LY #74 Speech Professors at Meetings . . .

 can be a real pain in the ass.  I mean, we're always critiquing what we see, either out loud or in our heads, letting our annoyance roll out through our eyeballs.  We teach this stuff so we tend to get cranky if the bare bones protocols of "how to have a productive meeting" aren't followed.   Today's Faculty Forum meeting was no exception, as I knew it wouldn't be.  I really didn't hanker to go except that I wanted to blog about it and I figured that, rather than bitching about past meetings of which I have faint memory, I should get up to speed on the haps.   Ah, there was much to be annoyed by.

First of all, the reason for the meeting is, in itself, a problem.

According to the Faculty Forum constitution,

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Section 1.  Regular Meetings

Regular meetings of the Forum shall be held at least once each term during the regular academic year.

This requirement already violates one of the key issues of productive meetings, that meetings should only be held when necessary.   According to Susan Detwiler, a non-profit management consultant, there are three reasons to hold a meeting:  to inform, discuss, and decide.  Other folks believe that meetings should NOT be held only to inform.  (That's what I've taught in my small groups class.

Another concern is that meetings have agendas with clear time limits.  While there are many places on the web where you can find this info, I'll just cut and paste these rules from Student Life at the University of the Incarnate Word (oh, how I love that name!)

1. Announce or establish time limits for potentially lengthy agenda items (apportion time in accordance to importance of items).
2. Start with and stick to the agenda; do not let people drift off onto other subjects, or tangents. 

Other aspects of the agenda to consider are these: 

Focus and time are incredibly important so that people attending the meeting don't feel as if their time is being wasted.  Here are some ideas from the wonderful Community Tool Box created by folks at the University of Kansas.  These quotes are from "Conducting Effective Meetings."

"Keep the discussion on track  If someone's going off the agenda or is speaking too long, pull 'em back in! Be gentle but firm: people respect a meeting that's run well and remember all too clearly the meetings where someone was allowed to go on and on and on.

"Watch the time!   Remember about starting and ending! Honor agenda time limits. If the group seems to want to go beyond the agreed upon time on an issue, ask for agreement from all members. A statement such as, "We've already used our allotted time for this issue. Would everyone like to continue on the topic for another ten minutes, or shall we go on to the next item on the agenda?" can be a good way to take the group's pulse on the matter."

I bring these points up because when I arrived, rudely and late at 12:20 there was a curious discussion going on.   The speaker, a faculty member, was talking about the "Diversity Committee" bringing up an issue related to promotions.  There was some back and forth in the group of teachers about why the diversity committee was getting involved in promotions.  Another faculty member (we'll call him Professor Grup because even though in his forties he dresses like an 18 year old urbanite circa 2002) started a back and forth with the speaker about whether this was because there were people who had experienced discrimination in the promotions process.  There was about six minutes (maybe 10?) of ring-around the roses about why the diversity committee was concerned with promotions when finally another faculty member said that he was ON the Diversity Committee and what they were concerned with was giving faculty points for doing what they could to promote diversity, like driving to Madras to do a class.  At this point, the chair of the Humanities department spoke up and said, "We already do that.  So it's a done deal."

Since I'd come late, I figured that my confusion was in part my own fault for walking into a discussion in progress.  But when the diversity committee member commented that the previous discussion had all been completely off track (it wasn't even on a train) then I decided that it wasn't just me.

Then, the professor giving the presentation went on to talk about some ideas he had about quantifying the promotions process.  (COCC promotions information may be found here.)  His speaking style was annoying to me because he repeated his ideas far too often for an audience of his peers.  He said, "You are all smarter than I am," over five times and "This may be a good idea, it may be garbage" over ten times.  But what capped it all was finding out, well into his discussion, that a couple of year previous there'd been a task force which had already done all this work and which through long and arduous discussion had decided that certain issues (types of service work, types of community service) could not actually be quantified.  Two members of that task force, which had met every week for two years, were in the audience and yet they did not stop him until very late in his presentation.  I wish that they'd spoken up earlier.  They were, perhaps, overly concerned with politesse and not enough concerned with keeping the meeting focused and purposeful.


So, the speaker had not done his homework.   But then, it's difficult to find out about certain historical issues.  Where on the website is the information about that previous task force made clear?  Who passes along the information?  Why was this person even on the agenda?  We are currently an institution that lacks a coherent understanding of its own history.

By the way, here is the agenda I received by email for this meeting (with names taken off to protect the innocent, as Jack Web used to say).

Announcements, various discussion items

            Dean of Health Sciences Update –

            Promotions Process discussion –

            Bobcat Orientation Debrief/Info – 

You notice there are no time limits?  This was another big problem.  At one point the speaker was told "two minutes" but he didn't get off the stage.  He kept talking and repeating himself.

Ok.  Here is my speech teacher preference.  If I were going to give advice to the speaker, it would have been,  1.  Tell the audience what your key point is"  "Last year I created a quantification of the types of items that would turn up in four areas that count for promotions."  That's an information item.  2.  Follow up with a HAND OUT of the quantification and say, "This is what I came up with.  You may agree or disagree."  3.  Brief statement of the reason for the quantification.  "Giving points to activities clarifies what counts for success and can reduce stress and modify time spent in doing activities that don't count.  4.   "Any questions?"

This would have taken three minutes, five tops.  

Instead, there was confusion, repetition, and an insult to the hard work done by a previous committee.  Ack.

At one point the person running the meeting (I'm not sure if it was the union president or someone else) said, "You have two minutes left."  But the talking professor went on for TEN EFFING MINUTES after that.  Arrrrrrrgh.  One has to be willing to tell people to STFU.  In a polite way, of course.  If done it on committees and if I, with my deep fear of conflict, can stop people at the end of a sentence and say, "We've run out of time," then ANYBODY can do it!

Really, the discussion was a pretty awful example of meeting dysfunction.  I would have hated it but because I knew I'd be blogging about meeting dysfunction, I was happy that what I'd been expecting actually occurred.  (Now, did it occur because I was expecting it?  Did I only see what I expected to see?  I'll let my readers decide.)

The reason for formal rules in meetings is to prevent this kind of confusion and craziness.  Formality is good.  It's like courtesy.  Its a way to grease the wheels of civilization and help the trains to run on time.

Was it ever thus?  Tomorrow I'm going to look over my old Bendnotes and report back.