Effective Meetings for Managers

Institute of Leadership & Management

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2007
• eBook ISBN: 9781136408366
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Business General
• Index: Business

Super series are a set of workbooks to accompany the flexible learning programme specifically designed and developed by the Institute of Leadership & Management (ILM) to support their Level 3 Certificate in First Line Management. The learning content is also closely aligned to the Level 3 S/NVQ in Management. The series consists of 35 workbooks. Each book will map on to a course unit (35 books/units).

Session A

Group meetings

1

Introduction

There's an old joke that meetings are an alternative to work. Do you agree?

Meetings of more than two people can be a pleasure, a necessity, a chore, a nuisance or a test, depending on the circumstances. They can seem like a waste of valuable time. They can be inconclusive and frustrating. They can also be badly organized and poorly chaired.

Most managers dislike at least some of the meetings they go to. Many less experienced managers loathe them all.

‘Not another stupid meeting!’ groaned Anil. ‘Why can't we get on with something useful instead of talking about it all the time!’

Anil's line manager put him straight. ‘Look, I know you're keen and want to do practical things, but you're moving into management now. Your job is to organize, lead and motivate people who do the work, not to do the work yourself.’

‘Meetings are a big part of every manager's life and in this company we don't hold meetings for the fun of it. They've always got a practical purpose’.

Meetings are indeed a fact of life: the point is to learn to make them work, both as a participant and when chairing them.

2

Different types of meetings

As in the case of one-to-one meetings, meetings of more than two people may be formal or informal.

Informal meetings take place all the time. The essential basic rules are:

listen carefully to what the other people have to say;

make your messages clear and simple;

if anything important is said, make a note of it immediately afterwards.

2.1	Formal meetings

If you work for a very small organization, formal meetings may be few and far between, although there is bound to be the occasional meeting with suppliers, the bank, the local authority, and so on.

In bigger organizations, there are many more meetings, and they play a much more important role.

Activity 1

List the regular formal meetings in which you or your manager take part.

You may have listed some of the following:

monthly management meetings;

production meetings;

safety committee meetings;

staff association committee meetings;

training policy committee meetings;

quality circle meetings.

‘Committee: a body of persons appointed or elected for some special business or purpose.’ Shorter Oxford English Dictionary.

These are all regular meetings, scheduled in advance. There will also be various unscheduled one-off meetings to respond to problems and make decisions about issues of various kinds.

Activity 2

Here are some suggestions as to why larger organizations have so many more meetings. Tick any that you think might apply, and add any others that occur to...

Table of contents

• Front Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Series preface
• Unit specification
• Workbook introduction
• Session A Group meetings
• Session B Taking notes
• Performance checks
• Reflect and review