Thursday, September 13, 2007

Me and Business Meetings!

I just encountered my first real issue in trying to create a new posting. I ended up pushing a lot of new keys that took me to places that I won't remember, but I did learn how to delete a post and ended up here.

After our Tuesday ELT meeting I have now rediscovered my inability to plan for and facilitate quality business meetings that contain a mix of discussion and action items. I spent time planning and discussing with others items that needed to be included and the time that each would require. Once again, it didn't work. Though something of value was realized it should not have taken four hours.

I don't want to believe that I am that bad at facilitating because I know quite a lot about the process, but it is becoming more and more difficult not to own that judgment. I would guess that the parking lots are certainly supporting that conclusion.

In an effort to feel just a little better, I am wondering if it may also be a question about traditional business meetings in a system of 7000 students, 800 employees, and about 25 administrators sitting in a room with different issues, needs, mental models, and ladders that we bring. Perhaps meeting the second week with what I now see as a ridiculously long agenda added to the problem. The principal C & I meetings have a different feel though they to sometimes seem to have some of the same characteristics that trouble me in our ELT business meetings.

I would welcome any suggestions you might have for me. How do you make your business meetings dynamic opportunities that people can't wait to attend?

3 comments:

WSarett said...

Thanks for the thoughts about the meeting. It is good to know you have a strong sense of the groups feelings. An Idea I have for making ELT meetings more efficient is to make action items the only focus of the meeting. Limit the agenda to action only. Create an electronic "information only" posting place like a BLOG or we could use WIKIS for ELT information. Each of us could modify with pertinent info. if necessary prior to the meetings. There could be a printed copy of the page(s) to hand out as we enter the meeting and time at the end for clarifications if necessary. We just tend to get caught up in long discussions of things that can be better dealt with in a different forum with fewer people.

Chris Everett said...

I am testing out my new login.

Julie Lee said...

I like the shared learning idea. I'm trying out my log in for the first time and look forward to new ideas from ELT via this mode.