Marvellous Meetings: A Facilitators Guide

Industrial and Commercial Training

ISSN: 0019-7858

Article publication date: 1 December 2003

147

Citation

Currant, N. (2003), "Marvellous Meetings: A Facilitators Guide", Industrial and Commercial Training, Vol. 35 No. 7, pp. 309-309. https://doi.org/10.1108/ict.2003.35.7.309.1

Publisher

:

Emerald Group Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2003, MCB UP Limited


This slim volume is not a textbook you would sit down and read but rather, in the words of the synopsis on the back cover, it is a “… resource [that] doesn't try to reinvent the wheel or to add to the mass of input and theory about meetings. Instead, it offers a series of job aids, information sheets, work sheets, questionnaires, activity and discussion cards”. This is an apt description and the book achieves what it sets out to do.

The objective of the author is provide resources, 21 in this book, in order to encourage more effective meetings. The obvious audience for this book, apart from trainers, would be managers and chairs of committees/working parties. From a training perspective, it is a useful resource for sessions on conducting effective meetings and for working with committees, groups and individuals who are interested in organising more successful meetings.

The first section of the book outlines possible intervention strategies and details workshop plans for trainers utilising the resources in the book. For instance there are two examples of workshops on “developing chairmanship skills”.

The rest of the book contains resource sheets that are divided into five areas: information sheets; checklists; questionnaires; work sheets; and cards.

The information sheets are quite basic, covering the principles of effective meetings, the agenda, minutes and action plans.

The checklists consist of lists detailing the responsibilities of the chair, minute‐taker and attendees. It also contains a glossary of specific “meeting” terminology.

The questionnaire section contains a number of self‐perception questions that you can score from 1 to 5 to gauge how well the chair, minute‐taker and attendees are doing in meetings. There is also a test to follow up on how much of the glossary people know.

The worksheet section consists of three worksheets dealing with communication skills. The sheets list the various communication skills needed in a meeting and they give sample responses in each case. As an example, the chair may need to “refocus a waffling speaker”. Sample responses include “we're running out of time on this item. We need to move on”. The sheet then has a space that can be filled in during a training session by participants on what they would do in this situation.

The final resources are cut out cards, called skill‐building cards in the book, which could be used in role‐play scenarios or as starting points for discussion. They cover the areas of running meetings, managing behaviour, constructive and assertive communication, bad behaviour at meetings and what would you do or say cards.

Finally, there is an appendix that covers a few other ideas such as assertiveness techniques.

The resources are certainly useful and well thought out and could be integrated into any training sessions that you run on effective meetings. They may also provide ideas for planning such sessions. However, I can't help feeling that there could have been more resources available. The different sections tend to cover the same material but only in a slightly different way. A lot of the resources are basic and any experienced trainer will probably already have their own resources that are equally as good. If you have never run workshops on meeting skills then this is a great starting point. For the more experienced among you, it may all seem too obvious and therefore be of limited use as a set of resources.

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