Make meetings work for you

Do you dread meetings more than Monday mornings? Do you find them boring, unproductive and far too long? Meetings are central to most organizations; people need to know what their colleagues are doing and then take decisions based on shared information and opinions. How well you present yourself and your ideas, and how well you work with other people, is crucial to your career.

RUNNING A MEETING

Only call a meeting if you (and your colleagues) are quite clear about its purpose.

Once you are certain of your objective, ask yourself whether it could be better achieved through alternative means, such as a memo.

Meetings called on a routine basis tend to lose their point. It's better to wait until a situation or problem requires a meeting. If in doubt, don't waste time having one.

If you're sure a meeting is the solution, circulate a memo several days in advance specifying the time and place, objectives, issues to be discussed, other participants and preparation expected. Meetings should be held in the morning, if possible, when people are usually more alert, and should last no more than an hour. Six is the optimum number of participants for a good working meeting. Inviting the whole department (more than 10) increases emotional undercurrents such as, ‘Will my suggestions be taken seriously?’ Larger meetings can be productive as brainstorming sessions for ideas, provided participants can speak freely without feeling they will be judged.

A successful meeting always leads to action. Decisions should take up the bulk of the meeting minutes, including the name of the person delegated to each task, and a deadline for its completion. Circulate the minutes after the meeting and again just before the next one.

Draw out quieter members of the group. Encouragement helps create a relaxed and productive atmosphere. Do not single out any individual for personal criticism –they will either silently withdraw, upset and humiliated, or try to come up with excuses rather than focusing on the problems in hand. Save critical comments for a private occasion.

If you're talking for more than 50 per cent of the time, you're dominating the meeting.

ATTENDING A MEETING

However informal the meeting, it always pays to prepare a few key points in note form to put across or discuss. If you're unprepared, you will not be able to concentrate on what your colleagues are saying and others are less likely to listen to you because you will either waffle or sound hesitant.

Don't memorize notes or read them out like a sermon. This inhibits your natural gestures: the eye contact and body language that is essential to effective communication.

If you cannot answer a question, don't be afraid to say, ‘I don't know but I'll find out and getback to you by. . .’ (give a definite date).

Phrase your criticisms and proposals positively. Seek to offer solutions rather than to complain.

Arrive early and sit close to the chairperson to ensure that you aren't ignored. If you're late, apologize and find a seat quickly and quietly. Don't try to sneak in as if you're invisible.

Vocabulary

1. Guess the meaning of the following words and word expressions using the text and give their explanations in English:

1. shared

2. to be certain of

3. provided

4. to dominate

5. to waffle

6. to seek

7. to sneak in

Match the words and expressions in column A to the explanations in B.

A B

1. to dread a. not to take part in

2. crucial b. to encourage people speaking their thoughts out

3. a memo c. of the greatest importance

4. alert d. probable

5. to increase e. to fear greatly

6. deadline f. a date or time before which sth. must be done

7. to withdraw g. a talk given as part

8. to be likely h. quick to see and act

9. a sermon i. a note from one person or office to another within

an organization

3. Read the text again and complete the following chart:

Speaking

Using the chart and words (expressions) from vocabulary exercises summarize the main keys of a successful meeting as if you were a chairman (a participant).

Listening 1

You are going to hear Roger Myddleton, Legal Director and Company Secretary at Grand Metropolitan, talking about meetings.

1. Listen and choose the correct ending for each of the sentences:

1. The person who conducts the meeting is called the …

a) teller b) chairperson c) conductor d) president

2. The list of points to be discussed at a meeting is known as the …

a) schedule b) timetable c) agenda d) itinerary

3. The official record of what is said at a meeting is known as …

a) records b) minutes c) spec. d) articles

4. The main objective of any meeting is …

a) making decisions b) exchanging of the ideas c) carrying a matter forward

d) deciding when the next meeting will take place

5. When you’re taking decisions it is important to …

a) listen to everybody’s opinion b) summarize the main points c) express your own ideas on the matter d) listen to nobody’s opinion

Listen for the second time and be ready to answer the following

questions:

a) What two kinds of meetings does Roger speak about? What are they different in?

b) What can make a meeting more time-consuming?

c) Is a meeting of great importance only because of its decision-making?

d) What does chairing the meeting mean in Roger’s opinion?

e) What effect can a well-chaired meeting produce on the participants?

f) Why is a clear summary of a speech (usually made by the chairman) so popular with non-English speakers?

g) What is helpful in making a good meeting?

h) Should a meeting be recorded? Why?

Now read the interview with Roger Myddleton and take notes

under the following headings:

· formal and informal meetings

· objectives

· chairing meetings

· mixed-nationality meetings

· participating in meetings

· minutes

Tapescript

RM – Roger Myddleton / P – Presenter

P First of all Roger Myddleton outlines the range and frequency of meetings at Grand Metropolitan. Are they held very often?

RM Yes we do hold a lot of them. When you ask a question like that, I tend to think of large meetings first. Formal occasions, with ten or fifteen people round a table, and a chairman, and an agenda, and then someone taking minutes as a record of the meeting. That's one kind of meeting, but of course far more common than that are the much smaller less formal meetings when just two or three people get together to discuss something, and carry a particular business matter forward.

RM Well, we do have quite a lot of large formal meetings in a worldwide business like ours, that's inevitable. But in sheer number, I would say that probably ten or fifteen or twenty times as many meetings are of a much more intimate kind than, than that.

