You’re totally right here. People want accountability because they want to increase honesty, which is obviously a worthy goal. But sometimes it backfires.

If I’m going to be held to account for everything I say in a meeting, I will be more careful about what I say and how I say it. That sounds like a good thing. But I think out loud. I voice opinions that I don’t necessarily hold to encourage others to voice theirs in a free-thinking conversation. People’s immediate feedback allows me to rapidly change my thoughts - asking for short bits of feedback is normal verbally, but laborious in writing. Also, when writing, I self-censor ideas because they sound wrong - but someone might have taken inspiration from one of those wrong ideas and corrected it.

The best medium in which to have a conversation thus depends on the participants, context and intent of that conversation.

Agree with this - and the other thing is subtle but it’s about trust.

If I am documenting things on emails just to create a paper trail for accountability, something about the culture in the company has probably gone awry and it means there is a lack of trust between people.

Documentation shouldn’t be a substitute for honest feedback and ensuring everyone does what they promise. (I’m not saying that tracking actions isn’t a good thing to do - but my primary purpose is to help people remember what they said rather than to hold them to account).

"People’s immediate feedback allows me to rapidly change my thoughts - asking for short bits of feedback is normal verbally, but laborious in writing. "

But that change of thought would be included. Important is, what everyone agrees to in the end.

Also, keeping track of the back and forth is useful for credit assignment later.

Why do you need “credit assignment”?

In those cases, someone claimed a idea as his work, when initially he opposed it.

If the culture you work involves people competing for credit, you've got bigger problems.