Videoconferences may speed decision-making, but they have a downside. You can see only the participants selected by the camera. You can’t read the body language of the others. In addition to the two generals, there were others listening in that conference room in Tampa, plus more than a dozen other stations, from Bahrain to Washington to Hawaii. I knew I had only a few minutes to win CENTCOM’s approval. A negative consensus can lock in without a word being spoken.
