Meeting Management: Ten Tips for Profitable Meetings |
Posted: March 31, 2018 |
Thousands of people serve on public boards and commissions and need to do this work effectively. Some oversee general-purpose governments like city councils and county commissions. Some oversee special purpose districts like school boards, water district boards and road commissions. Whatever your role on a public board or commission, it is important for you to discharge your duty effectively. First, remember it is your meeting. It is your "commission", or charge of authority to act for the government. The only reason you are meeting is to conduct the business or the board and fulfill your commission. Toward that end, you should: - Have an agenda and stick to it. Most open meeting laws will require you to do this. The agenda is a tool to help you do what you need to do. It also helps the others make decisions about whether or not it is important or them to attend you r meetings. If a person addressing your commission, or a fellow commissioner, gets off the agenda, call them to order. If it is an important issue, put it on the agenda for a future meeting. - Be the audience. People are there to inform and persuade you. Make sure only those recognized by the chair are speaking and they are addressing their comments to the board. Second, remember your purpose. When I was in high school, I was president of a club. As we opened our meetings, I would call on each major officer who would recite a statement of his purpose and role in the Meeting Management with a pledge to conduct himself appropriately in that role. I would recite a similar statement as the president, and then lead the entire group in a statement about the attending members' purposes, roles and conduct. You do not need to do something so elaborate, but each commissioner should be mindful of his purpose. As you meet, keep in mind these three purposes: -Purpose of your board or commission. You may be called to make rules, advise, adjudicate, or exercise oversight or some combination of these. Your scope of responsibilities may be very broad or narrow. Do those things for which you are responsible well and do not spin your wheels that are outside your scope of authority or interest. -Purpose of the meeting. Focus on the business at hand for this meeting. If unrelated, but important, issues come up, put them on the agenda for a future meeting. -Purpose of the agenda item. At any moment in a meeting your purpose may be to gather information, discuss, debated, or decide. Give each item the focused time and attention it needs. Finally, the chairperson is traffic cop. The way a traffic cop helps you safely and properly get to where you are going, a chairperson keeps a commission on task, keeps a meeting moving and ensures that proper methods and conduct are observed. As a chairperson, do these things and call others to do the same: -Stick to the present issue. Boards and commissions often get bogged down in old business. Call people back to today's business. If a previous decision needs to be revisited, it can go on the agenda for another meeting. There is never a good reason to revisit old grievance and feuds. -Stick to the agenda items. For one thing, as a public board, you are probably required to follow your published agenda. Your agenda is the goals for your meeting and these goals help you fulfill you duties as a commission. - Appropriately use parliamentary procedure. Many people see parliamentary procedure as a set of cumbersome rules that block progress. Properly used, these procedures help groups take care of business and make decisions fairly, quickly and in an orderly way. Rules for small boards are looser than those for large deliberative bodies, but it is still important for your public services to be characterized by fairness, responsiveness and good order. Public boards and commissions face many opportunities to stumble into ineffectiveness. Use these tips to keep you moving in the right direction.
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|