1035 lines
52 KiB
Markdown
1035 lines
52 KiB
Markdown
---
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created_at: '2016-12-14T17:14:58.000Z'
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title: How to run a meeting (1976)
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url: https://hbr.org/1976/03/how-to-run-a-meeting
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author: trendoid
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points: 147
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story_text:
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comment_text:
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num_comments: 44
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story_id:
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story_title:
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story_url:
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parent_id:
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created_at_i: 1481735698
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_tags:
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- story
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- author_trendoid
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- story_13177611
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objectID: '13177611'
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---
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![MAR15\_12\_523197071](/resources/images/article_assets/1976/03/MAR15_12_523197071.png)
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Why have a meeting anyway? Why indeed? A great many important matters
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are quite satisfactorily conducted by a single individual who consults
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nobody. A great many more are resolved by a letter, a memo, a phone
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call, or a simple conversation between two people. Sometimes five
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minutes spent with six people separately is more effective and
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productive than a half-hour meeting with them all together.
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Certainly a great many meetings waste a great deal of everyone’s time
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and seem to be held for historical rather than practical reasons; many
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long-established committees are little more than memorials to dead
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problems. It would probably save no end of managerial time if every
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committee had to discuss its own dissolution once a year, and put up a
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case if it felt it should continue for another twelve months. If this
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requirement did nothing else, it would at least re-focus the minds of
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the committee members on their purposes and objectives.
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But having said that, and granting that “referring the matter to a
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committee” can be a device for diluting authority, diffusing
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responsibility, and delaying decisions, I cannot deny that meetings
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fulfill a deep human need. Man is a social species. In every
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organization and every human culture of which we have record, people
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come together in small groups at regular and frequent intervals, and in
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larger “tribal” gatherings from time to time. If there are no meetings
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in the places where they work, people’s attachment to the organizations
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they work for will be small, and they will meet in regular formal or
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informal gatherings in associations, societies, teams, clubs, or pubs
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when work is over.
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This need for meetings is clearly something more positive than just a
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legacy from our primitive hunting past. From time to time, some
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technomaniac or other comes up with a vision of the executive who never
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leaves his home, who controls his whole operation from an
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all-electronic, multichannel, microwave, fiber-optic video display dream
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console in his living room. But any manager who has ever had to make an
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organization work greets this vision with a smile that soon stretches
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into a yawn.
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There is a world of science fiction, and a world of human reality; and
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those who live in the world of human reality know that it is held
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together by face-to-face meetings. A meeting still performs functions
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that will never be taken over by telephones, teleprinters, Xerox
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copiers, tape recorders, television monitors, or any other technological
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instruments of the information revolution.
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## Functions of a Meeting
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At this point, it may help us understand the meaning of meetings if we
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look at the six main functions that meetings will always perform better
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than any of the more recent communication devices.
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1\. In the simplest and most basic way, a meeting defines the team, the
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group, or the unit. Those present belong to it; those absent do not.
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Everyone is able to look around and perceive the whole group and sense
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the collective identity of which he or she forms a part. We all know who
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we are—whether we are on the board of Universal International, in the
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overseas sales department of Flexitube, Inc., a member of the school
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management committee, on the East Hampton football team, or in Section
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No. 2 of Platoon 4, Company B.
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2\. A meeting is the place where the group revises, updates, and adds to
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what it knows as a group. Every group creates its own pool of shared
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knowledge, experience, judgment, and folklore. But the pool consists
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only of what the individuals have experienced or discussed as a
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group—i.e., those things which every individual knows that all the
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others know, too. This pool not only helps all members to do their jobs
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more intelligently, but it also greatly increases the speed and
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efficiency of all communications among them. The group knows that all
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special nuances and wider implications in a brief statement will be
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immediately clear to its members. An enormous amount of material can be
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left unsaid that would have to be made explicit to an outsider.
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But this pool needs constant refreshing and replenishing, and
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occasionally the removal of impunities. So the simple business of
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exchanging information and ideas that members have acquired separately
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or in smaller groups since the last meeting is an important contribution
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to the strength of the group. By questioning and commenting on new
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contributions, the group performs an important “digestive” process that
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extracts what’s valuable and discards the rest.
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Some ethologists call this capacity to share knowledge and experience
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among a group “the social mind,” conceiving it as a single mind
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dispersed among a number of skulls. They recognize that this “social
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mind” has a special creative power, too. A group of people meeting
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together can often produce better ideas, plans, and decisions than can a
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single individual, or a number of individuals, each working alone. The
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meeting can of course also produce worse outputs or none at all, if it
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is a bad meeting.
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However, when the combined experience, knowledge, judgment, authority,
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and imagination of a half dozen people are brought to bear on issues, a
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great many plans and decisions are improved and sometimes transformed.
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The original idea that one person might have come up with singly is
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tested, amplified, refined, and shaped by argument and discussion (which
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often acts on people as some sort of chemical stimulant to better
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performance), until it satisfies far more requirements and overcomes
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many more objections than it could in its original form.
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3\. A meeting helps every individual understand both the collective aim
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of the group and the way in which his own and everyone else’s work can
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contribute to the group’s success.
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4\. A meeting creates in all present a commitment to the decisions it
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makes and the objectives it pursues. Once something has been decided,
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even if you originally argued against it, your membership in the group
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entails an obligation to accept the decision. The alternative is to
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leave the group, but in practice this is very rarely a dilemma of
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significance. Real opposition to decisions within organizations usually
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consists of one part disagreement with the decision to nine parts
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resentment at not being consulted before the decision. For most people
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on most issues, it is enough to know that their views were heard and
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considered. They may regret that they were not followed, but they accept
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the outcome.
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And just as the decision of any team is binding on all the members, so
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the decisions of a meeting of people higher up in an organization carry
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a greater authority than any decision by a single executive. It is much
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harder to challenge a decision of the board than of the chief executive
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acting on his own. The decision-making authority of a meeting is of
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special importance for long-term policies and procedures.
