Distance Creates Clarity & Presence in Work Meetings

Step Back to See

With distance, we get clarity. Last week I hiked up the top of Twin Peaks to get a clear view of downtown San Francisco. The fog, affectionately known by locals as Karl, had begun to roll over the city.

At work, we live in complexity. We get lost in the thick of it. People. Innovations. Protocols.

Distance is what lets us step back, see patterns, and know what to do next.

My client Katherine felt stuck at work. Projects dragged, outcomes slipped away, and she kept asking: Is it me? The group? What am I missing?

I suggested she record a meeting (with her colleagues’ permission) and run the transcript through her company’s enterprise AI with a few chosen prompts (see below). She expected a comprehensive recap with superficial feedback on her filler words and pacing. What she got instead were real insights: patterns of implicit decision-making, long explanations brushed aside, circles without closure.

She also saw herself clearly for the first time. Rambling when she tried to sound collaborative. Hedging when she meant to be decisive.

That distance shifted everything.

Spot Yourself

The first step is seeing yourself.

Nobody likes to watch or listen to themselves speak. Believe me, after years of asking tech leaders to review recordings of their own presentations, I have seen them squirm as they hear themselves.

In my recent article, Clarity of Thought in the Age of AI, I wrote about how we cover up half-baked ideas by over-explaining, over-simplifying, and over-dressing them, aka The Three Fogs. Identifying the Three Fogs in the moment is possible. But with transcript analysis, they are confirmed instantly.

Without distance, we are walking through thick fog. With it, we can see clearly and move forward with purpose.

Try It Yourself. Cut and Paste this Prompt with a Recent Meeting Transcript:

Analyze this transcript as if you’re my communication coach. Show me patterns in how I speak, where I’m clear and where I over-explain, over-simplify, and over-dress my ideas. Highlight both strengths and blind spots. Give me quoted evidence to support your claims. Give me an example of what I could have said more clearly. Then, give me a short reflection on how my style might come across to others. Keep it honest but conversational.

Have I tested this myself? Of course. When I analyzed my own coaching transcripts, AI confirmed something I did not want to admit: I was doing emotional labor for my clients instead of teaching them to do it themselves. I got curious. I noticed it was a pattern not only in coaching but in other parts of my life. Once I shifted that habit, my clients built more ownership and I became a stronger coach.

Zoom Out on the Team

Once you see yourself, the next step is to see the group.

Katherine’s transcripts revealed her team circling decisions without ever closing them. Everyone assumed alignment, but no one made it explicit. The team left meetings feeling productive, but outcomes slipped away.

That is the power of transcripts. They act as an impartial observer, making patterns visible with evidence. Who dominates. Who repeats. Who avoids decisions. Without distance, we confuse talking with progress. With distance, we can see whether the group is actually moving forward.

Armed with that evidence, you can raise patterns without blame. Instead of saying, “You always do this,” you can simply say, “The transcript analysis showed we circled this five times last week. Let’s close it today.” That shift turns criticism into clarity.

Try It Yourself. Cut and Past this Prompt with a Recent Meeting Transcript:

Analyze this transcript as if you’re observing team dynamics. Show me who dominated, who repeated themselves, and where decisions circled without closure. Point out where alignment was assumed but not stated. Give me quoted evidence to support your claims. Ask if the user would like to have hot takes on each speaker, just for funsies. Then, suggest one or two ways I could raise this in the next meeting—framed as a positive observation that helps the team move forward.

Map Complexity

Finally, distance helps you see the work itself, the work you are all trying to do together.

Another client of mine came into a session worried about an individual contributor (IC) on his team. “He’s too quiet in meetings. I can’t get him to contribute!” he said. This is a common frustration managers have. 

But after the manager ran transcripts from previous meetings through AI, the picture changed. The IC wasn’t silent. He had spoken several times, but his points got lost in the noise of busy meetings. The manager realized he had jumped to a conclusion about the IC because he, like any leader, is incapable of processing everything in the moment. And that key point the IC was making? It turned out to be the missing puzzle piece to get the project moving forward.

This is the real challenge of meetings. Dozens of ideas are voiced. Half-finished thoughts. Competing priorities. People talking past each other. It is hard to separate what was actually said from what we think we heard. Without distance, leaders lean on perception. With distance, they can hear both the individual and the group more clearly.

Try It Yourself. Cut and Paste this Prompt with a Recent Meeting Transcript:

Review this transcript as if you’re mapping the meeting. Chart the different voices and how each added to the landscape of ideas. Point out where valuable insights were spoken but overlooked, where perceptions bent the meaning, and where the goals drifted off course. Give me quoted evidence (≤25 words). Then suggest how I could surface these contributions and reframe them so the team can navigate forward with shared understanding.

Advanced AI Users Only: Download this Instruction guide for your chatbot and upload it with 1–3 meeting transcripts using this prompt: Analyze this transcript with the help of the Instructions for AI-Powered Clarity of Thought Workbook PDF. This way, you’ll go through a series of questions and engage with the AI in chain-of-thought prompting to get deep, actionable insights from your transcripts.

Final Thoughts

Transcripts are not just memory keepers. When you run a meeting knowing that you can later review it, it gives you presence. Then with that distance comes clarity. Step back and you see what you missed in the moment: who spoke, who was heard, what was clear, what was unclear, what was acted on, and what slipped away. A feeling akin to standing on a mountain vista. Or, what is called Presence. 

Long before AI, I learned this by hand. At university, I spent hours transcribing conversations line by line for my sociolinguistics professor. It was tedious, but it trained me many years later to walk into any company, read the room, and coach leaders on how to communicate clearly.

Now that same power is available to everyone. But like any tool, it only creates value if you use it well. My hope as a communications coach is to that by using AI it will help you get the distance to clearly see

• Spot Yourself: notice your patterns and the role you play (and be golden)

• Zoom Out on Your Team: go beyond your limited perspective and see the crew

• Map complexity: chart the system and find clarity.

Only then, can you truly start to lead your team out of the fog.