AN INTRODUCTION TO MEETINGS FORM A

·Managers and Meetings: The Bottomless Pit

One research study estimates that managers spend up to two-thirds of each business day in meetings. The
same study reveals that among those meetings, half are regarded by attendees to be a total waste of time!
Fact is, managers’ jobs are getting tougher. Why? Primarily because there are fewer managers, and
because they are responsible for more tasks.
Many of the tasks that managers were once responsible for are now handled directly by teams of
subordinates. Groups such as self-managed work teams are now directly responsible for task
accomplishment, and act independently from their managers. These groups need to understand how to
assume the leadership roles once assigned to managers.
We should view the leadership of meetings as a topic whose time has come. The leadership of
meetings makes a difference in the quality of meeting outcomes and in the extent to which members feel
involved. Leadership of problem-solving meetings may be likened to an artful process that can be
improved through training.

·The History of Meetings: Structure and Parliamentary Procedure

Perhaps the most widely known meeting structure is commonly referred to as parliamentary procedure or
simply Robert’s Rules. These procedures call for fairly rigid adherence to a formal meeting process. For
example, motions or suggestions for action, are made by attendees following a set of rules. These
suggestions are then voted on by the meeting participants (a certain number, or quorum, must be present
to vote), and the motion may or may not pass, depending on the outcome of the vote. Some motions are
debatable and others are not. Other illustrations of formal rules of order are: One must be recognized by
the meeting chair in order to contribute to the discussion, and proposed actions may be tabled, or pushed
off to a future meeting.
Formal rules of order can be traced back as far as the sixteenth century, to the British Parliament.
After ratification of the Constitution by the thirteen original colonies in the U.S., Thomas Jefferson, then
president of the U.S. Senate, wrote the Manual of Parliamentary Practice, which was based on
procedures used by the English House of Commons. In the late 1860s, Major Henry Robert wrote a set of
rules that could be applied by society as a whole. This method combined parliamentary procedure with a
single set of rules. Commonly known as Robert’s Rules of Order, this hybrid set of rules is applied in
board rooms and committee work across the world. These rules create a rigid structure that some critics
say interferes with good decision making.

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