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5\. In the world of management, a meeting is very often the only
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occasion where the team or group actually exists and works as a group,
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and the only time when the supervisor, manager, or executive is actually
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perceived as the leader of the team, rather than as the official to whom
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individuals report. In some jobs the leader does guide his team through
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his personal presence—not just the leader of a pit gang or construction
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team, but also the chef in the hotel kitchen and the maitre d’hôtel in
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the restaurant, or the supervisor in a department store. But in large
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administrative headquarters, the daily or weekly meeting is often the
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only time when the leader is ever perceived to be guiding a team rather
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than doing a job.
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6\. A meeting is a status arena. It is no good to pretend that people
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are not or should not be concerned with their status relative to the
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other members in a group. It is just another part of human nature that
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we have to live with. It is a not insignificant fact that the word order
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means (a) hierarchy or pecking order; (b) an instruction or command; and
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(c) stability and the way things ought to be, as in “put your affairs in
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order,” or “law and order.” All three definitions are aspects of the
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same idea, which is indivisible.
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Since a meeting is so often the only time when members get the chance to
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find out their relative standing, the “arena” function is inevitable.
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When a group is new, has a new leader, or is composed of people like
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department heads who are in competition for promotion and who do not
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work in a single team outside the meeting, “arena behavior” is likely to
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figure more largely, even to the point of dominating the proceedings.
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However, it will hardly signify with a long-established group that meets
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regularly.
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Despite the fact that a meeting can perform all of the foregoing main
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functions, there is no guarantee that it will do so in any given
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situation. It is all too possible that any single meeting may be a waste
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of time, an irritant, or a barrier to the achievement of the
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organization’s objectives.
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## What Sort of Meeting?
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While my purpose in this article is to show the critical points at which
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most meetings go wrong, and to indicate ways of putting them right, I
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must first draw some important distinctions in the size and type of
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meetings that we are dealing with.
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Meetings can be graded by size into three broad categories: (1) the
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assembly—100 or more people who are expected to do little more than
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listen to the main speaker or speakers; (2) the council—40 or 50 people
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who are basically there to listen to the main speaker or speakers but
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who can come in with questions or comments and who may be asked to
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contribute something on their own account; and (3) the committee—up to
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10 (or at the most 12) people, all of whom more or less speak on an
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equal footing under the guidance and control of a chairman.
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We are concerned in this article only with the “committee” meeting
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though it may be described as a committee, a subcommittee, a study
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group, a project team, a working party, a board, or by any of dozens of
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other titles. It is by far the most common meeting all over the world,
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and can perhaps be traced back to the primitive hunting band through
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which our species evolved. Beyond doubt it constitutes the bulk of the
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11 million meetings that—so it has been calculated—take place every day
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in the United States.
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Apart from the distinction of size, there are certain considerations
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regarding the type of meeting that profoundly affect its nature. For
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instance:
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Frequency—A daily meeting is different from a weekly one, and a weekly
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meeting from a monthly one. Irregular, ad hoc, quarterly, and annual
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meetings are different again. On the whole, the frequency of meetings
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defines—or perhaps even determines—the degree of unity of the group.
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Composition—Do the members work together on the same project, such as
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the nursing and ancillary staff on the same ward of a hospital? Do they
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work on different but parallel tasks, like a meeting of the company’s
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plant managers or regional sales managers? Or are they a diverse
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group—strangers to each other, perhaps—united only by the meeting
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itself and by a common interest in realizing its objectives?
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Motivation—Do the members have a common objective in their work, like a
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football team? Or do they to some extent have a competitive working
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relationship, like managers of subsidiary companies at a meeting with
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the chief executive, or the heads of research, production, and marketing
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discussing finance allocation for the coming year? Or does the desire
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for success through the meeting itself unify them, like a neighborhood
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action group or a new product design committee?
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Decision process—How does the meeting group ultimately reach its
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decisions? By a general consensus, “the feeling of the meeting”? By a
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majority vote? Or are the decisions left entirely to the chairman
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himself, after he has listened to the facts, opinions, and discussions?
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### Kinds of meetings
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The experienced meeting-goer will recognize that, although there seem to
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be five quite different methods of analyzing a meeting, in practice
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there is a tendency for certain kinds of meetings to sort themselves out
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into one of three categories. Consider:
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The daily meeting, where people work together on the same project with a
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common objective and reach decisions informally by general agreement.
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The weekly or monthly meeting, where members work on different but
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parallel projects and where there is a certain competitive element and a
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greater likelihood that the chairman will make the final decision
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himself.
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The irregular, occasional, or “special project” meeting, composed of
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people whose normal work does not bring them into contact and whose work
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has little or no relationship to the others’. They are united only by
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the project the meeting exists to promote and motivated by the desire
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that the project should succeed. Though actual voting is uncommon, every
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member effectively has a veto.
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Of these three kinds of meetings, it is the first—the workface type—that
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is probably the most common. It is also, oddly enough, the one most
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likely to be successful. Operational imperatives usually ensure that it
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is brief, and the participants’ experience of working side by side
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ensures that communication is good.
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The other two types are a different matter. In these meetings all sorts
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of human crosscurrents can sweep the discussion off course, and errors
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of psychology and technique on the chairman’s part can defeat its
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purposes. Moreover, these meetings are likely to bring together the more
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senior people and to produce decisions that profoundly affect the
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efficiency, prosperity, and even survival of the whole organization. It
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is, therefore, toward these higher-level meetings that the lessons of
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this article are primarily directed.
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## Before the Meeting
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The most important question you should ask is: “What is this meeting
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intended to achieve?” You can ask it in different ways—“What would be
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the likely consequences of not holding it?” “When it is over, how shall
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I judge whether it was a success or a failure?”—but unless you have a
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very clear requirement from the meeting, there is a grave danger that it
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will be a waste of everyone’s time.
