Is this typical or is this typical?With respect to Douglas Adams' Marvin.
At one staff meeting, soon into my headmastership, I stopped and said, "You know, I really hate sitting around at lunchtime, going on and on about things like this, when what I really want is my break.
The thing is, when we do have a meeting, we don't want it to drag on and we don't want to have to come back the next day and the next. Nor do we want it to go on into the night.
If we run these meetings before school, we get insufficient concentration, it pressurizes you because you like to do your preparation then and I'd like you always to be there when the parents and kids come in. We'd not resolve anything and have to continue later.
Alternatively, we could run them in our break times, such as lunchtime and we all know how we feel about that. Again, we'd have to come back the next day most like.
Or we can run them after school, in your time and mine, have fewer meetings, when sufficient business comes up to need one. In the meantime, we can deal with most issues by a sort of bulletin board with tick boxes where you can anonymously tick which option you like or suggest your own.
If there are things we really need to decide together, getting ideas, brainstorming and so on, then we'll hold a meeting, with one week's notice. However, we'd expect people to be at it, to contribute and most of all, we want a result on each question - at least an interim working plan, so that we don't have to come back next day and do it all over again.
I envisage you'd need to give up to an hour and a quarter, I'd micro-manage it so that we'd keep moving along and not overly dwell on one point but at the same time, get as many points in as possible, then it would cut off at the hour and a quarter, no matter what. Plus I don't want to have it here but over the road at the Fox and Hounds - there's a side room, as you know.
Your say."
The mothers didn't like the after-school bit but the reduction in the number was attractive. Some wanted it only in school hours but in an independent school where staff were expected to give time outside the regulation hours anyway, that wasn't taken too seriously.
One didn't like the pub idea but the rest did. No one wanted before school. Some wanted the "least worst option" of lunchtime but when it was apparent that it would need to be two lunchtimes, balked at that.
We voted and tried the pub option occasionally after school - in practice it became every two and a half weeks or thereabouts.
Question - if you were heading up a team or group, how would you arrange meetings? How do you arrange them?
Simples. There's a prize for the person who says least. Or everybody gets given £100 and docked £1 for every second they speak.
ReplyDeleteI like the second one very much, except that nothing would get resolved.
ReplyDeleteMake meetings regular but:
ReplyDelete1) Limit time availalbe
2) Limit attendance only to those who absolutely need to be there
3) limit agenda
4) push discussion along. not letting any one person to rabbit on for too long
Basically short meetings with a firm chair
My wife once worked for a chap who held meetings on Friday at 17:00. The minutes recorded the arrival of anyone who was late, and all early departures. Perhaps it's obvious that he was a Presbyterian?
ReplyDeleteMind you, it worked very well.
Only hold meetings for critical items that need people to be in the same room. The rest is handled via EMail and over a couple of days and then the decision maker makes a decision. that is what they are paid for.
ReplyDeleteA meeting is an event at which the minutes are kept and the hours are lost.
I rather inclined to favour the Duke of Wellington's view. He said, after his first Cabinet meeting as PM, “An extraordinary affair. I gave them their orders and they wanted to stay and discuss them.”
ReplyDelete