Page 118 - Communication in Organizations Basic Skills and Conversation Models

Leading meetings 107

In general, four different goals may be distinguished: formation of an opinion
concerning a certain problem, making comments on a proposal, making decisions and
allocating tasks in order to execute the decisions:

The first goal of the meeting that Freddy and Charlotte have arranged for
the managers of Dinner Ltd is to inform them about the figures of absence
due to illness in the company, so that they can form a picture and an
opinion. The second goal of this or maybe a subsequent meeting will be
the development of strategies to reduce absence due to illness, and a
decision to be made about the implementation of this.

Roles

At most meetings the following three roles can be classified: the chairperson, the minute
taker and the participants.
Chairpersons should have the capacity to lead the meeting, to stand above the other
parties, not to push their own opinion, to keep an eye on the structure, to cut short long-
winded participants in such a way that they do not feel rejected, to stimulate participants
and to guard the atmosphere as well as the time. In short, they must ensure that the
meeting achieves its goal. This means that the problem is amply discussed, the
information is given, the tasks are divided and the proposal is handled. At the same time,
they must ensure a good relationship between all the parties. In other words, they must be
equally task oriented and people oriented.
It is expected from minute takers that they can give an orderly and relevant summary
of the discussion and different kinds of information that fly across the table. It is not
expected that they make large contributions to the discussion. The minute taker is more
an observer than a participant.
The participants have much more freedom in their behaviour than the chairperson or
minute taker. Their specific task consists of talking and thinking together about the
various points on the agenda, but the way in which they do so does not appear at first
sight to be bound by any regulations. We would however like to plead that participants
also become more aware of behaviour that contributes constructively to the smooth
running of a meeting.

Task-oriented and people-oriented behaviour

The distinction between task-oriented and people-oriented behaviour applies to all those
involved in a meeting. We now explain what we mean by these concepts.
Task-oriented behaviour is the result of an appropriate attitude in relation to the goal
of the meeting. In order to demonstrate this attitude chairpersons should make use of the
skills that we discussed in Part I. When listening, they should use the skills of attentive
behaviour, asking open questions regarding the opinions of those present, asking closed
questions for more factual information, concreteness to get a clear picture, and
paraphrasing to show understanding participants’ opinions. In the role of sender they