Abstract
A common aphorism is that if committees ever achieved anything, they would be abolished. It has been anecdotally mentioned that committees are set up to keep certain people busy so that the actual workers can get on and do the work that needs doing. However, committees do have an important function in that they bring together a group of people with different mindsets and skill sets to share their knowledge and expertise, exchange ideas and make informed decisions. The function of any committee will depend on the task allocated and its aims.
As part of your job description, you are likely to be asked to chair committees and meetings. This may be occasional or regular and you may be asked to step into the shoes of the chair who is unable to attend. The roles of the chair in meetings and in conferences are both similar and very different. In the first half of this letter, I shall focus on chairing committees, and in the second half, on chairing meetings. Certain ground rules apply, but I shall leave them for the time being.
For committees, it is important to understand what the committee is for and what is being asked of it. Even with the same committee, each meeting may well have both common and different objectives. If you are chairing the committee, then your first responsibility is to be totally clear about the objectives of that specific meeting. Is it to share information? Is it to make decisions? Who will be affected by these decisions? How are these decisions to be communicated to them, as very few people will read all the minutes of all the committees that affect them?
The first step is to set the agenda that takes into account the objectives of the committee, list of its members, list of topics and time to start and finish the committee meeting. As chair, you must ensure that the meeting is not hijacked by disruptive members, so you need to be firm in sticking to the agenda. Right at the beginning of the session, establish, convey and be clear on the ground rules. There may include a focus on certain items, time keeping, avoiding interruptions, setting time aside for discussion, who takes the minutes, time for comfort breaks, etc. If the chair is aware of certain problematic topics coming up, they may wish to have informal talks before the meeting with relevant members of the committee to ensure that disruption, if any, is minimal.
The committee room and the environment need to be clean and comfortable. The layout of the room is crucial, including the placement of seats and the chair’s position. Are the room’s acoustics good enough? Boardroom-style seating may work but the acoustics should determine whether the chair sits in the middle or at the head of the table.
The chair must ensure that the agenda is adhered to. Some chairs prefer to have Any Other Business declared at the beginning of the meeting so that they know how much time needs to be devoted to it. The chair must be impartial, though at times, a gentle steer may be needed to reach decisions. The chair may need to be assertive but not necessarily rude; they may be controlling in the gentlest possible way but also be a facilitator. Regular summarising can help develop trust and empathy allowing for clear communication as well as understanding. Allowing plenty of time for questions and discussion is important. Most people would understand that the decision reached may not be the one they wanted but may well accept it, provided they feel that they have been listened to.
The chair must look out for energy and activity levels continuously to ensure that comfort breaks and refreshments are available. Long meetings without breaks can be incredibly tiring and make people feel very irritable. Body language of the attendees can give the chair an insight into what is going on. If the participants go on speaking too long or go off the topic, then the chair must gently direct them back to the topic. Often, there will be attendees who say very little for a variety of reasons. It can be very helpful to bring them in gently so that they feel involved in the decision-making and part of the group. Many individuals will hesitate to contribute but for some decisions a unanimous view may be required so the chair must make it safe for people to participate and share unpopular views.
Every committee will have people who can be described as creative inventors, facilitators, realists, mediators or disruptors, monopolisers, snipers or sceptics. 1 Some individuals may be shy whereas others can be loud. The role of the chair is to fulfil the function of the committee while being aware of both spoken and unspoken language, ensuring that the committee owns the decision. In this way, the chair acts like a conductor, bringing the orchestra together to make the right decisions.
Etiquette for online meetings
Since the COVID-19 pandemic, often committees meet online or in hybrid formats. There are certain basic principles that the participants must follow. They must join on time, ensure that their equipment is working and the sound is muted when they are not speaking. Mont 2 suggests that before joining the meeting, attendees should take a transition moment to finish or pause whatever they are doing on their computer and focus on the meeting. They must be in a quiet place, focus on what is going on and keep eye contact with others as far as possible. As chair, you must give the participants permission to move around and focus elsewhere for short period as sitting in one place can be incredibly tiring. When participating in a virtual meeting, dress appropriately, arrive on time, have a clean background, position your camera to maintain eye contact and avoid multitasking; do not interrupt others, eat during the call, leave your microphone unmuted, check your phone, or have a distracting background noise.
Before the meeting
If you are chairing, try and join 5–10 minutes earlier so that you can test technology, review the agenda, be clear about outcomes you want, make sure that you are dressed appropriately professionally and ensure that camera and sound system are working properly. If you are joining from home, make sure that you are not likely to be disturbed and are in a quiet place, remain seated and avoid multitasking. Do not do in a virtual meeting what you would not do in a face-to-face meeting. Make sure there is time for comfort breaks. Keep a lookout for raised hands and comments in the chat or Q&A box. It may be useful to have allocated time for socialising as far as that is possible online.
After the meeting
Ensure that action points are clear and identify people responsible for each action and suggest deadlines for achieving them. The minutes should be circulated to all the members as soon as practicable, but generally no later than a week.
Chairing conference sessions
If you are chairing a large meeting or a conference session, the task may become more difficult if you are doing so in another culture. For example, their ideas of time keeping may be very different. Prepare yourself about the biographies of the speakers that you are going to introduce and the topic. Again, right at the beginning of the session, set the rules by making a clear statement about time allocated and how it is to be kept and give a warning to the speaker 5 minutes before or 2 minutes before the talk is supposed to end. It can be extremely helpful to ensure that some time is available for discussion and questions and answer sessions. But this may not always be possible if the speaker overruns. In setting the scene, it may be helpful to state that not all questions are likely to be picked, and people can ask the speaker their questions in the break or by email. Inevitably, this will require the speaker's agreement.
Chairing committees or meetings is not dissimilar to chairing team meetings or ward rounds, but the focus is clearly different. The aim is to be clear of the purpose, giving people time to ask questions, involving as many people as possible and achieving the results that are wanted.
Chairing committees, meetings and teams can be onerous, but also involves a tremendous amount of fun. In order to enjoy the function, you need to be fully prepared and be master of the paperwork and control the agenda. It is all about preparation, preparation and preparation.