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### Defining the objective
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You have already looked at the six main functions that all meetings
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perform, but if you are trying to use a meeting to achieve definite
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objectives, there are in practice only certain types of objectives it
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can really achieve. Every item on the agenda can be placed in one of the
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following four categories, or divided up into sections that fall into
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one or more of them.
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#### 1\. Informative-digestive
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Obviously, it is a waste of time for the meeting to give out purely
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factual information that would be better circulated in a document. But
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if the information should be heard from a particular person, or if it
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needs some clarification and comment to make sense of it, or if it has
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deep implications for the members of the meeting, then it is perfectly
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proper to introduce an item onto the agenda that requires no conclusion,
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decision, or action from the meeting, it is enough, simply, that the
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meeting should receive and discuss a report.
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The “informative-digestive” function includes progress reports—to keep
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the group up to date on the current status of projects it is responsible
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for or that affect its deliberations—and review of completed projects in
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order to come to a collective judgment and to see what can be learned
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from them for the next time.
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#### 2\. Constructive-originative
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This “What shall we do?” function embraces all items that require
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something new to be devised, such as a new policy, a new strategy, a new
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sales target, a new product, a new marketing plan, a new procedure, and
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so forth. This sort of discussion asks people to contribute their
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knowledge, experience, judgment, and ideas. Obviously, the plan will
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probably be inadequate unless all relevant parties are present and
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pitching in.
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#### 3\. Executive responsibilities
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This is the “How shall we do it?” function, which comes after it has
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been decided what the members are going to do; at this point, executive
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responsibilities for the different components of the task have to be
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distributed around the table. Whereas in the second function the
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contributors’ importance is their knowledge and ideas, here their
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contribution is the responsibility for implementing the plan. The fact
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that they and their subordinates are affected by it makes their
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contribution especially significant.
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It is of course possible to allocate these executive responsibilities
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without a meeting, by separate individual briefings, but several
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considerations often make a meeting desirable.
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First, it enables the members as a group to find the best way of
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achieving the objectives.
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Second, it enables each member to understand and influence the way in
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which his own job fits in with the jobs of the others and with the
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collective task.
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Third, if the meeting is discussing the implementation of a decision
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taken at a higher level, securing the group’s consent may be of prime
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importance. If so, the fact that the group has the opportunity to
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formulate the detailed action plan itself may be the decisive factor in
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securing its agreement, because in that case the final decision belongs,
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as it were, to the group. Everyone is committed to what the group
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decides and is collectively responsible for the final shape of the
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project, as well as individually answerable for his own part in it.
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Ideally, this sort of agenda item starts with a policy, and ends with an
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action plan.
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#### 4\. Legislative framework:
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Above and around all considerations of “What to do” and “How to do it,”
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there is a framework—a departmental or divisional organization—and a
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system of rules, routines, and procedures within and through which all
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the activity takes place. Changing this framework and introducing a new
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organization or new procedures can be deeply disturbing to committee
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members and a threat to their status and long-term security. Yet leaving
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it unchanged can stop the organization from adapting to a changing
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world. At whatever level this change happens, it must have the support
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of all the perceived leaders whose groups are affected by it.
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The key leaders for this legislative function must collectively make or
|
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confirm the decision; if there is any important dissent, it is very
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dangerous to close the discussion and make the decision by decree. The
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group leaders cannot expect quick decisions if they are seeking to
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change the organization framework and routines that people have grown up
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with. Thus they must be prepared to leave these items unresolved for
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further discussion and consultation. As Francis Bacon put it—and it has
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never been put better—“Counsels to which time hath not been called, time
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will not ratify.”
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### Making preparations
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||
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The four different functions just discussed may of course be performed
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by a single meeting, as the group proceeds through the agenda.
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Consequently, it may be a useful exercise for the chairman to go through
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the agenda, writing beside each item which function it is intended to
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fulfill. This exercise helps clarify what is expected from the
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discussion and helps focus on which people to bring in and what
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questions to ask them.
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### People
|
||
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The value and success of a committe meeting are seriously threatened if
|
||
too many people are present. Between 4 and 7 is generally ideal, 10 is
|
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tolerable, and 12 is the outside limit. So the chairman should do
|
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everything he can to keep numbers down, consistent with the need to
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invite everyone with an important contribution to make.
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||
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The leader may have to leave out people who expect to come or who have
|
||
always come. For this job he may need tact; but since people generally
|
||
preserve a fiction that they are overworked already and dislike serving
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on committees, it is not usually hard to secure their consent to stay
|
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away.
|
||
|
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If the leader sees no way of getting the meeting down to a manageable
|
||
size, he can try the following devices: (a) analyze the agenda to see
|
||
whether everyone has to be present for every item (he may be able to
|
||
structure the agenda so that some people can leave at half time and
|
||
others can arrive); (b) ask himself whether he doesn’t really need two
|
||
separate, smaller meetings rather than one big one; and (c) determine
|
||
whether one or two groups can be asked to thrash some of the topics out
|
||
in advance so that only one of them needs to come in with its proposals.
|
||
|
||
Remember, too, that a few words with a member on the day before a
|
||
meeting can increase the value of the meeting itself, either by ensuring
|
||
that an important point is raised that comes better from the floor than
|
||
from the chair or by preventing a time-wasting discussion of a subject
|
||
that need not be touched on at all.
|
||
|
||
### Papers
|
||
|
||
The agenda is by far the most important piece of paper. Properly drawn
|
||
up, it has a power of speeding and clarifying a meeting that very few
|
||
people understand or harness. The main fault is to make it unnecessarily
|
||
brief and vague. For example, the phrase “development budget” tells
|
||
nobody very much, whereas the longer explanation “To discuss the
|
||
proposal for reduction of the 1976–1977 development budget now that the
|
||
introduction of our new product has been postponed” helps all committee
|
||
members to form some views or even just to look up facts and figures in
|
||
advance.
