August 1961 — VOL. 42, No. 6 — On Conducting a
Meeting
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If you have been chosen to be chairman
of a meeting it is because your group believes that you have
the required qualities. Only reasonable care and a lot of
goodwill are needed to enable you to do a creditable job.
Keep your approach to your chairmanship positive and constructive.
Group discussion is the base upon which action is built by
all our government, business, civic and social groups. Your
function is to see that the discussion proceeds smoothly.
Common sense is needed. Without it no set of rules will
keep you on the beam. Good planning is necessary, for without
it you cannot guide your meeting smoothly toward its objective.
Running a meeting is like putting on a show: it has to be
rehearsed in your mind and then staged properly. Unnecessary
detail must be edited out of the script; unimportant action
must be speeded up; every participant must be given an opportunity
to say his lines.
If the gathering is anything except a business or professional
conference or an annual meeting it demands the relaxation
of governance expected in a democratic get—together.
This is where the art of chairmanship shows itself.
In a business gathering the general manager may be chairman
and speaker and time—keeper, wielding total authority,
but in a community or club or association meeting the chairman
needs to use his personality and social skills to accomplish
the meeting's purpose and send the participants away satisfied
with their contribution.
Preparation
Don't start worrying the moment you accept an invitation
to be chairman: start preparing. That is the main assurance
of a successful meeting, and it is the most potent antidote
to stage fright.
Think of the happy position you will be in if you have planned
well in advance along these lines: you have briefed those
who are to help in conducting the meeting, such as the secretary,
the chairmen of committees, and other officers, so that they
know when and how to make their contribution; you have the
agenda of the meeting arranged in orderly fashion; you have
determined that you will apply rules and tact so as to bring
out proposals and ideas in the clearest possible manner, consideration
of the proposals in the fairest possible way, and decision
about ideas in clear unmistakable language; and you have anticipated
the meeting's reaction to every item so far as is in your
power, so as not to be caught unprepared for eventualities.
To aid you in this important organization of your meeting,
why not make up a "Take it apart" sheet? You write at the
top of a piece of paper the idea that will be debated, or
the resolution to be considered. Draw a line down the centre
of the page and write on one column "in favour" and on the
other "against". Then put your mind to work to anticipate
and make a note of every fact and feature you can imagine
as an argument pro or con.
You will arrive at your platform chair with more knowledge
than anyone in the room of what is likely to be said, and
this helps you to keep control. You will also be in position
to suggest points overlooked by the audience, giving an opportunity
for well—rounded discussion and consideration.
Have facts at hand, not to trot out gratuitously but to
fill gaps. Make sure that there is someone present who has
detailed knowledge about the project under consideration,
or experience in the course proposed. Obtain whatever pertinent
booklets are available, not with the idea of reading them
to the meeting but so as to have authoritative material at
hand to answer questions and spark discussion.
Do not rely upon your native intelligence to provide you
with spur—of—the—moment comments and debate—starters.
As Nathan Sheppard wrote in a long—forgotten handbook
for public speakers: "the best improvisations are improvised
beforehand."
Always keep the members of your audience in mind. What sort
of people are you to preside over?
Some will turn up at meetings with only existential knowledge
of the problem on the agenda: they know there is a problem.
Others will bring essential knowledge: they know there is
a problem, they know its nature, and they have examined into
it.
Duties of the chairman
To put it in its shortest form, it is the duty of the chairman
to plan and prepare necessary business, present it to the
meeting, and carry out the policies decided upon.
Keep the minds of your audience open and running, not stagnant
and idling. Try to avoid wrong turns and detours, and suppress
the tendency some people show toward dead—end debates.
You can accomplish these desirable purposes very neatly by
rephrasing statements that might be misunderstood, sifting
out the irrelevant comment, and summing up the points which
mark progress.
Your own interest in every statement and person should be
constantly evident, though it is not your place to talk often
or at length. Your job is to get the ideas of others out for
an airing.
Give your full attention to your audience. You can strike
dumb the most eager speaker if you assume an attitude of kingly
reign or one of judicial distance. You can ruin a meeting
by consulting your secretary or riffling through your portfolio
of papers while a speaker is addressing you.
Here, in a sentence, is your duty as chairman: listen carefully
to what is being said, seize illuminating suggestions and
point them up, combine similar ideas expressed differently,
reconcile divergent opinions, clarify statements when they
may be misunderstood, and sum up step by step to mark progress
toward a solution.
Should it happen - and it will happen in the best circles
- that several matters suddenly appear before the Chair under
the umbrella of the one being discussed, do not hesitate to
call a halt to the proceedings while you disentangle them.
You must not allow informality to obscure the importance
of what is being done. Your usefulness depends upon your authority
as director of the meeting. You have been given that power
for a purpose - the purpose of directing the meeting so as
to accomplish some desired end with fairness to everyone who
seeks to take part in the deliberations.
Presiding gracefully
It is one thing to be praised for the efficiency of your
chairmanship, and that is worth while, but it is equally desirable
to be praised for the grace with which you presided.
