How to Run a Meeting
Posted by Adoniram on 18 Aug 2008 at 10:32 pm | Tagged as: DeMolay, Freemasonry
I don’t know about you, but have you ever had this experience? You know, you show up to a meeting at your office or other organization and the meeting is totally nonproductive. What should take 15 minutes ends up taking over an hour, or worse. Then it occurs to you that maybe the person running the meeting just doesn’t know what he or she is doing.
The above experience is the rule rather than the exception and the phenomenon is pervasive. No one seems to know how to run a meeting anymore. Is there anywhere a young man or adult can obtain this experience in a nonthreatening environment? Happily, yes!
DeMolays and Freemasons are great at running meetings. All of our organizational meetings are conducted according to Roberts Rules of Order. I can remember learning basic parliamentary procedure when I was 14 or 15 years old. By the time I was Master Councilor, I had a pretty good handle on how to make and second motions, prepare and deliver a committee report, run a meeting, and deal with secondary and subsidiary motions.
And the skills that I learned as a teenage DeMolay are still with me. I am often complimented at how fast my meetings go, but I really cannot take credit for it. It was through my Masonic youth organization skills that I learned how to do it right.
Parents today are often frustrated at the lack of verbal and communicative skills that their children have. DeMolay, Rainbow, and Job’s Daughters are a great way for your son or daughter to learn these essential skills that will propel them to success in life. It also gets them off the video games and computer chat so that they can interact with human beings on a more personal level.
Adults can also benefit from involvement in the Masonic fraternities. Meetings there are run according to Roberts Rules of Order and you will gain valuable public speaking experience at the same time, which is another dying art in itself.
How about it, does anyone “second the motion” out there? If you do, please comment on your DeMolay or Masonic experience.
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Robert’s Rules of Order are a good start, but being able to communicate clearly, stick to an agenda, keep topics progressing, and be succinct with details are the biggest difference between a 15-minute and 1-hour meeting.
In my opinion, there is never a valid reason for going “over schedule” with a meeting - the time allotted needs to correspond with the content and agenda of the meeting itself - controlling discourse and diatribe are critical meeting management skills. Basically, if you are constrained by time, manage the content - if agenda drives the length of the meeting, be very time-sensitive in order to best use the resources you have been given. If a meeting looks like it is “running long,” table discussions or even entire topics that may wait.
Social banter and fellowship does not have to be absent in a meeting, but it can quickly take over the attention and time available, and the work of the group will certainly suffer, if not kept in check.
Nobody said holding the gavel would be easy.
Dustin:
Thanks for the comment. You are now cleared to comment on The Ninth Arch whenever you’d like.
And thank you for further elaborating on what it means to run an effective meeting in terms of time management. This is another skill that I learned well through DeMolay.
Take care,
Val
Great text.
Greetings from Brazil.
Well Said. As a Senior DeMolay myself I to had to learn Roberts Rules. I think many organizations could learn how to respect their attendees time by following these.
Stewart and Andre:
Thanks for sharing and both of you can now post without further moderation.
Val
One problem with organizational meetings is too much is attempted with the group acting as a “committee of the whole”.
Few groups today use committees effectively, where the various options available can be discussed and thrashed out in private, and, at most, one or two options presented for the group to consider and vote on.
When the problem has been properly addressed in committee it takes but a few minutes for the group to act on it.
But when everyone feels the need to comment, repeatedly, on an issue which is brought to the floor unannounced, the debate can drag forever.
The presiding officer needs to be alert to this and cut off debate by referring an unexpected motion to a committee if the meeting is to remain on time and in order.
Proper use of committees is also something a DeMolay, Rainbow, or Jobie should learn, if they have good Advisors.
Dale