Baby Chair, Committee Edition
June 14, 2023 4:23 AM Subscribe
I (very newly, i.e. under 2 weeks) work in the marketing department of a major Canadian university doing web strategy. This is a new role for my campus, and through a series of leavings, I have inherited the role of chairing a newly-formed web advisory committee which includes people from across the university as well as very high-level ex-officio members.
I've never even been on an advisory committee, never mind chaired one. I also inherited our first meeting date, which is this Friday. Fortunately the agenda for that meeting is already set. Please share your best tips or even worst horror stories about how to be an effective chair. A few more details within.
The committee is developing a governance policy for the website. This also is a new thing. I have access to similar policies for similar institutions. Most of the people on the committee do not have the web as their primary focus, although they may have deep communications roles/backgrounds. The web services team is represented as well. I am dreadfully unaware of any personalities/conflicts but am enjoying that ignorance for however long it lasts.
On a personal note, I've been working in a small martial arts academy for a few years so all my Teams/meeting muscles are building or rusty, so best tips there in this environment are also appreciated!
The committee is developing a governance policy for the website. This also is a new thing. I have access to similar policies for similar institutions. Most of the people on the committee do not have the web as their primary focus, although they may have deep communications roles/backgrounds. The web services team is represented as well. I am dreadfully unaware of any personalities/conflicts but am enjoying that ignorance for however long it lasts.
On a personal note, I've been working in a small martial arts academy for a few years so all my Teams/meeting muscles are building or rusty, so best tips there in this environment are also appreciated!
Best answer: Congratulations on the new gig! My number one tip from being a chair is to never run over the scheduled time. If you don't get to everything on your agenda, then you'll pick up there at the next meeting. If you get through everything on the agenda early, the meeting ends early. Academics are literally the worst about respecting other people's time, so doing so from the beginning will be a great way to start.
I would also say as a new person coming in, your first job will be to listen. Some people on this committee have awesome institutional knowledge about the background on these issues, so identify them, listen to them, and learn from them. Some people on this committee will also absolutely suck, mansplain, take credit for work that isn't theirs, etc., and they will try to take over the meeting to monologue if given a chance. Identifying early on your gems of institutional knowledge and the people who you would prefer to not speak in meetings will help you be an effective chair.
posted by hydropsyche at 4:59 AM on June 14, 2023 [6 favorites]
I would also say as a new person coming in, your first job will be to listen. Some people on this committee have awesome institutional knowledge about the background on these issues, so identify them, listen to them, and learn from them. Some people on this committee will also absolutely suck, mansplain, take credit for work that isn't theirs, etc., and they will try to take over the meeting to monologue if given a chance. Identifying early on your gems of institutional knowledge and the people who you would prefer to not speak in meetings will help you be an effective chair.
posted by hydropsyche at 4:59 AM on June 14, 2023 [6 favorites]
Best answer: First, I would have a private chat with one or two members of the committee to get an idea of how it has been run in the past. It might be pure Roberts Rules, or it might be the Boss pontificating without much other structure. Personally, I would require some Rules about decisions: a motion, a second, a vote. (Who gets a vote is an interesting question. Votes by member, votes by interest group, etc.)
You should have a secretary to take notes and produce minutes. Minutes should be distributed before the next meeting, and there should be a call for changes/corrections, then a vote on acceptance at the next meeting. A purpose of the minutes is to accept decisions that have been made, so you can get on to something new and not have the same BS at every meeting.
You should have a clear procedure about getting items on the agenda.
A whole different area is pure meeting skills. Not my area, but come prepared is the first thing. Too many folks show up without having given the committee's business a single thought since the last meeting.
posted by SemiSalt at 5:03 AM on June 14, 2023 [3 favorites]
You should have a secretary to take notes and produce minutes. Minutes should be distributed before the next meeting, and there should be a call for changes/corrections, then a vote on acceptance at the next meeting. A purpose of the minutes is to accept decisions that have been made, so you can get on to something new and not have the same BS at every meeting.
You should have a clear procedure about getting items on the agenda.
A whole different area is pure meeting skills. Not my area, but come prepared is the first thing. Too many folks show up without having given the committee's business a single thought since the last meeting.
posted by SemiSalt at 5:03 AM on June 14, 2023 [3 favorites]
Best answer: On Minutes; they need to get out to the membership while still fresh in their minds and be circulated with the Agenda just before the next meeting and have printed copies at that meeting. You cannot rely on anyone to do their homework.