Let the audience be ever so small, or the circumstances
ever so disheartening, the chairman must perform his role
with credit to himself and his art. What you need is not critical
scholarship in the rules of order, but a human feeling for
what will be most satisfying to participants.
There is no room here for spuriousness. Your art must be
valid. Manner and demeanour are not frivolous but vital.
We all know chairmen who are disciples of efficiency, whipping
through a multitude of items in jig time. We know, too, how
often we have come away from their meetings with a feeling
of incompletion, of non—participation.
Courtesy is needed as well as accomplishment. Courtesy takes
off the sharp edge of power. It observes the niceties, while
preserving the decorum, of debate. It detects impending conflict
and moves in to avert an open clash. It never shows annoyance.
It opens the door graciously for face—saving when a speaker
has crossed the boundary of good taste.
Keeping up interest
Fundamental in keeping up interest is to stir participation.
When a meeting seems to be lackadaisical try a little mind
stretching. Throw out a question that is allied to the topic
but a few steps ahead of the current discussion. Try to push
the right button to bring out the interesting and helpful
things that might be contributed by people in your audience
who have not yet spoken. Show interest in a warm, enthusiastic
way.
One helpful question to use when the audience seems dormant
is this: "What will happen if we decide this way?" Put some
expectation into your voice - some people can talk about the
joys of Utopia in such a manner as to make us disgusted with
them.
Get your audience into the habit of rising to speak. Sitting
still keeps people's minds quiet; getting on their feet sets
their minds in motion.
When the meeting is formal, all remarks must be strictly
relevant to the question being discussed, but in most meetings
some latitude may be allowed. The chairman, however, must
be alert to halt any speaker who wanders too far from the
subject. Not only does the digression waste time, but it befogs
the issue. One good way to bring a discussion back on to the
track is to summarize what has been said to date.
Don't allow a person to speak twice on the same topic until
all others have had a chance to contribute their opinions.
Control the loquacious and draw out the diffident. In extreme
cases ask the talkative person to give others a chance. Say:
"While we're on this point, let's hear from some of the others."
Handling conflict
No matter how well dispositioned the people at your meeting
may be, you are likely to run into conflict. Not alone policies
and plans collide, but personalities.
You may find that the supposed problem before the meeting
is being used by opposing sides in their effort to gain dominance.
Much that passes for discussion is merely the noise made by
contending propagandists. Your recourse as chairman is to
keep discussion to the facts before the meeting on this particular
issue. Enforce the rule that all speakers address the Chair,
even though they may wish to question or answer something
said by a previous speaker.
The crank, or the person with delusions of the greatness
of his thoughts, is difficult to handle. His emotions drive
him into imagining that he is being persecuted when you hold
him to the accepted customs of debate. When people like that
throw sharp belligerent barbs at you or direct them toward
some other member of the audience, try to take off the barb
with a laughing comment and a restatement.
If passionate discourse breaks out, seize the conflicting
arguments in both hands and display them so that they become
clarified. State precisely, in a few words, what you understand
to be the contentions of each of the disputants. Apparent
contradictions will often turn out to be merely ambiguities.
Make sure that everyone is talking about the same fact, event,
person or proposal. Many disputes and confusions fade away
when the key words are defined.
About rules of order
The rules of order, whether framed by Bourinot, Roberts
or your own group, have at heart the rules of common decency:
that everyone with something to contribute be allowed to speak;
that nothing too distressing be said; and that obedience be
given to whatever conventions are applicable to the occasion.
You represent the corporate authority of the meeting in
bringing about certain desirable results: providing regulated
opportunity for every person to state his views; insisting
upon fair and meaningful discussion; protecting the rights
of the minority and the majority; providing the means for
decision making; working toward the ideal of a unified front
after differences have been resolved.
You will be assisted toward success if you avoid applying
the rules in a dictatorial way. A gentle nudge toward conformity
is often all that is needed. You are not at your best when
you say merely: "It's in the book." Explain, so that all in
the meeting will know, why the rule is necessary and why you
are applying it in this case. He who is persuaded feels that
he has gained something; he who is compelled believes that
he has been despoiled of something.
Holding a meeting
The objects of an organized discussion are to identify problems
that mean something to the group and to get at the issues
which must be considered for solutions or decisions.
The meeting is more than the sum of its members, because
members interact; they stimulate and exchange ideas. It has
been calculated that the possible minimum combinations of
a group of twelve persons total 2,102. Stuart Chase says picturesquely
in his book Power of Words that many small threads of language
weave these persons together in a fabric of relations from
member to member "like lines of force in a magnetic field."
Begin your meeting in a confident, eager mood. Suggest in
specific and definite terms the nature of the expected outcome
- a decision about this or a resolution to do that. Outline
the alternatives as you see them, but do it factually, without
in the slightest way, by words or inflection, taking sides.
