This is true for most organizations. Note though that the practice the author describes at Amazon is that everyone gets the document to read at the beginning of the meeting. The structure of the meeting means that (1) someone is forced to produce the narrative ahead of time and (2) everyone has to read it alone together.
That's an odd setup, but it's probably what makes this system work -- an organizational admission that this meeting setup is actually better than walking people through slides. One advantage the author doesn't mention is that this "alone together" mode gives each participant more time to think before having to fit their thoughts into a group discussion, which likely promotes divergent thinking and gives people room to ask important, difficult questions.
That's an odd setup, but it's probably what makes this system work -- an organizational admission that this meeting setup is actually better than walking people through slides. One advantage the author doesn't mention is that this "alone together" mode gives each participant more time to think before having to fit their thoughts into a group discussion, which likely promotes divergent thinking and gives people room to ask important, difficult questions.