I've found it really helpful to have an Action Items column at one margin of the Minutes with the initials of the person who will make them happen.
You have to notice who is getting antsy to speak and it helps if you can indicate that notice with a gesture and eye-contact. There may be more than one wanting-to-speaker, don't forget those who don't make first cut.
Be mindful of all the stuff about women and minorities being seen to dominate but actually being sidelined. Affirmative action from the chair can help redress the balance and bring some diversity to the discussion.
Good luck. It can be fun and productive.
posted by BobTheScientist at 6:22 AM on June 14, 2023 [4 favorites]
I've found it really helpful to have an Action Items column at one margin of the Minutes with the initials of the person who will make them happen.
You have to notice who is getting antsy to speak and it helps if you can indicate that notice with a gesture and eye-contact. There may be more than one wanting-to-speaker, don't forget those who don't make first cut.
Be mindful of all the stuff about women and minorities being seen to dominate but actually being sidelined. Affirmative action from the chair can help redress the balance and bring some diversity to the discussion.
Good luck. It can be fun and productive.
posted by BobTheScientist at 6:22 AM on June 14, 2023 [4 favorites]
Best answer: My experience is that you have to focus almost exclusively on the meeting - your responsibility is to the meeting, not the underlying substance. (Because of course, you will do all the actual work on the underlying substance outside of the meetings.) So think of yourself as the neutral facilitator. Your goal is to get through the agenda and make sure everyone is heard equally. When I found myself unexpectedly chairing big meetings, I often wouldn’t even be following the substance at all in the early meetings! But I got great feedback just based on getting through the agenda and ensuring everyone got their allotted time to speak.
Something to consider is putting a time limit on discussion for each agenda item. Then you have to be very firm about enforcing it. If this committee makes motions, then you intervene to ask if anyone wants to make a motion at the end of the time period.
posted by haptic_avenger at 6:33 AM on June 14, 2023
Something to consider is putting a time limit on discussion for each agenda item. Then you have to be very firm about enforcing it. If this committee makes motions, then you intervene to ask if anyone wants to make a motion at the end of the time period.
posted by haptic_avenger at 6:33 AM on June 14, 2023
Best answer: Some tips I use for keeping discussions on track:
* “I’d like to hear more, but we’ll get to that in item n of the agenda. Can you write yourself a short reminder note to make sure we come back to your point/idea?”
* If people start repeating themselves, it’s likely because they haven’t received acknowledgement that they were heard the first time. If you find that happening, giving a brief summary of what they just said, eg. “So if I understand you correctly, X, you’re saying ___?”, tends to solve that issue. Even if no one agrees, or that isn’t the direction the group wants to go in, the person at least knows they were heard. (Especially an issue when there is a speakers list and too many different topics under consideration at once - a good agenda will also help avoid this.)
* Expected time durations for each agenda item if it turns out that keeping to schedule is challenging for your group.
— For all of the above, verbally reviewing the agenda (and asking if anyone has any updates) at the beginning of the meeting can be helpful. (Don’t rely on people to read the agenda on their own.)
* In my experience, university faculty will expect meetings to run slightly long (and be happily surprised when they don’t), but administrators and staff like to keep more strict time limits. It sounds like your group will include at least some of the latter, so attention to time is good - BUT - as a meeting attendee, I find it super frustrating when a meeting chair just cuts a discussion off in the middle because of time, with no clear decision made or no plan for finishing the discussion and making a decision, in cases where a decision needs to be made. For each agenda item, leave time for either making a group decision (if the group is ready for that and the agenda item requires a decision) or summarizing the discussion (if just brainstorming) or planning how and when to continue the discussion/decision-making if needed.
* If this is the sort of committee where multiple attendees are assigned tasks to complete based on the meeting discussion and decisions, leave five minutes at the end to review everyones’ to do items and plan due dates or check-ins.
* Seconding having a separate note-taking but making sure that minutes are distributed both as soon as possible after the meeting (ideally within 24 hours!), as well as includes with the agenda for the following meeting. (University folks will likely have their laptops with them, so paper copies at the meeting itself probably won’t be necessary.)
