We have a bunch of Amazon transplants who newly arrived at my company and have started doing this. I thought I would love it, because I'm a good writer, a great reader, not great at PowerPoint or meeting gamesmanship, etc. Turns out I kind of hate it. The silent reading time is annoying, especially when you've already read the doc or when most people are on zoom, etc. The intellectual bloodbath doesn't happen at my company. The most senior people are given the floor and they usually spout nonsense because they haven't had time to read the doc, are miles away from the intellectual details, are too busy playing office politics, etc. And then there's just as much meeting gamesmanship as before. I was hoping decision would be more scientific but that just hasn't happened. Maybe we're doing it wrong. Maybe we've hired the Amazon rejects. I don't know. Hoping it improves.
Asking the grandparent:
The what is the idea behind the "ideally have already read the paper, but given 10-20 minutes in silence" part?
The fact that people that have already read it have nothing to do and waste time sitting around bored sounds like an obvious flaw, are we missing something?
Wait, so, there's silent reading time that you hate, AND somehow seniors still manage to claim that they didn't read the thing?