Dear Abby, 

A project I was managing has recently been put on "hiatus" but one of the major problems I encountered as project manager was getting people outside of the meeting to do the work necessary for the next meeting. Frequently, this simply involved reading the notes (any where from 2 to 5 pages) I had put together from the previous meeting and checking them for errors and omissions.  I always had to print enough copies of the notes for the next meeting so that everybody would have a copy they could then read in the meeting while we were going over the notes.  I was constantly having an internal battle with myself over whether this was a productive use of meeting time (which it really wasn't) or if we should simply move on and let them suffer the consequences of any errors in the notes.  Neither seemed like a good idea and I can't help but be struck by the similarities to teachers/professors saying "Read the book" and then having to go over the material because they knew nobody read the book.

I know that there's no "magic bullet" to get people to do their jobs unless you have management support (which I had only in word but not in action) so I guess the questions I have are:

1. What is the better choice in that situation, ensure correctness and waste time or save time and take a minimal chance at an error? 
2. More broadly, is this a fundamental error in communication to the team? 
3. Is email a bad choice for this type of communication?

Dear Manager,

This is one of the problems many teams have in real life. People don’t want to do all the work. They hope someone else will pick up the slack. If management won’t back you then you have to decide quality or efficiency. The problem is that if you don’t have the notes correction activity the errors may not be detected for some time and of course you will get blamed. There is no good answer.

But let us go over your questions:

1. What is the better choice in that situation, ensure correctness and waste time or save time and take a minimal chance at an error?
   The problem is that if you don’t have the notes correction activity the errors may not be detected for some time and of course you will get blamed.
   
   
2. More broadly, is this a fundamental error in communication to the team? 
   Possibly. I would ask the group at their next meeting about the problem. Can they explain why they won't read the notes and correct them. It might help but then maybe they won't admit to the behavior. Ask for alternatives.
   
   
3. Is email a bad choice for this type of communication?
   Probably. People can get swamped with email. More likely they are overloaded and have "more important things to do". It is a matter of priorities.