Other recommendations:
* Check if there are any requirements about how the meeting is run (eg. Roberts Rules - probably not, but you never know with universities), or other administrative details (eg. if copies of minutes are supposed to be CCd to an administrator who doesn’t attend the meetings, or sent periodically to a University Senate, or anything like that).
* Seconding checking ahead of time with whoever used to run these meetings (if possible) or your supervisor or similar relevant person to ensure you have all the background.
* For scheduling your group’s next meeting:
— A set regular meeting time can be very helpful, allows folks to plan around your meetings.
— Administrators and staff at my university seem to keep their schedules on the online calendar provided with our email suite, but faculty in general won’t do this (one of the perks of being a faculty member, that partially offsets the 55-60 hour average work week and always taking one’s work home or on vacation but without the level of pay that would typically accompany that workload in the white collar business/for-profit world, is more personal control over one’s time; plus faculty have lots of tasks that aren’t scheduled meetings but that they do need to leave time in the day for, some of which can be time-sensitive). So if your group is just administrators and staff, choosing a meeting time based on people’s posted schedules and just telling everyone when it is will likely be fine. But if your group includes faculty, that scheduling method is a rapid way to make enemies. Instead, look at everyone’s posted schedules and choose 4-5 potential times, then poll for availability. Or, if you can gets folks to do it, have them send you the times when they are UNavailable by email (this gives folks the opportunity to state preferences or other constraints that aren’t specifically scheduled commitments) and then choose a meeting time. Or, if time allows, schedule the next meeting at the end of the current meeting.
posted by eviemath at 7:21 AM on June 14, 2023 [3 favorites]
* “I’d like to hear more, but we’ll get to that in item n of the agenda. Can you write yourself a short reminder note to make sure we come back to your point/idea?”
* If people start repeating themselves, it’s likely because they haven’t received acknowledgement that they were heard the first time. If you find that happening, giving a brief summary of what they just said, eg. “So if I understand you correctly, X, you’re saying ___?”, tends to solve that issue. Even if no one agrees, or that isn’t the direction the group wants to go in, the person at least knows they were heard. (Especially an issue when there is a speakers list and too many different topics under consideration at once - a good agenda will also help avoid this.)
* Expected time durations for each agenda item if it turns out that keeping to schedule is challenging for your group.
— For all of the above, verbally reviewing the agenda (and asking if anyone has any updates) at the beginning of the meeting can be helpful. (Don’t rely on people to read the agenda on their own.)
* In my experience, university faculty will expect meetings to run slightly long (and be happily surprised when they don’t), but administrators and staff like to keep more strict time limits. It sounds like your group will include at least some of the latter, so attention to time is good - BUT - as a meeting attendee, I find it super frustrating when a meeting chair just cuts a discussion off in the middle because of time, with no clear decision made or no plan for finishing the discussion and making a decision, in cases where a decision needs to be made. For each agenda item, leave time for either making a group decision (if the group is ready for that and the agenda item requires a decision) or summarizing the discussion (if just brainstorming) or planning how and when to continue the discussion/decision-making if needed.
* If this is the sort of committee where multiple attendees are assigned tasks to complete based on the meeting discussion and decisions, leave five minutes at the end to review everyones’ to do items and plan due dates or check-ins.
* Seconding having a separate note-taking but making sure that minutes are distributed both as soon as possible after the meeting (ideally within 24 hours!), as well as includes with the agenda for the following meeting. (University folks will likely have their laptops with them, so paper copies at the meeting itself probably won’t be necessary.)
Other recommendations:
* Check if there are any requirements about how the meeting is run (eg. Roberts Rules - probably not, but you never know with universities), or other administrative details (eg. if copies of minutes are supposed to be CCd to an administrator who doesn’t attend the meetings, or sent periodically to a University Senate, or anything like that).
* Seconding checking ahead of time with whoever used to run these meetings (if possible) or your supervisor or similar relevant person to ensure you have all the background.
* For scheduling your group’s next meeting:
— A set regular meeting time can be very helpful, allows folks to plan around your meetings.
