MEETING talk MAGAZINE

8 Top Tips for improving chair effectiveness

Extract . . .

1. Confident and perceptive chair-people should always be aware of spotting the wreckers, especially in sales meetings who set out to destabilise the proceedings.

2. It’s very important to set the ground rules of interruption, by which we mean participants should avoid interrupting others – except when absolutely necessary.

3. It’s important to be courteous and finish with an informal discussion to invite people to express how they feel the meeting went.

4. If you don’t ask you don’t get. So through questioning, test that everyone knows what needs to be done, e.g. what dates, times, places, and so on are expected from each of the participants.

The Guru advises ... on the minutes of a meeting

Minutes – the written record of a meeting – are they necessary (excluding meetings where minutes are mandatory, such as government cabinet meetings) or can they be counterproductive? Either way a number of factors are worth considering:

o Why do you want minutes taken?
o Who takes them?
o Are they literal, abbreviated or censored?
o Are they contemporaneous: constructed at the same time as the meeting or produced afterwards?
o What method should be used: longhand, taped, typed?
o Who gets these minutes and why?
o Who is excluded from getting these minutes and why?

The above, although comprehensive, is not exhaustive and a practical answer to all of them is beyond the scope of this article, but I intend to discuss them in future articles.  A point I believe not often considered but worth consideration is what impact taking minutes will have on the participants.

Why Meetings Fail

Observation has shown time and again that meetings don’t succeed when one or more of the participants resent being there. They might take the view that based on previous experience no rational outcome will be achieved, so why attend? Possibly they know the personalities involved – or think they do. Possibly those personality perceptions are correct, but sometimes not. In any event, they just don’t want to be there.

A good chairperson should, prior to the meeting, make it unambiguously clear why everyone’s attendance at the meeting is valuable. If a particular individual has misgivings, then a personalised email is courteous and shows respect for the attendee.
Another common observation is the lack of faith that any outcome of that meeting is likely to be implemented. Again, this issue should be addressed out loud by the chairperson, possibly during or at the beginning of the meeting. Without these assurances, this may well mean that trust in the whole process will be fatally diluted.