|
||
|
||
Thus the leader should not be afraid of a long agenda, provided that the
|
||
length is the result of his analyzing and defining each item more
|
||
closely, rather than of his adding more items than the meeting can
|
||
reasonably consider in the time allowed. He should try to include, very
|
||
briefly, some indication of the reason for each topic to be discussed.
|
||
If one item is of special interest to the group, it is often a good idea
|
||
to single it out for special mention in a covering note.
|
||
|
||
The leader should also bear in mind the useful device of heading each
|
||
item “For information,” “For discussion,” or “For decision” so that
|
||
those at the meeting know where they are trying to get to.
|
||
|
||
And finally, the chairman should not circulate the agenda too far in
|
||
advance, since the less organized members will forget it or lose it. Two
|
||
or three days is about right—unless the supporting papers are
|
||
voluminous.
|
||
|
||
#### Other ‘paper’ considerations:
|
||
|
||
The order of items on the agenda is important. Some aspects are
|
||
obvious—the items that need urgent decision have to come before those
|
||
that can wait till next time. Equally, the leader does not discuss the
|
||
budget for the re-equipment program before discussing whether to put the
|
||
re-equipment off until next year. But some aspects are not so obvious.
|
||
Consider:
|
||
|
||
- The early part of a meeting tends to be more lively and creative
|
||
than the end of it, so if an item needs mental energy, bright ideas,
|
||
and clear heads, it may be better to put it high up on the list.
|
||
Equally, if there is one item of great interest and concern to
|
||
everyone, it may be a good idea to hold it back for a while and get
|
||
some other useful work done first. Then the star item can be
|
||
introduced to carry the meeting over the attention lag that sets in
|
||
after the first 15 to 20 minutes of the meeting.
|
||
|
||
<!-- end list -->
|
||
|
||
- Some items unite the meeting in a common front while others divide
|
||
the member one from another. The leader may want to start with unity
|
||
before entering into division, or he may prefer the other way
|
||
around. The point is to be aware of the choice and to make it
|
||
consciously, because it is apt to make a difference to the whole
|
||
atmosphere of the meeting. It is almost always a good idea to find a
|
||
unifying item with which to end the meeting.
|
||
|
||
<!-- end list -->
|
||
|
||
- A common fault is to dwell too long on trivial but urgent items, to
|
||
the exclusion of subjects of fundamental importance whose
|
||
significance is long-term rather than immediate. This can be
|
||
remedied by putting on the agenda the time at which discussion of
|
||
the important long-term issue will begin—and by sticking to it.
|
||
|
||
<!-- end list -->
|
||
|
||
- Very few business meetings achieve anything of value after two
|
||
hours, and an hour and a half is enough time to allocate for most
|
||
purposes.
|
||
|
||
<!-- end list -->
|
||
|
||
- It is often a good idea to put the finishing time of a meeting on
|
||
the agenda as well as the starting time.
|
||
|
||
<!-- end list -->
|
||
|
||
- If meetings have a tendency to go on too long, the chairman should
|
||
arrange to start them one hour before lunch or one hour before the
|
||
end of work. Generally, items that ought to be kept brief can be
|
||
introduced ten minutes from a fixed end point.
|
||
|
||
<!-- end list -->
|
||
|
||
- The practice of circulating background or proposal papers along with
|
||
the minutes is, in principle, a good one. It not only saves time,
|
||
but it also helps in formulating useful questions and considerations
|
||
in advance. But the whole idea is sabotaged once the papers get too
|
||
long; they should be brief or provide a short summary. If they are
|
||
circulated, obviously the chairman has to read them, or at least
|
||
must not be caught not having read them. (One chairman, more noted
|
||
for his cunning than his conscientiousness, is said to have spent 30
|
||
seconds before each meeting going through all the papers he had not
|
||
read with a thick red pen, marking lines and question marks in the
|
||
margins at random, and making sure these were accidentally made
|
||
visible to the meeting while the subject was being discussed.)
|
||
|
||
<!-- end list -->
|
||
|
||
- If papers are produced at the meeting for discussion, they should
|
||
obviously be brief and simple, since everyone has to read them. It
|
||
is a supreme folly to bring a group of people together to read six
|
||
pages of closely printed sheets to themselves. The exception is
|
||
certain kinds of financial and statistical papers whose function is
|
||
to support and illustrate verbal points as reference documents
|
||
rather than to be swallowed whole: these are often better tabled at
|
||
the meeting.
|
||
|
||
<!-- end list -->
|
||
|
||
- All items should be thought of and thought about in advance if they
|
||
are to be usefully discussed. Listing “Any other business” on the
|
||
agenda is an invitation to waste time. This does not absolutely
|
||
preclude the chairman’s announcing an extra agenda item at a meeting
|
||
if something really urgent and unforeseen crops up or is suggested
|
||
to him by a member, provided it is fairly simple and
|
||
straightforward. Nor does it preclude his leaving time for general
|
||
unstructured discussion after the close of the meeting.
|
||
|
||
<!-- end list -->
|
||
|
||
- The chairman, in going through the agenda items in advance, can
|
||
usefully insert his own brief notes of points he wants to be sure
|
||
are not omitted from the discussion. A brief marginal scribble of
|
||
“How much notice?” or “Standby arrangements?” or whatever is all
|
||
that is necessary.
|
||
|
||
## The Chairman’s Job
|
||
|
||
Let’s say that you have just been appointed chairman of the committee.
|
||
You tell everyone that it is a bore or a chore. You also tell them that
|
||
you have been appointed “for my sins.” But the point is that you tell
|
||
them. There is no getting away from it: some sort of honor or glory
|
||
attaches to the chairman’s role. Almost everyone is in some way pleased
|
||
and proud to be made chairman of something. And that is three quarters
|
||
of the trouble.
|
||
|
||
### Master or servant?
|
||
|
||
Their appointment as committee chairman takes people in different ways.
|
||
Some seize the opportunity to impose their will on a group that they see
|
||
themselves licensed to dominate. Their chairmanship is a harangue,
|
||
interspersed with demands for group agreement.