P Are they very time-consuming?

RM They do tend to be, and I, think that is often the fault of the person who has called the meeting. I think much can be done to make meetings shorter if people have a clearer objective in mind as to why it was called in the first place.

PIs decision-making the main objective?

RM Well, making decisions of course is, is what you traditionally think of as doing at meetings, particularly the formal board meeting kind, kind of situation that I described before, but actually in reality, an awful lot of meetings don't make decisions, they just carry a matter forward. You just edge towards a decision, because you need a lot of input, from a lot of angles, from a lot of people. And you can't do that on one occasion in a formal way, you do it informally through meetings and in that way, matters to get decided, although not perhaps as formally as people would expect.

RM Well I think you have to have in your mind a pretty clear objective of what you want out of it. Do you just want input from someone, you're telling them something, and you want to know whether they like it, dislike it, have something to add – that's one reason for having the meeting. But you ought never to go into a meeting, in my view without feeling, erm, that you know and that the person who's having the meeting, or the people that are having the meeting with you know what is expected of them. And how they should he leaving the room. But let's face it, if you don't leave the room with the world slightly different, I mean very very slightly, then why are you having the meeting in the first place? Nothing has changed.

P What are his experiences of chairing meetings, and what advice would he give?

RM Er, yes, I, I chair all sorts of meetings. But chairing sounds very formal. As I say, an awful lot of meetings are with small groups of people, and although I'm in control of the meeting, I wouldn't call it chairing in any formal way.

RM Well, I think, so far as chairing a meeting is concerned, as I've already said, that if you have a good idea of what you're trying to achieve, then you're half way there. I think also you have to be very sensitive to the way people are reacting to what's going on in the meeting. You have to watch them carefully. You can easily see whether people have turned off, and are bored and snoozing or, or inattentive, doodling, what have you. And perhaps one person is monopolizing the meeting. They're doing all the talking. Erm, that's not a good way of conducting a meeting. You ought to try to draw out contributions from everyone because some people are much shyer than others about speaking, particularly if it's a large meeting. A large formal meeting is precisely the occasion that some people will never say anything. I don't say you have to try and share it totally equally, that would be artificial, but you do have to be sensitive to someone who seems to want to say something but doesn't actually have quite the nerve to do so, and allow them to. Also as a chairman, I think it's very helpful if you can clarify what other people are saying, you can summarize it. And so everyone is clearer at the end of the meeting what people's views may have been, than they, they were when they came into the meeting. And that summary function is very important and very helpful if you're taking decisions. And of course, it's particularly important if you're dealing with people for whom English is not their native tongue.

P Does it often happen that meetings involve people whose native language is not English?

RMOh yeah, it does certainly, we're a multinational company, so obviously we have dealings with Europe and around the world. So certainly, quite a lot of the time, I'm dealing with people for whom Italian or French or whatever, is their natural tongue, and I'm afraid being English my linguistic ability is about, er, well, is not too good! But yes, I do find repeating back to people what they have said, in my words, slowly and clearly, is a very helpful way to see that I've understood properly what they're saying, and that they've understood that I've understood it. And communication is what meetings are about, if you don't have that feedback, then you're not getting the full benefit of meeting face to face.

PWhat advice would he give on participating in meetings?

RM Well, I think again, you've got to, erm, be clear what the object of the meeting is, and how you can contribute to it. Too many people I think go to meetings, without any very clear idea of what they're I expected to do. They're there, are they being told something, are they being expected to participate in a decision, and I think holding large meetings is often a mistake for that reason. That there isn't enough focus by the participants on what their individual contribution is. If there are only three of us round a table, it's very noticeable if someone doesn't speak. But if there are twenty, you can keep quiet the whole time. And have you really gained much from being there. So I think the first thing is to think what you want to contribute; secondly when you do speak, try and do so in a pithy clear way, and don't ramble, keep to the point – that's another thing that the chairman, of course, can help with, bringing people gently, politely, back to the point. The last point I'd make about both participating and chairing meetings is that an awful lot of them are greatly improved by an element of humour. And I think the ability to defuse a tense situation, or just to put people at their ease, not by being a raconteur and, and telling funny jokes, but just by making a witty remark, an aside, thus putting people, erm, at their ease and relaxing the atmosphere. Very helpful in making a good meeting.

P Finally, how important are the minutes of a meeting?

RM Again, it depends very much the sort of, what sort of meeting it is. If it's a formal board meeting, erm, then minutes are statutory and a proper requirement. They should be brief, clear, erm, they needn't be terribly formal, but they should essentially record the decisions that have been reached, and however much of the discussion, erm, that the chairman wants to record. Basically, going on too much about recording discussions seems to me, and I'm a secretary, as well as legal director, to be unnecessary. Normally, you don't need to be reminded of all that, you just want the action points, but I think doing that, doing it crisply, doing it quickly, because having the minutes two or three weeks after the meeting, is no use at all, having them within a day or two is very valuable.

Writing 1

Using information from Text 1 and Listening 1, draw up a set of guidelines entitled 'How to hold a successful meeting'. It may help you to think in terms of the following areas:

· objectives

· the role of the chairperson

· the role of participants

· administrative considerations

Language work

Checking understanding

1. It's important to ask the right questions to make sure you understand what people are saying in meetings. Supposing you were at a meeting and someone said:

I think we should redesign the product.

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