After disposing of the minutes of the preceding meeting
by adopting them, or amending them if necessary, and the unfinished
business arising out of the minutes; approving accounts; receiving
reports of committees and reading essential correspondence,
you reach the items under "New Business" on the agenda. Pertinent
items from committee reports and correspondence will have
been referred to this item.
Strictly speaking, the solution of a problem or the reaching
of a decision should be introduced to the meeting in the form
of a motion, and then seconded, and then opened for discussion
and possible amendment, and then voted upon. Under parliamentary
procedure, there can be no debate until a question is before
the meeting in proper form.
Nothing frightens an amateur chairman so much as an amendment
to an amendment. A first amendment is easy to handle: it must
not say "no" to the motion, but only vary it in some detail;
it must not introduce entirely new matter (which belongs in
new motions); it may leave out certain words, add certain
words, or delete certain words and replace them by others.
These same rules apply to an amendment of the amendment.
Here is an example: the motion is to give $100 of the group's
funds to the Red Feather agencies; the amendment is to delete
"$100" and substitute "$150"; the amendment to the amendment
is to delete "$150" and substitute "$50 at this time and $100
spread over the next five months." You call for a vote on
the amendment to the amendment; if it carries, then the main
motion is automatically carried as amended by the double amendment.
If it is defeated, you call for a vote on the amendment; if
it carries, the original motion is carried as amended. If
the amendment is defeated, you put the original motion. That
is the simplest way. Some authorities say that after the various
amendments are voted on you ask: "Is it your pleasure to adopt
the motion?" Or, if an amendment carried: "... to adopt the
motion as amended?" In any case, you should read the motion
in its final form before calling for a vote.
You should consult your by—laws to make sure of any
special requirements as to voting. Some resolutions, particularly
those affecting money, qualifications for membership and changes
in the by—laws, may require a two—thirds majority.
If there are twelve qualified voters, and eight of them vote
"yea", the motion carries.
Normally, the chairman does not vote except in the case
of a tie. Then, says a bulletin about procedure at meetings
issued by the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, "he customarily
votes against a motion on the assumption that if half the
members are opposed, the matter should not be forced upon
them."
Some motions have special privileges. A motion to adjourn
or to recess may be made at any time. It must be seconded,
but it is not debatable, except when it is sought to adjourn
to a time other than the regular meeting time, when discussion
is permitted on that point only.
There are only two legitimate ways to interrupt a member
while he is speaking: the point of order and the question
of privilege. The first applies when a member feels that improper
language has been used, irrelevant argument introduced, or
a rule of procedure broken; the second is called into use
if a member feels that his own or the organization's reputation
is endangered.
The chairman decides these without debate, though he may
ask for opinions. If the member disagrees, he may appeal,
in which case the chairman states his decision and the point
of appeal, and puts the question: "shall the decision of the
Chair stand as the judgment of this meeting?" This is not
debatable, and a simple majority is sufficient to decide.
Closing the meeting
Having covered all the items on the agenda, you inquire
if there is any other business. If any matter is raised that
is relevant to the purpose of the meeting, see that it receives
adequate attention. If there is no response, declare the meeting
closed. No motion is needed.
One thing at least remains to be done, and it is most important.
The minutes of a meeting, the record of things done and the
decisions reached, are of great concern to the continuing
health of the organization. They must be factual and impersonal,
accurate and complete.
Keeping the minutes is usually the job of the secretary,
but the chairman must assure himself that the record is well
kept. Some chairmen send copies of the minutes to members
soon after the meeting so as to inform them about what happened
if they were not present and to give those who were present
an opportunity to catch errors which can be corrected at the
next meeting.
Sources of information
This quick glance at the techniques and aids for meetings
makes no pretence at completeness. All rules may be used separately
or in many combinations according to the nature of the group,
the temperament of the participants, the idiosyncracies of
the chairman and the requirements of the occasion.
Every chairman finds that his greatest success will come
when he works out an agreement between his internal convictions
about how things should be run and the external circumstances
of the occasion. He will take of common sense a sufficient
quantity, add a little portion of the rules and orders of
the group, and apply this prescription to the meeting with
a certain elegancy.
- O -
References: The authority on Canadian procedure is
Rules of Order by Sir John G. Bourinot, available through
your book store or direct from the publishers, McClelland
and Stewart Ltd., Toronto. A handy pocket—sized book
for quick reference is Rules of Order .for Deliberative
Assemblies, by Henry M. Robert, available through your
book store. Everything needed by the chairman is told in The
Conduct of Meetings, an excellent guide written by G.
H. Stanford and published by the Oxford University Press,
Toronto, at the very modest price of $2.50. The Adult Education
Division of the Department of Education, Regina, Saskatchewan,
publishes How to Conduct Better Meetings, while its
namesake in Halifax, Nova Scotia, publishes Making Better
Meetings. The Canadian Chamber of Commerce has issued
for its members a Bulletin About Duties of a Chairman.
Procedure at Meetings in Canada by Arthur Beauchesne is
published by Canada Law Book Co. Ltd., Toronto.
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