|
||
|
||
Others are more like scoutmasters, for whom the collective activity of
|
||
the group is satisfaction enough, with no need for achievement. Their
|
||
chairmanship is more like the endless stoking and fueling or a campfire
|
||
that is not cooking anything.
|
||
|
||
And there are the insecure or lazy chairmen who look to the meeting for
|
||
reassurance and support in their ineffectiveness and inactivity, so that
|
||
they can spread the responsibility for their indecisiveness among the
|
||
whole group. They seize on every expression of disagreement or doubt as
|
||
a justification for avoiding decision or action.
|
||
|
||
But even the large majority who do not go to those extremes still feel a
|
||
certain pleasurable tumescence of the ego when they take their place at
|
||
the head of the table for the first time. The feeling is no sin: the sin
|
||
is to indulge it or to assume that the pleasure is shared by the other
|
||
members of the meeting.
|
||
|
||
It is the chairman’s self-indulgence that is the greatest single barrier
|
||
to the success of a meeting. His first duty, then, is to be aware of the
|
||
temptation and of the dangers of yielding to it. The clearest of the
|
||
danger signals is hearing himself talking a lot during a discussion.
|
||
|
||
One of the best chairmen I have ever served under makes it a rule to
|
||
restrict her interventions to a single sentence, or at most two. She
|
||
forbids herself ever to contribute a paragraph to a meeting she is
|
||
chairing. It is a harsh rule, but you would be hard put to find a
|
||
regular attender of her meetings (or anyone else’s) who thought it was a
|
||
bad one.
|
||
|
||
There is, in fact, only one legitimate source of pleasure in
|
||
chairmanship, and that is pleasure in the achievements of the
|
||
meeting—and to be legitimate it must be shared by all those present.
|
||
Meetings are necessary for all sorts of basic and primitive human
|
||
reasons, but they are useful only if they are seen by all present to be
|
||
getting somewhere—and somewhere they know they could not have gotten to
|
||
individually.
|
||
|
||
If the chairman is to make sure that the meeting achieves valuable
|
||
objectives, he will be more effective seeing himself as the servant of
|
||
the group rather than as its master. His role then becomes that of
|
||
assisting the group toward the best conclusion or decision in the most
|
||
efficient manner possible: to interpret and clarify; to move the
|
||
discussion forward; and to bring it to a resolution that everyone
|
||
understands and accepts as being the will of the meeting, even if the
|
||
individuals do not necessarily agree with it.
|
||
|
||
His true source of authority with the members is the strength of his
|
||
perceived commitment to their combined objective and his skill and
|
||
efficiency in helping and guiding them to its achievement. Control and
|
||
discipline then become not the act of imposing his will on the group but
|
||
of imposing the group’s will on any individual who is in danger of
|
||
diverting or delaying the progress of the discussion and so from
|
||
realizing the objective.
|
||
|
||
Once the members realize that the leader is impelled by his commitment
|
||
to their common objective, it does not take great force of personality
|
||
for him to control the meeting. Indeed, a sense of urgency and a clear
|
||
desire to reach the best conclusion as quickly as possible are a much
|
||
more effective disciplinary instrument than a big gavel. The effective
|
||
chairman can then hold the discussion to the point by indicating that
|
||
there is no time to pursue a particular idea now, that there is no time
|
||
for long speeches, that the group has to get through this item and on to
|
||
the next one, rather than by resorting to pulling rank.
|
||
|
||
There are many polite ways the chairman can indicate a slight impatience
|
||
even when someone else is speaking—by leaning forward, fixing his eyes
|
||
on the speaker tensing his muscles, raising his eyebrows, or nodding
|
||
briefly to show the point is taken. And when replying or commenting, the
|
||
chairman can indicate by the speed, brevity, and finality of his
|
||
intonation that “we have to move on.” Conversely, he can reward the sort
|
||
of contribution he is seeking by the opposite expressions and
|
||
intonations, showing that there is plenty of time for that sort of idea,
|
||
and encouraging the speaker to develop the point.
|
||
|
||
After a few meetings, all present readily understand this nonverbal
|
||
language of chairmanship. It is the chairman’s chief instrument of
|
||
educating the group into the general type of “meeting behavior” that he
|
||
is looking for. He is still the servant of the group, but like a hired
|
||
mountain guide, he is the one who knows the destination, the route, the
|
||
weather signs, and the time the journey will take. So if he suggests
|
||
that the members walk a bit faster, they take his advice.
|
||
|
||
This role of servant rather than master is often obscured in large
|
||
organizations by the fact that the chairman is frequently the line
|
||
manager of the members: this does not, however, change the reality of
|
||
the role of chairman. The point is easier to see in, say, a neighborhood
|
||
action group. The question in that case is, simply, “Through which
|
||
person’s chairmanship do we collectively have the best chance of getting
|
||
the children’s playground built?”
|
||
|
||
However, one special problem is posed by this definition of the
|
||
chairman’s role, and it has an extremely interesting answer. The
|
||
question is: How can the chairman combine his role with the role of a
|
||
member advocating one side of an argument?
|
||
|
||
The answer comes from some interesting studies by researchers who sat in
|
||
on hundreds of meetings to find out how they work. Their consensus
|
||
finding is that most of the effective discussions have, in fact, two
|
||
leaders: one they call a “team,” or “social,” leader; the other a
|
||
“task,” or “project,” leader.
|
||
|
||
Regardless of whether leadership is in fact a single or a dual function,
|
||
for our purposes it is enough to say that the chairman’s best role is
|
||
that of social leader. If he wants a particular point to be strongly
|
||
advocated, he ensures that it is someone else who leads off the task
|
||
discussion, and he holds back until much later in the argument. He might
|
||
indeed change or modify his view through hearing the discussion, but
|
||
even if he does not it is much easier for him to show support for
|
||
someone else’s point later in the discussion, after listening to the
|
||
arguments. Then, he can summarize in favor of the one he prefers.
