This past Tuesday, we heard from Diana Bacon, who provides advice and training to boards and executive groups of many kinds on proper meeting procedures and tools to help make their meetings more productive.
She talked about Steven Covey’s seven habits of effective people and how they can be applied in practise. In particular, she mentioned two habits, ‘begin with the end in mind’, and ‘find your voice and inspire others to find theirs’. She emphasised that it is important not to be afraid to speak up and let other know your concerns. She said that some of the most helpful things to have in place to improve your meetings are a set of current bylaws and a written set of meeting rules (usually including the use of Robert’s Rules of Order) that establish a meeting structure and expectations (orders of the day) to be followed at each meeting. These orders of the day can also be part of the bylaws. She also stated the meeting agendas and reports to be discussed should be sent out in advance. She supplied a sheet of commonly used motions, which included what, why, when and how to word a motion properly.
She gave many different examples of problems that can arise during a meeting and had some very good suggestions on how to deal with these. One of these suggestions was to set discussion time limits prior to a motion, in order to allow everyone wishing to speak a chance to do so. She said that the chair of the meeting has a lot of power to keep the meeting under control, but should also act as a mentor for members who may not be fully conversant with proper meeting procedures. In closing, she said we should ask ourselves, how do we intend to improve the meetings that we attend.
