Meetings & Energy

Meetings can be deadly. They can sap the energy out of the staff. They can make people lose the will to live, plot to come late and leave early, bring things to keep themselves occupied while they sit there and wait for the end of the meeting.

Meetings must be the heart of your communication system. They must be productive, motivating, and energizing. Because much of your time is spent in planning and facilitating meetings, in putting together agendas and activities that will lead to consensus problem-solving and decision-making, you must develop knowledge and skills about meetings to ensure that people look forward to participating in the meetings that you run.

Begin by asking yourself, what is the purpose of the meeting you are about to hold? What opportunity does a face-to-face meeting offer that cannot be achieved as well in any other way?

Remember that if you have 100 teachers and you hold a staff meeting of one hour, you have used 100 teacher hours. You want to make sure that your purpose is clear and that your end result has been worth the time.

Over the next few days, we will think about a) when a meeting is necessary or desirable, b) what are the criteria for a good meeting, c) how meeting sequences contribute to consensus building, and d) a suggested checklist for pre-meeting preparation.