|
||
|
||
The task advocate might regularly be the chairman’s second-in-command,
|
||
or a different person might advocate for different items on the agenda.
|
||
On some subjects, the chairman might well be the task advocate himself,
|
||
especially if they do not involve conflict within the group. The
|
||
important point is that the chairman has to keep his “social leadership”
|
||
even if it means sacrificing his “task leadership.” However, if the
|
||
designated task advocate persists in championing a cause through two or
|
||
three meetings, he risks building up quite a head of antagonism to him
|
||
among the other members. Even so, this antagonism harms the group less
|
||
by being directed at the “task leader” than at the “social leader.”
|
||
|
||
### Structure of discussion
|
||
|
||
It may seem that there is no right way or wrong way to structure a
|
||
committee meeting discussion.
|
||
|
||
A subject is raised, people say what they think, and finally a decision
|
||
is reached, or the discussion is terminated. There is some truth in
|
||
this. Moreover, it would be a mistake to try and tie every discussion of
|
||
every item down to a single immutable format.
|
||
|
||
Nevertheless, there is a logical order to a group discussion, and while
|
||
there can be reasons for not following it, there is no justification for
|
||
not being aware of it. In practice, very few discussions are inhibited,
|
||
and many are expedited, by a conscious adherence to the following
|
||
stages, which follow exactly the same pattern as a visit to the doctor.
|
||
|
||
#### “What seems to be the trouble?”
|
||
|
||
The reason for an item being on a meeting agenda is usually like the
|
||
symptom we go to the doctor with: “I keep getting this pain in my back”
|
||
is analogous to “Sales have risen in Germany but fallen in France.” In
|
||
both cases it is clear that something is wrong and that something ought
|
||
to be done to put it right. But until the visit to the doctor, or the
|
||
meeting of the European marketing committee, that is about all we really
|
||
know.
|
||
|
||
#### “How long has this been going on?”
|
||
|
||
The doctor will start with a case history of all the relevant background
|
||
facts, and so will the committee discussion. A solid basis of shared and
|
||
agreed-on facts is the best foundation to build any decision on, and a
|
||
set of pertinent questions will help establish it. For example, when did
|
||
French sales start to fall off? Have German sales risen exceptionally?
|
||
Has France had delivery problems, or less sales effort, or weaker
|
||
advertising? Have we lost market share, or are our competitors’ sales
|
||
falling too? If the answers to all these questions, and more, are not
|
||
established at the start, a lot of discussion may be wasted later.
|
||
|
||
#### “Would you just lie down on the couch?”
|
||
|
||
The doctor will then conduct a physical examination to find out how the
|
||
patient is now. The committee, too, will want to know how things stand
|
||
at this moment. Is action being taken? Do long-term orders show the same
|
||
trend? What are the latest figures? What is the current stock position?
|
||
How much money is left in the advertising budget?
|
||
|
||
#### “You seem to have slipped a disc.”
|
||
|
||
When the facts are established, you can move toward a diagnosis. A
|
||
doctor may seem to do this quickly, but that is the result of experience
|
||
and practice. He is, in fact, rapidly eliminating all the impossible or
|
||
far-fetched explanations until he leaves himself with a short list. The
|
||
committee, too, will hazard and eliminate a variety of diagnoses until
|
||
it homes in on the most probable—for example the company’s recent
|
||
energetic and highly successful advertising campaign in Germany plus new
|
||
packaging by the market leader in France.
|
||
|
||
#### “Take this round to the druggist.”
|
||
|
||
Again, the doctor is likely to take a shortcut that a committee meeting
|
||
may be wise to avoid. The doctor comes out with a single prescription,
|
||
and the committee, too, may agree quickly on a single course of action.
|
||
|
||
But if the course is not so clear, it is better to take this step in two
|
||
stages: (a) construct a series of options—do not, at first, reject any
|
||
suggestions outright but try to select and combine the promising
|
||
elements from all of them until a number of thought-out, coherent, and
|
||
sensible suggestions are on the table; and (b) only when you have
|
||
generated these options do you start to choose among them. Then you can
|
||
discuss and decide whether to pick the course based on repackaging and
|
||
point-of-sale promotion, or the one based on advertising and a price
|
||
cut, or the one that bides its time and saves the money for heavier
|
||
new-product promotion next year.
|
||
|
||
If the item is at all complex or especially significant, it is important
|
||
for the chairman not only to have the proposed course of the discussion
|
||
in his own head, but also to announce it so that everyone knows. A good
|
||
idea is to write the headings on an easel pad with a felt pen. This
|
||
saves much of the time wasting and confusion that result when people
|
||
raise items in the wrong place because they were not privy to the
|
||
chairman’s secret that the right place was coming up later on in the
|
||
discussion.
|
||
|
||
## Conducting the Meeting
|
||
|
||
Just as the driver of a car has two tasks, to follow his route and to
|
||
manage his vehicle, so the chairman’s job can be divided into two
|
||
corresponding tasks, dealing with the subject and dealing with the
|
||
people.
|
||
|
||
### Dealing with the subject
|
||
|
||
The essence of this task is to follow the structure of discussion as
|
||
just described in the previous section. This, in turn, entails listening
|
||
carefully and keeping the meeting pointed toward the objective.
|
||
|
||
At the start of the discussion of any item, the chairman should make it
|
||
clear where the meeting should try to get to by the end. Are the members
|
||
hoping to make a clear decision or firm recommendation? Is it a
|
||
preliminary deliberation to give the members something to go away with
|
||
and think about? Are they looking for a variety of different lines to be
|
||
pursued outside the meeting? Do they have to approve the proposal, or
|
||
merely note it?
|
||
|
||
The chairman may give them a choice: “If we can agree on a course of
|
||
action, that’s fine. If not, we’ll have to set up a working party to
|
||
report and recommend before next month’s meeting.”
