Do Business Well

Assuming a meeting is necessary, here are some guidelines for running meetings in an intelligent and decisive manner.

Practical arrangements

If you are elected as either chairperson or secretary, you will be involved in the pre-meeting arrangements. The secretary makes most of these practical arrangements. But he or she should do this in consultation with the chairperson, who needs to be kept fully informed of developments.

Let’s take a look at the when, where and how of an effective meeting:

When?

Choose a time of day when people can easily concentrate. Timing has a definite impact on the actual quality of the meetings. Tired people who attend meetings at the end of the day or after work find concentration difficult. They tend to come to hasty and ill-advised decisions just so that they can get away before peak-hour traffic. Don’t confuse attendance with performance!

Notices are given so that meetings can start on time. Make this a rule. Starting late, rewards the wrong people — the latecomers — and wastes time. If your meetings have a reputation for starting promptly, people know that they either make the time or pay the penalty of missing out.

Where?

Choose the venue with care. Make sure that it is well lit and well ventilated. If there is a phone, unplug it.

The secretary will also see that writing material, extra copies of supporting documents, carafes of water and ashtrays are provided.

An efficient chairperson will plan the seating arrangements with the secretary. An effective layout will place the chairperson in full view of all the other members with the secretary seated to his or her right to provide assistance. Where practicable, a round table can be used to foster an atmosphere of co-operation.

Illustrated are a few examples of possible seating arrangements for meetings. The chairperson’s place is represented by a triangle, the secretary by an S and the other participants by circles.

What?

What’s it all about? If you can’t sum up the purpose of a meeting in a single sentence, the chances are you don’t need it.

The matters to be discussed at a formal meeting are found on the agenda. This is a programme of the subjects to be discussed in the order in which they will be taken. Send the agenda to members of a group 7 to 14 days in advance to give them the opportunity to study the items in detail.

The agenda is prepared by the committee secretary in consultation with the chairperson. Take into consideration the items of business dealt with at the previous meeting. Members of the committee or board can submit items for inclusion before the agenda is typed and circulated.

Below is a typical agenda based on the fundamentals of parliamentary procedure. You can use it as a guide for your next meeting. Some of the items can be omitted in a less formal meeting. Place high-priority items first on the agenda so that they are accorded sufficient discussion time.

Unfortunately, even when the agenda and minutes are sent out in good time, many people simply do not prepare thoroughly for meetings.

I am sure that you have attended meetings where members spend the first five minutes surreptitiously scanning their minutes, notes and the agenda for the very first time. To avoid this, prepare a pre-planner for meetings.

The pre-planner is a document which is distributed before the meeting, completed and returned to the chairperson. The pre-planner compels members to think about the key issue to be discussed, causes of problems and solutions before the discussion. In addition, the pre-planner affords the chairperson an opportunity to gauge opinions of all the interested parties, particularly those of the silent majority.

Did you know that it is an accepted fact that 80 % of the contribution_s at a meeting come from only 20 % of those present?

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