12.0 Introduction
Learning Objectives
- Describe features of a poorly-facilitated group meeting.
- Identify guidelines for facilitating a meeting effectively.
- Discuss steps for facilitating virtual meetings.
- Identify ways in which parliamentary procedure can help a group conduct its business effectively.
- Describe terminology related to Robert’s Rules of Order Newly Revised (RONR) and related summaries of parliamentary procedure.
- Identify a tool for recording and preserving notes of professional group conversations.
- Acquire a format for minutes which emphasizes actions taken by a group and the people assigned to accomplish them.
- Identify three ways in which a good group leader should follow up on meetings of the group.
Professional Perspective
It is Monday morning and Naiomi opens her calendar for the week and notices that the majority of her time is scheduled for meetings. She is working on a major campaign that is due at the end of the month and needs time to complete the tasks required. She is overwhelmed as she does not see how that is possible with all the meetings scheduled. She is also dreading one particular meeting, as she knows it is a waste of her time. The group has no direction, and it does not seem to Naiomi that anything is ever accomplished.
If meetings are so central to what groups do, but are so time-consuming, it makes sense to pay attention to how they’re conducted. Like any other course of action, the process of engaging in meetings has a beginning, a middle, and an end. In our first section we’ll consider the beginning—the planning part. Later we’ll look at techniques for facilitating a meeting, the use of Robert’s Rules of Order, and the best ways to follow up after a meeting.
Whether and how carefully you plan any undertaking will determine in large part how well it turns out. Bad planning makes it harder to achieve your goals; good planning makes it easier. This certainly applies to meetings of groups, so it’s wise for us to examine how to plan those meetings effectively. Before we consider the ins and outs of that planning, however, let’s reflect on the proper role of meetings.
“Chapter 12: Groups and Meetings” from An Introduction to Group Communication by Phil Venditti and Scott McLean is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