— Administrators and staff at my university seem to keep their schedules on the online calendar provided with our email suite, but faculty in general won’t do this (one of the perks of being a faculty member, that partially offsets the 55-60 hour average work week and always taking one’s work home or on vacation but without the level of pay that would typically accompany that workload in the white collar business/for-profit world, is more personal control over one’s time; plus faculty have lots of tasks that aren’t scheduled meetings but that they do need to leave time in the day for, some of which can be time-sensitive). So if your group is just administrators and staff, choosing a meeting time based on people’s posted schedules and just telling everyone when it is will likely be fine. But if your group includes faculty, that scheduling method is a rapid way to make enemies. Instead, look at everyone’s posted schedules and choose 4-5 potential times, then poll for availability. Or, if you can gets folks to do it, have them send you the times when they are UNavailable by email (this gives folks the opportunity to state preferences or other constraints that aren’t specifically scheduled commitments) and then choose a meeting time. Or, if time allows, schedule the next meeting at the end of the current meeting.
posted by eviemath at 7:21 AM on June 14, 2023 [3 favorites]
Best answer: If you can, I’d also recommend using the scheduled upcoming meeting for introductions and transition details only. That’s a good way to introduce yourself and your expertise, have everyone else introduce themselves and their roles to you, ensure that everyone is on the same page about the role or purpose of this group, and sort out details around how often meetings should occur and if there are constraints on how they are run. Keeping the first meeting agenda very light will also mean you won’t have to do a lot of work in keeping the group on task, which will give you the opportunity to figure out who the long-talkers are versus who is quiet and will need to be more directly invited to participate and given room to do so, and just generally get a better understanding of who and what you’re working with before having to get anything actually done.
posted by eviemath at 7:26 AM on June 14, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by eviemath at 7:26 AM on June 14, 2023 [1 favorite]
Best answer: For Teams:
* Do an unscheduled, separate “meeting” with just yourself beforehand to re-familiarize yourself with the various features in Teams.
* If anyone is signed in to the Teams meeting as a “Guest”, they won’t have access to the meeting chat.
* If you are sharing your screen, the window with everyone else will be hidden by default. You can click on it to pop up and then minimize it to get a small box (which you can drag to a convenient corner of your screen), to see whoever is talking. But you won’t be able to see raised hands or the meeting chat. When I teach in Teams, sometimes I’ll keep the window that I’m displaying not quite full screen so that I can have the Teams meeting window in the background so that I can see when there is a raised hand or something new in the meeting chat. But if not, be sore to check in regularly!
* Start the meeting with a review of how you, as the meeting chair, would like attendees to use Teams for interacting during the meeting. Eg. do you want them to raise their hands, or just speak up? In the early pandemic, some folks attending by phone app or in very large meetings had difficulty using the raise hand feature, so the meeting chairs had people type “Raise Hand” in the meeting chat instead. Nowadays it’s more common for me to be in meetings where the chair explicitly says that they are not monitoring the chat, and won’t see things types there.
* If there isn’t one already, create a ‘team’ in Teams for your group and schedule your meetings through that. Enter everyone who should attend as a required attendee to ensure that Teams automatically sends them an invite email and that the meeting appears on their Teams calendar (and that they don’t accidentally join the meeting as Guests).
— You will then be able to add the “Meeting Notes” feature, which is helpful for taking minutes if you don’t need to review the minutes before they are disseminated. Note, however, that there can be a several minute lag or participants may need to re-load to force their view of the meeting notes to update - so if these are something that attendees should see in real time during the meeting, then the note-taker should share their screen while typing in the meeting notes.
posted by eviemath at 7:39 AM on June 14, 2023
* Do an unscheduled, separate “meeting” with just yourself beforehand to re-familiarize yourself with the various features in Teams.
* If anyone is signed in to the Teams meeting as a “Guest”, they won’t have access to the meeting chat.
* If you are sharing your screen, the window with everyone else will be hidden by default. You can click on it to pop up and then minimize it to get a small box (which you can drag to a convenient corner of your screen), to see whoever is talking. But you won’t be able to see raised hands or the meeting chat. When I teach in Teams, sometimes I’ll keep the window that I’m displaying not quite full screen so that I can have the Teams meeting window in the background so that I can see when there is a raised hand or something new in the meeting chat. But if not, be sore to check in regularly!
* Start the meeting with a review of how you, as the meeting chair, would like attendees to use Teams for interacting during the meeting. Eg. do you want them to raise their hands, or just speak up? In the early pandemic, some folks attending by phone app or in very large meetings had difficulty using the raise hand feature, so the meeting chairs had people type “Raise Hand” in the meeting chat instead. Nowadays it’s more common for me to be in meetings where the chair explicitly says that they are not monitoring the chat, and won’t see things types there.
