about the disrespect. It’s a disrespect for the limited hours we have on this planet. To sit in a room and listen to someone read what I could have read in eight seconds is a minor tragedy repeated millions of times across the globe.

When I get home tonight, the toilet will be dry. The seal will hold. I did the work, I fixed the system, and I moved on. I wish I could say the same for this portfolio review. But next Tuesday, at 10:08 AM, we will be back. The light will still flicker. Mark will be on row 58. And we will spend another $1,208 pretending that we are collaborating, when really, we are just too afraid to build a better pipe.

Are we afraid of the data, or are we afraid of what we’ll have to do once we finally see it?