|
||
|
||
The chairman should make sure that all the members understand the issue
|
||
and why they are discussing it. Often it will be obvious, or else they
|
||
may have been through it before. If not, then he or someone he has
|
||
briefed before the meeting should give a short introduction, with some
|
||
indication of the reason the item is on the agenda; the story so far;
|
||
the present position; what needs to be established, resolved, or
|
||
proposed; and some indication of lines of inquiry or courses of action
|
||
that have been suggested or explored, as well as arguments on both sides
|
||
of the issue.
|
||
|
||
If the discussion is at all likely to be long or complex, the chairman
|
||
should propose to the meeting a structure for it with headings (written
|
||
up if necessary), as I stated at the end of the section on “Structure of
|
||
discussion.” He should listen carefully in case people jump too far
|
||
ahead (e.g., start proposing a course of action before the meeting has
|
||
agreed on the cause of the trouble), or go back over old ground, or
|
||
start repeating points that have been made earlier. He has to head
|
||
discussion off sterile or irrelevant areas very quickly (e.g., the
|
||
rights and wrongs of past decisions that it is too late to change, or
|
||
distant prospects that are too remote to affect present actions).
|
||
|
||
It is the chairman’s responsibility to prevent misunderstanding and
|
||
confusion. If he does not follow an argument or understand a reference,
|
||
he should seek clarification from the speaker. If he thinks two people
|
||
are using the same word with different meanings, he should intervene
|
||
(e.g., one member using promotion to mean point-of-sale advertising
|
||
only, and another also including media publicity).
|
||
|
||
He may also have to clarify by asking people for facts or experience
|
||
that perhaps influence their view but are not known to others in the
|
||
meeting. And he should be on the lookout for points where an interim
|
||
summary would be helpful. This device frequently takes only a few
|
||
seconds, and acts like a life belt to some of the members who are
|
||
getting out of their depth.
|
||
|
||
Sometimes a meeting will have to discuss a draft document. If there are
|
||
faults in it, the members should agree on what the faults are and the
|
||
chairman should delegate someone to produce a new draft later. The group
|
||
should never try to redraft around the table.
|
||
|
||
Perhaps one of the most common faults of chairmanship is the failure to
|
||
terminate the discussion early enough. Sometimes chairmen do not realize
|
||
that the meeting has effectively reached an agreement, and consequently
|
||
they let the discussion go on for another few minutes, getting nowhere
|
||
at all. Even more often, they are not quick enough to close a discussion
|
||
before agreement has been reached.
|
||
|
||
A discussion should be closed once it has become clear that (a) more
|
||
facts are required before further progress can be made, (b) discussion
|
||
has revealed that the meeting needs the views of people not present, (c)
|
||
members need more time to think about the subject and perhaps discuss it
|
||
with colleagues, (d) events are changing and likely to alter or clarify
|
||
the basis of the decision quite soon, (e) there is not going to be
|
||
enough time at this meeting to go over the subject properly, or (f) it
|
||
is becoming clear that two or three of the members can settle this
|
||
outside the meeting without taking up the time of the rest. The fact
|
||
that the decision is difficult, likely to be disputed, or going to be
|
||
unwelcome to somebody, however, is not a reason for postponement.
|
||
|
||
At the end of the discussion of each agenda item, the chairman should
|
||
give a brief and clear summary of what has been agreed on. This can act
|
||
as the dictation of the actual minutes. It serves not merely to put the
|
||
item on record, but also to help people realize that something
|
||
worthwhile has been achieved. It also answers the question “Where did
|
||
all that get us?” If the summary involves action by a member of the
|
||
meeting, he should be asked to confirm his acceptance of the
|
||
undertaking.
|
||
|
||
### Dealing with the people
|
||
|
||
There is only one way to ensure that a meeting starts on time, and that
|
||
is to start it on time. Latecomers who find that the meeting has begun
|
||
without them soon learn the lesson. The alternative is that the prompt
|
||
and punctual members will soon realize that a meeting never starts until
|
||
ten minutes after the advertised time, and they will also learn the
|
||
lesson.
|
||
|
||
Punctuality at future meetings can be wonderfully reinforced by the
|
||
practice of listing late arrivals (and early departures) in the minutes.
|
||
Its ostensible and perfectly proper purpose is to call the latecomer’s
|
||
attention to the fact that he was absent when a decision was reached.
|
||
Its side effect, however, is to tell everyone on the circulation list
|
||
that he was late, and people do not want that sort of information about
|
||
themselves published too frequently.
|
||
|
||
There is a growing volume of work on the significance of seating
|
||
positions and their effect on group behavior and relationships. Not all
|
||
the findings are generally agreed on. What does seem true is that:
|
||
|
||
- Having members sit face to face across a table facilitates
|
||
opposition, conflict, and disagreement, though of course it does not
|
||
turn allies into enemies. But it does suggest that the chairman
|
||
should think about whom he seats opposite himself.
|
||
|
||
<!-- end list -->
|
||
|
||
- Sitting side by side makes disagreements and confrontation harder.
|
||
This in turn suggests that the chairman can exploit the
|
||
friendship-value of the seats next to him.
|
||
|
||
<!-- end list -->
|
||
|
||
- There is a “dead man’s corner” on the chairman’s right, especially
|
||
if a number of people are seated in line along from him (it does not
|
||
apply if he is alone at the head of the table).
|
||
|
||
<!-- end list -->
|
||
|
||
- As a general rule, proximity to the chairman is a sign of honor and
|
||
favor. This is most marked when he is at the head of a long, narrow
|
||
table. The greater the distance, the lower the rank—just as the
|
||
lower-status positions were “below the salt” at medieval
|
||
refectories.
