>>>I guess it was not meant to limit the discussion, but rather to focus it. I was replying specifically in regards to the school jokes and the discussion about them. I guess Metin was replying to the subject in general and others. Of course, just about every thread has thread drift these days...
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>>>In meetings, the habit of diverting the discussion tends to shift focus and then no decisions are made on the subjects that were meant to be covered. Nothing gets done.
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>>There's a difference. I'm regularly attending meetings with my current team, with people from several countries, and any problem that would take us into a side tunnel is still considered, then if we see it would take us too far, scheduled for next time, or solved on the spot if possible. With a purely American team, I noticed a collective, disciplined refusal to talk about anything that wasn't on the agenda. That way nothing gets done on time - before work on it begins, it has to wait for the next meeting.
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>>I'm still investigating this, though. Something in the American mind tends to be specific when other cultures go right for the big picture. Not quite sure where and what happens, where's the disconnect. I know that if I'm trying to explain something abstract, it won't work without an example. And if the example isn't completely representative, forget it - the discussion gets bogged in the details of the example, and the abstract idea that the example was about gets completely forgotten. If you remember a discussion I had with Sam few weeks ago... that was a good example (and now let's not get bogged in the details of the example :).
>
>But it needs someone very competent to steer the meeting and keep everyone in line while allowing some digression. Its a black (can I say that) art.

Depends on who's present. In the current set, I see about half of the people having the habit to just pull their own reins when the discussion meanders and suggest "this be material for the next meeting, and I better get more details before that", or something to that effect.

Could this be a perfect example to illustrate my thesis that a less than perfectly representative example will lead away from the initial abstract topic? Because this was not about meetings at all, the meetings were just an example; it was about the American (or generally Anglosaxon?) habit of concentrating on specifics and not going for the big picture right on, but only after the specifics (and the audience) where exhausted? I mean, why did I understand Metin's question as related to segregation in general and the mention of school laws as just an example, while Tracy went for "we're talking about schools only and other racial laws are out of the picture". Why is it that I got his intention without further elaboration? Hmmmm... there must be something in the general overtones of the culture, but shoot me if I can pinpoint what. It's a very elusive matter - as witnessed by many meandering threads where I participated and where we frustrated each other by such differences... while not even knowing where exactly they were.

Hmmmmm indeed. I am getting to disagree with the thread title.