Effective Meeting Skills for Management Committees and other Groups
Details
Meeting skills are often overlooked as an important part of an effective management committee, trustee board or other group meeting with a purpose.
Frequently, meetings become ineffective, boring, unproductive in ways that can be addressed through considering the meeting skills of all involved in the meeting.
The Chair of the meeting may be considered ineffective or dogmatic or a 'control freak' or other such labels, while committee members are considered passive, 'freeloaders', apathetic etc.
When this occurs it is almost always due to the ineffective meeting skills practiced by those who attend and the usual behaviours that arise in an unresolved conflict start to manifest - blame is allocated, destructive arguments occur, possibly even verbal abuse.
Alongside this, attendance drops off, frustration sets in and the purpose of the meeting is called into question, sometimes even leading to a break up of the group and the meetings to stop.
There are usually two main practices that lead to this situation arising although a range of different behaviours can contribute to this.
The expectations of the Chairperson can often be that they are 'responsible' for the meeting and so other participants come to expect the Chair to manage everything from decisions that are made to dealing with disruptive behaviours such as interrupting, deviating from the agenda etc.
We work with public sector bodies such as universities, local authorities and NHS related organisations. We also have long experience of working with community groups.
We have a particular expertise in working with allegations of workplace bullying, providing mediation and conflict coaching for those involved, where appropriate, as well as support for those responsible for managing such situations.
