ORGANISATIONAL DEVELOPMENT
How To Chair Great Meetings
Meetings are an essential tool for establishing communication links in organisations. However, meetings are often dreaded and ineffective. Too many meetings are too long, and have unclear, fuzzy objectives. The chair has a vital role to ensure a meeting's success.
Chairing is both a science and an art. It is all about exercising authority including directing the course of the business, respecting people's contributions, ensuring fair play and being able to summarise points made and decisions taken. It goes without saying that the chair requires great people skills. Furthermore, chairing meetings calls for technical abilities as well. Depending on the nature of the meeting, it is important for the chair to know the rules of procedure, standing orders and how to apply these.
Aims of workshop
This workshop aims to promote an understanding of the role of the chair in meetings, briefings, disciplinary settings, at panel interviews and in conjunction with multi-agency partners. All meetings should have a purpose, be planned and prepared for, lead to action and be followed up. To be effective a chair must identify and manage those constituent parts.
Objectives
At the conclusion of the programme, participants should be able to:
- Describe the role of the chair in making meetings more engaging and productive
- Outline key skills required for chairing meetings
- List elements every successful meeting needs
- Identify the different roles participants play: movers, harmonisers, the silent, the wreckers and the talkers
- Identify potential flash points and how to encourage healthy conflict
- Describe ways to ensure effective meeting outcomes
Workshop programme
Participants may be introduced to a range of subjects drawing on:
- What are meetings for?
- Know your aims
- 'We've always done it that way' and other barriers to effective communication in meetings
- Understanding the role and responsibilities of the chair (hint - you are not there to tell people what to do)
- Information needs and technical issues
- Authority, leadership and control - how the chair can set the tone and direct the meeting and keep participants engaged and focused on outcomes
- Listening, summarising, getting the 'feel' of the meeting
- Problem solving and conflict in meetings
- Managing relationships: coping with log rollers, zappers, hidden agendas and other 'gotchas' of meetings
- 'When chairing meetings, never try to gain your purpose with a lie….' - a little word about ethics
- Converting a meeting to a series of actions
- Post meeting: who needs to know?