* If there isn’t one already, create a ‘team’ in Teams for your group and schedule your meetings through that. Enter everyone who should attend as a required attendee to ensure that Teams automatically sends them an invite email and that the meeting appears on their Teams calendar (and that they don’t accidentally join the meeting as Guests).
— You will then be able to add the “Meeting Notes” feature, which is helpful for taking minutes if you don’t need to review the minutes before they are disseminated. Note, however, that there can be a several minute lag or participants may need to re-load to force their view of the meeting notes to update - so if these are something that attendees should see in real time during the meeting, then the note-taker should share their screen while typing in the meeting notes.
posted by eviemath at 7:39 AM on June 14, 2023
Best answer: (You can also use the Files section of your team to make the sample other governance policies, or any other relevant documents, available to the whole group, and to share or collaborate on the document that your group will be developing.)
posted by eviemath at 7:40 AM on June 14, 2023
posted by eviemath at 7:40 AM on June 14, 2023
Best answer: I don’t have specific advice but just some encouragement — rusty or no, my guess is that you will be very good at this once you get your feet under you. Your calm demeanor and evenhandedness stands out even among the extremely nice denizens of Ask. I hope you enjoy this career transition!
I will say that the former chair of my graduate department earned a place in my personal pantheon for repeatedly, calmly but firmly, shutting down a guy who kept interrupting one of his female colleagues. I guess that’s to say, I second the other commenters above who had similar advice.
posted by eirias at 7:58 AM on June 14, 2023 [4 favorites]
I will say that the former chair of my graduate department earned a place in my personal pantheon for repeatedly, calmly but firmly, shutting down a guy who kept interrupting one of his female colleagues. I guess that’s to say, I second the other commenters above who had similar advice.
posted by eirias at 7:58 AM on June 14, 2023 [4 favorites]
Best answer: I'm currently Vice Chair for a web-related advisory board at my university & was a member of the board for years. Here are some things we do that I like:
1) We have set meeting times (same day/time each month) so people can plan around them.
2) We send out a request for agenda items a week before the meeting
3) A couple days before the meeting, we send out a finalized agenda with topics, who is leading each section, & the time allotted
4) During the meeting, I monitor the time for each topic & send the Chair a message if we are running over the allotted time
5) We don't have a secretary, so each month we designate 2 people to be notetakers. They actually take notes directly on our agenda (it's a google doc) & everyone is encouraged to edit as well. Each topic section has "action items" at the bottom where we put the tasks we agreed upon & who is assigned to work on them.
6) We got much better about shutting down the people who start rambling about tangentially-related topics. We redirect them if there's a more appropriate forum (the U's drupal slack group, etc.) or ask them to propose it as an agenda item for next month.
posted by belladonna at 10:26 AM on June 14, 2023 [2 favorites]
1) We have set meeting times (same day/time each month) so people can plan around them.
2) We send out a request for agenda items a week before the meeting
3) A couple days before the meeting, we send out a finalized agenda with topics, who is leading each section, & the time allotted
4) During the meeting, I monitor the time for each topic & send the Chair a message if we are running over the allotted time
5) We don't have a secretary, so each month we designate 2 people to be notetakers. They actually take notes directly on our agenda (it's a google doc) & everyone is encouraged to edit as well. Each topic section has "action items" at the bottom where we put the tasks we agreed upon & who is assigned to work on them.
6) We got much better about shutting down the people who start rambling about tangentially-related topics. We redirect them if there's a more appropriate forum (the U's drupal slack group, etc.) or ask them to propose it as an agenda item for next month.
posted by belladonna at 10:26 AM on June 14, 2023 [2 favorites]
Response by poster: Thank you all so much everyone! I'm feeling much better prepared for both the meeting tomorrow and for things going forward.
posted by warriorqueen at 8:29 AM on June 15, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by warriorqueen at 8:29 AM on June 15, 2023 [1 favorite]
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Repeat it's ok to butt in. Even mid-sentence, in the interest of keeping order and time.
You may want to pre-meet relevant individuals if there are contentious topics coming up and you want to keep things focussed, that will come over time.
Get someone else to take minutes, and share them quickly.
Stopping sidebar chats and keeping to time are the key things that will have you looking competent!
posted by london explorer girl at 4:57 AM on June 14, 2023 [10 favorites]