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ye INNOVATION ABSTRACTS 52:3"

& ue Published by the National Institute for Staff and Organizational Development

a With support from the W. K. Kellogg Foundation and Sid W. Richardson Foundation

 

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EFFICIENT MEETINGS ARE SHORT MEETINGS

Several topics, popular in college coffee break conversation today, are connected in ways not always
obvious to the casual observer. Certainly, budget cuts are a very real threat. Lack of enthusiasm about the
new computer tools available in academe is dismaying to those who are versed in the subject.
Communication problems get a lot of attention. And—perhaps the most frequent complaint among
administrators—everyone agrees that too much time is spent in meetings.

All of these topics are closely related. Suppose that a college president has a coterie of seven deans and
five directors reporting to him, and suppose that they meet on a weekly basis, along with a secretary who
takes notes in order to publish minutes. Further, let’s stipulate that the average salary of the deans is
$45,000, the average salary of the directors is $30,000, and that the president's salary is $75,000. The
secretary's salary is stipulated at $15,000. If their meeting lasts for three hours, the cost of the meeting in
terms of resources spent is approximately $801, plus the costs of the secretary’s typing time for minutes, the
extra electricity, the coffee and snacks, and so forth. The truth is that most meetings do not produce results
worth expending approximately $800 of a limited budget.

Most corporate managers agree that a meeting lasting longer than an hour is usually counterproductive.
Two hours generally indicate diminishing productivity, often with the same points being belabored
repeatedly. Three hours usually indicate negative productivity. The hypothetical meeting described above,
in addition to being costly in terms of the salary levels involved, took more than 42 hours of work time,
resulting in considerably more cost than the original approximation of $800.

Relate this to the communication problem that so many of us perceive in the education business: often
one leaves a long meeting with a sense of relief at its end, but no feeling of accomplishment or of knowledge
gained or shared. In many cases, a short written memo can convey much more information than a drawn
out meeting.

I would like to share a technique that I have developed recently, which accomplishes the tasks of reducing
meeting length, reducing meeting frequency, improving communication and dissemination of information,
and putting to use those nice little personal computers that are beginning to show up in administrators’
offices all around the educational industry.

STEP 1. A detailed agenda of topics for discussion is circulated in advance of the meeting. [It helps if
some of the topics can be worded in such a way as to evoke a smile or two—being in a good mood about a
called meeting is not a bad way to start. An example might be found in mentioning that state employees
cannot be paid twice for the same day’s work, as in taking paid professional leave in order to stage a
seminar for a state agency for pay: "Double Dipping and Those Awful Auditors."] Leave the agenda in
computer storage or on a disk.

STEP 2. Shortly before the meeting, bring the agenda back to your screen and annotate it. Briefly
summarize the meat of each issue to be discussed, and parcel out assignments as needed. My technique is
to do the agenda in boldface ("letter quality") lower case type, and the annotation in light ("draft") upper

case type.

STEP 3. After indoctrination, occurring at the first meeting in which this technique is used, your meeting
participants will read the agenda in advance; the first time the technique is used, they may require a few

 

KoF Community College Leadership Program, The University of Texas at Austin, EDB 348, Austin, Texas 78712