Bad Meetings
A thread on the flexible-learning@mailbase.ac.uk in early November 1996,
contributed by
- Paul Bailey <P.Bailey-1@plymouth.ac.uk>
- Dr Roy Johnson <Roy@mantex.demon.co.uk>
- J.Dolan@derby.ac.uk
- The chair or secretary who rigs the agenda to supress
discussion of contentious issues.
- The HoD who presents a position paper, budget proposals,
or funding figures which nobody else has seen - two minutes
before the meeting is due to begin.
- People who sit around eating, drinking, or opening their
mail during meetings.
- The 12 item agenda which is chaired through to item 3 in
two and a half hours - then rushed through items 4 to 12
in thirty minutes.
- The HoD who either edits the minutes of meetings, or
intimidates the secretary to do so - in order to remove
any record of dissent.
- The chair who responds personally to every single
contribution, and thus sets up a one-person 'discussion'.
- The HoD who insists on a two-hour discussion of a
thorny issue - then ignores the result.
- Chairs you fail to distinguish 'meetings' from 'debates', and so allow people to dance with their favourite angel on the head of any lurking pinbox.
- Secretaries who insist that every agenda item is further opportunity to rehearse complaints about levels of administration resourcing within the organisation.
- Anyone who brings their mobile phone to the meeting.
- The meeting which discusses agenda items at great length,
but then refers all decisions on them to other committees -
which are composed of the same people.
- Head of Department: [after making a politically correct
proposal which sends everybody into paroxysms of fear,
loathing, and embarrassment - and to which nobody responds]
"Through you, Chair, I can see that some members of staff
are displaying inappropriate body language."