Following on from last week’s post on recent research conducted about meetings from the Advanced Institute of Management Research in this week’s post I’m going to look at conduct in meetings. The research has shown that there is an optimal point in which meetings can bring about real strategic change – overall there are three elements that have come together – initiation, conduct and termination. We looked at initiation last week and found that “temporarily suspending” organisational structures (i.e., taking people out of their normal work environment) allowed people to make more proposals for potential changes. The meetings which provide the ‘maximum suspension’ were found to be closed meetings and open meetings with a certain type of discussion, free discussion.
There are three types of discussion identified in the research:
- Free discussion
- Restricted free discussion
- Restricted discussion
The characteristics of free discussion include; allowing participants to speak spontaneously (without enforced turn-taking), not needing acknowledgement from the Chair and unstructured comments and responses allowed to just happen. Free discussion is encouraged because it gives the participants and the collective whole of the meeting confidence to discuss change. In other words taking away a rigid discussion format and removing an authoritative Chair who wants to keep tight control allows the group to get on and discuss change.
In comparison, restricted free discussion still allows the participants to speak freely and without turn-taking but the Chair will interject and rein in discussion if he/she feels they’re going off topic or time was becoming an issue. The Chair exerts their authority just enough to remind everyone they’re there and that the flow of discussion is being controlled somewhat. The research showed that senior managers could ‘exercise their privileged position within the conduct of these meetings’ and because they were able to shape the discussion they could ensure that any changes proposed that they were not happy with would not be approved.
Finally, restricted discussion is very much about the Chair exerting full control. Meeting participants are restricted in their conversations by strict turn-taking – being invited to speak by the Chair. This of course has its advantages in that everyone gets to speak however the issue is that ideas generation are restricted because participants cannot comment or respond to points made by others. Spontaneous discussion is absent as is the opportunity for participants to develop their points having heard from other delegates. For such a democratic system, restricted discussion research has shown that no change will be evident from the meeting.
For our project meetings to be successful – especially where change needs to be proposed or explored further – we now have two options to consider. The closed meeting and open meeting with free discussion are going to give us a better chance of success. How do you conduct your project meetings? Are you an authoritative Chair? I can certainly think of a fair few restricted free discussion meetings I’ve been in over the years and countless restricted discussion meetings that tend to take place over teleconferences.
In next week’s post we’ll look at meeting termination. Termination looks at the resolution of meetings and what characteristics ensure that there is a greater likelihood of change actually happening.
If you’re interested in the full research take a look at Advanced Institute of Management Research – The Importance of Meetings
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Sometimes, the type of discussion you use depends on the amount of time you have and the amount of pressure you are under. Free discussion is all well and good, and great for team cohesiveness, but if you need to get something decide on quickly, restricted discussion with full management of the chair is the only way to go. In order to avoid unnecessary meetings that use up a lot of time in often unnecessary discussion, I like to communicate with my team using my online project management solution, instead of meeting face to face every time a small change has to be made.