|
||
|
||
### Control the garrulous
|
||
|
||
In most meetings someone takes a long time to say very little. As
|
||
chairman, your sense of urgency should help indicate to him the need for
|
||
brevity. You can also suggest that if he is going to take a long time it
|
||
might be better for him to write a paper. If it is urgent to stop him in
|
||
full flight, there is a useful device of picking on a phrase (it really
|
||
doesn’t matter what phrase) as he utters it as an excuse for cutting in
|
||
and offering it to someone else: “Inevitable decline—that’s very
|
||
interesting. George, do you agree that the decline is inevitable?”
|
||
|
||
### Draw out the silent
|
||
|
||
In any properly run meeting, as simple arithmetic will show, most of the
|
||
people will be silent most of the time. Silence can indicate general
|
||
agreement, or no important contribution to make, or the need to wait and
|
||
hear more before saying anything or too good a lunch, and none of these
|
||
need worry you. But there are two kinds of silence you must break:.
|
||
|
||
1\. The silence of diffidence. Someone may have a valuable contribution
|
||
to make but be sufficiently nervous about its possible reception to keep
|
||
it to himself. It is important that when you draw out such a
|
||
contribution, you should express interest and pleasure (though not
|
||
necessarily agreement) to encourage further contributions of that sort.
|
||
|
||
2\. The silence of hostility. This is not hostility to ideas, but to you
|
||
as the chairman, to the meeting, and to the process by which decisions
|
||
are being reached.
|
||
|
||
This sort of total detachment from the whole proceedings is usually the
|
||
symptom of some feeling of affront. If you probe it, you will usually
|
||
find that there is something bursting to come out, and that it is better
|
||
out than in.
|
||
|
||
### Protect the weak
|
||
|
||
Junior members of the meeting may provoke the disagreement of their
|
||
seniors, which is perfectly reasonable. But if the disagreement
|
||
escalates to the point of suggesting that they have no right to
|
||
contribute, the meeting is weakened. So you may have to take pains to
|
||
commend their contribution for its usefulness, as a pre-emptive measure.
|
||
You can reinforce this action by taking a written note of a point they
|
||
make (always a plus for a member of a meeting) and by referring to it
|
||
again later in the discussion (a double-plus).
|
||
|
||
### Encourage the clash of ideas
|
||
|
||
But, at the same time, discourage the clash of personalities. A good
|
||
meeting is not a series of dialogues between individual members and the
|
||
chairman. Instead, it is a crossflow of discussion and debate, with the
|
||
chairman occasionally guiding, meditating, probing, stimulating, and
|
||
summarizing, but mostly letting the others thrash ideas out. However,
|
||
the meeting must be a contention of ideas, not people.
|
||
|
||
If two people are starting to get heated, widen the discussion by asking
|
||
a question of a neutral member of the meeting, preferably a question
|
||
that requires a purely factual answer.
|
||
|
||
### Watch out for the suggestion-squashing reflex
|
||
|
||
Students of meetings have reduced everything that can be said into
|
||
questions, answers, positive reactions, and negative reactions.
|
||
Questions can only seek, and answers only supply, three types of
|
||
responses: information, opinion, and suggestion.
|
||
|
||
In almost every modern organization, it is the suggestions that contain
|
||
the seeds of future success. Although very few suggestions will ever
|
||
lead to anything, almost all of them need to be given every chance. The
|
||
trouble is that suggestions are much easier to ridicule than facts or
|
||
opinions. If people feel that making a suggestion will provoke the
|
||
negative reaction of being laughed at or squashed, they will soon stop.
|
||
And if there is any status-jostling going on at the meeting, it is all
|
||
too easy to use the occasion of someone’s making a suggestion as the
|
||
opportunity to take him down a peg. It is all too easy and a formula to
|
||
ensure sterile meetings.
|
||
|
||
The answer is for you to take special notice and show special warmth
|
||
when anyone makes a suggestion, and to discourage as sharply as you can
|
||
the squashing-reflex. This can often be achieved by requiring the
|
||
squasher to produce a better suggestion on the spot. Few suggestions can
|
||
stand up to squashing in their pristine state: your reflex must be to
|
||
pick out the best part of one and get the other committee members to
|
||
help build it into something that might work.
|
||
|
||
### Come to the most senior people last
|
||
|
||
Obviously, this cannot be a rule, but once someone of high authority has
|
||
pronounced on a topic, the less senior members are likely to be
|
||
inhibited. If you work up the pecking order instead of down it, you are
|
||
apt to get a wider spread of views and ideas. But the juniors who start
|
||
it off should only be asked for contributions within their personal
|
||
experience and competence (“Peter, you were at the Frankfurt
|
||
Exhibition—what reactions did you pick up there?”).
|
||
|
||
### Close on a note of achievement
|
||
|
||
Even if the final item is left unresolved, you can refer to an earlier
|
||
item that was well resolved as you close the meeting and thank the
|
||
group.
|
||
|
||
If the meeting is not a regular one, fix the time and place of the next
|
||
one before dispersing. A little time spent with appointment diaries at
|
||
the end, especially if it is a gathering of five or more members, can
|
||
save hours of secretarial telephoning later.
|
||
|
||
### Following the meeting
|
||
|
||
Your secretary may take the minutes (or better still, one of the
|
||
members), but the minutes are your responsibility. They can be very
|
||
brief, but they should include these facts:
|
||
|
||
- The time and date of the meeting, where it was held, and who chaired
|
||
it.
|
||
|
||
<!-- end list -->
|
||
|
||
- Names of all present and apologies for absence.
|
||
|
||
<!-- end list -->
|
||
|
||
- All agenda items (and other items) discussed and all decisions
|
||
reached. If action was agreed on, record (and underline) the name of
|
||
the person responsible for the assignment.
|
||
|
||
<!-- end list -->
|
||
|
||
- The time at which the meeting ended (important, because it may be
|
||
significant later to know whether the discussion lasted 15 minutes
|
||
or 6 hours).
|
||
|
||
<!-- end list -->
|
||
|
||
- The date, time, and place of the next committee meeting.
|
||
|
||
A version of this article appeared in the [March
|
||
1976](/archive-toc/3762) issue of Harvard Business Review.
|