communication·Published 2025-10
Frequency of 'Let's Take This Offline' in Team Meetings and Subsequent Random-Walk Revenue Growth: A Positive Correlation
Principal investigator: Dr. Percival Ashcombe, Chief Research Officer.
Teams that more frequently defer meeting topics with 'let's take this offline' record higher revenue growth in the following quarter — though not for any discernible reason.
Methodology
Six hundred and fifteen revenue-generating teams across 91 organizations were observed over a six-month baseline period. Meeting transcripts were coded by Institute research associates for instances of the phrase 'take this offline,' 'let's table that,' and semantically equivalent deferrals per the Institute's Offline Deferral Codebook (ODC v1.3). Revenue figures for the subsequent quarter were obtained from organizational finance contacts who were told the study concerned 'communication pattern effects,' which the Institute considers accurate in the sense that it studies patterns and communication is involved.
Funding disclosure: Funded by the Institute's Communication Research Reserve and a participating organization that was surprised by the result and asked to remain anonymous.
Instruments cited in this study
Full citation
Ashcombe, P. (2025). Frequency of 'Let's Take This Offline' in Team Meetings and Subsequent Random-Walk Revenue Growth: A Positive Correlation. Institute for the Study of Pointless Metrics. r = 0.82, p < 0.001, n = 615.