Imminent Departure Series: Meetings are NOT the Devil!
As I ramp up for my imminent departure from working for a college full time, I’m going to do a series of posts on the things I think colleges do wrong in their day-to-day operations in my last-ditch attempt to effect change. Enjoy!
Meetings get a bad rap in higher education - there are too many of them, they are unproductive, too many people involved, a waste of time, etc. All of these complaints are completely valid. Even so, I don’t think meetings are inherently bad…but I think poorly run meetings are the enemy.
How many meetings do you attend actually have an agenda? Better yet, a stated purpose? I learned this technique from a lady much smarter than I, Dr. Pamela Skyrme. Pamela is a brilliant organizational coach. She also happens to be the Director of Professional Development in my office at Dartmouth, where I’ve had the privilege of being coached by her for the last several months. The tactic goes like this: At the beginning of each meeting make sure the group as a whole knows what they are seeking to accomplish in that meeting (if you don’t have something you’re seeking to accomplish, then you probably shouldn’t be meeting in the first place). At the end of the meeting, assess whether or not you accomplished your initial stated goals. Do this consistently and it will keep people on track and focused, since there will be some level of accountability (however minor) for not accomplishing a stated goal.
Also, make sure that someone is “in charge” of the meeting, so that if the topics start going off track, that person can refocus the attention of the group on the task at land. If issues come up that aren’t part of your stated agenda or goals for the meeting, acknowledge that they are important to discuss but then put them in a parking lot for next time.
You could also follow Brian Nile’s lead and remove the chairs from the conference room entirely.
Meetings are necessary. By gosh, they can even be productive! But you have to be smart about how you use your time. What are your suggestions for having better meetings? Leave a comment!
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July 29th, 2009
Ah, a chance to practice my hobby! http://xkcd.com/326/
July 29th, 2009
I agree, meetings in higher-ed can be productive, potentially.
From my experience, follow-through is the greatest problem. You need to have action items by the end of the meeting and someone needs to follow-up on them.
July 29th, 2009
When I’m in charge, my first, second and third rules of a meeting are: Make it fun. Seriously. Or less seriously. The people in that meeting all know (on some level) how lucky we are to work in higher education. And that we enjoy what we’re doing. And that we enjoy helping students. Despite the aggravation we run into much of the time, most of what we do is fun. So if I can run a meeting that involves a lot of laughing — but also a lot of action and learning — it will be much easier to call the group together again.
July 29th, 2009
@Rick - I completely agree and intend to have that as the topic of a subsequent post in this blog series
@Tim - I definitely agree on the “make it fun” aspect. I think that levity helps pretty much any situation, and when people are comfortable, they also tend to be more creative and productive.
July 29th, 2009
HA! Yeah i suck at grammar in general. It is what it is
July 29th, 2009
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