978-0073403267 Chapter 19 Key Lecture Points, Teaching Tips, and In-Class Exercises

Type

Quiz

Book Title

Business Communication: Building Critical Skills 6th Edition

ISBN 13

978-0073403267

April 6, 2019

Module 19 - Planning, Conducting, and Recording Meetings

Module 19

Planning, Conducting, and Recording Meetings

LO 19-1 Apply strategies for good meeting plans.

LO 19-2 Apply strategies for productive meetings.

LO 19-3 Apply strategies for good meeting decisions.

LO 19-4 Apply strategies for business networking.

LO 19-5 Explain techniques for effective meeting participation.

LO 19-6 Select items for inclusion in meeting minutes.

LO 19-7 Compose scripts for informal meetings with bosses.

LO 19-8 Compare and contrast techniques for electronic meetings versus face-to-face

ones.

Module Overview

Meetings are a standard part of the business world, and Module 19 introduces students to

important concepts for having them. Though technology is changing the ways people meet—

meetings can now be held through videoconferencing or the web—the basic purposes of

meetings haven’t changed. Businesspeople still need to confer with others to supply information,

sell products, gauge employee interest, assess resources, motivate staff, announce changes, and

plan for the future.

People also see meetings as serving a social purpose. While technology increasingly is making it

possible to meet in cyberspace, many people still want to meet with others “face-to-face,”

sometimes in social situations. Lunch and dinner meetings, for instance, combine work and

recreation. Some companies strive to make meetings more festive by using a nontraditional

format—Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream has held annual shareholder picnics.

Whatever the format of the meeting, employees entering the 21st-century workplace can expect to

attend a lot of them. Three meetings a week was the average according to a 1998 survey, and

employees can expect to attend more meetings as they rise in the organization. Learning to make

meetings productive can go a long way in making employees’ experiences with meetings fruitful.

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Module 19 - Planning, Conducting, and Recording Meetings

Teaching Tip: Ask working students to share for 10-15 minutes how many meetings

they attend on average per week. What kinds of meetings do employees attend?

How long are they on average? Where are they held? Who attends? Are there

differences in the number and types of meetings between full- and part-time

employees?

As PP 19-4 and PP 19-5 show, business meetings fall into four basic

categories:

Parliamentary Meetings

Regular Staff Meetings

Team Meetings

One-on-One Meetings

 Teaching Tip: Students don’t always think of one-on-one

interactions as meetings, but they are. Use one-on-one

meetings to emphasize that not all meetings follow a rigid

structure. Something as informal as a chat in the parking lot

or a discussion during a round of golf can achieve the same

or even more results than a formal meeting.

Employees may attend other kinds of meetings, such as conventions and sales meetings, though

these four are the most common. Let your students know that meetings can also be informal—a

simple chat around the coffee machine, for instance, can yield significant business results. Some

organizations, such as those in sales, may even conduct business in such places as golf courses.

A round of golf becomes, in essence, a sales meeting between the employee and the customer.

What’s in This Supplement

This supplement is organized around the major questions posed in Module 19. It covers

Part 1: Key Lecture Points, Teaching Tips, and In-Class Exercises Page 312

Part 2: Answers to Textbook Assignments Page 322

Part 3: Appendix of Handout/Transparency Master Page 324

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Module 19 - Planning, Conducting, and Recording Meetings

PowerPoint presentations can be found at our Web page at www.mhhe.com/bcs6e.

Questions (with answers) suitable for quizzes are in the Instructor’s Test Bank. For student

practice quizzes with answers, see our Web page.

Part 1: Key Lecture Points, Teaching Tips, and In-Class Exercises

What planning should precede a meeting? LO 19-1

Identify the purpose(s) and create an agenda.

While business meetings can be fun, they should have a business purpose

and not simply be an opportunity for socializing. In fact, as PP 19-6

shows, business meetings have at least six purposes:

To share information.

 Teaching Tip: Have students review positive and informative

messages in Module 10.

To brainstorm ideas.

 Teaching Tip: Have students review brainstorming and other invention techniques in

Module 4.

To evaluate ideas.

To make decisions.

To create a document.

To motivate members.

 Teaching Tip: Have students review persuasive messages in Module 12.

Meetings can use some or all of the six purposes simultaneously. Regardless, the purposes

should be made clear to participants by the meeting chair. Knowing the purposes also helps the

chair to plan how to make those purposes happen.

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Module 19 - Planning, Conducting, and Recording Meetings

 Teaching Tip: Ask students to share for 10-15 minutes experiences with meetings

where the purposes were not clear. How productive were the meetings? How did

the participants feel? In terms of morale and employee participation, what lasting

effects on the organization did the meetings have? What could the meeting chair

have done differently to make things more clear?

In-Class Exercise: Many employers today are trying to make meetings fun, as well as

productive. Have students research some of the innovative ways companies and

organizations are making meetings fun. (The Internet is a good place to start; have

students use keywords such as meetings, creativity, human resources, and so forth.)

What specific techniques do they use? Are consulting firms helping them? Which?

Who are the industry leaders? What success stories exist? Have students report

their findings to the rest of the class in either an oral presentation or with a 1-2 page

memo.

As PP 19-7 shows, a good meeting agenda includes

The time and place of the meeting.

Whether each item is presented for information, for discussion

only, or for a decision.

Who is sponsoring or introducing each item.

How much time is allotted for each item.

When I’m in charge, how do I keep the meeting on track? LO 19-2

Pay attention both to task and to process.

Meeting chairs should make ground rules explicit early in the meeting. Meeting participants

will look to the chair for guidance and to keep the meeting on track. Therefore, it’s critical that

the chair establish boundaries and communicate them to the other members.

As PP 19-9 shows, meeting chairs should

Help participants deal with issues in a timely and thorough

manner.

Make ground rules explicit.

Pay attention to people and the process at hand.

If conflict gets out of hand, focus on the group process.

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Module 19 - Planning, Conducting, and Recording Meetings

 Teaching Tip: Ask students who they believe ultimately is responsible for a

meeting’s success. Is it the chair? The participants? Both? Who decides?

What role does leadership play in the success of a meeting? Should

responsibility be shared?

 Teaching Tip: Ask students if they’ve ever chaired a meeting. If so, what are

their success stories? What did they learn from these experiences that they

could teach others? What could they do to further ensure success in the

future?

 Teaching Tip: Where possible, have students sit in on meeting of high-level

executives (either where the student works or where someone he or she

knows works; alternatively, students could ask to sit in on a meeting of

college or university administrators). Have students record what they

witness. In particular, have them reflect on the effectiveness of the chair.

What have the students learned from the experience? Have them share their

findings with the rest of the class (disguising the name of the organization

and its members, if necessary) and with you in a 1-to-2-page memo.

What decision-making strategies work well in meetings? LO 19-3

Try the standard agenda or dot planning.

In business meetings, the dominant or loudest voice in the room is not always the best one to

lead or make decisions. Likewise, simply taking a vote and letting the majority decide may leave

members in the minority feeling unhappy or uncommitted to the decision. Therefore, achieving

consensus—having everyone buy into the group decision—is usually the best route for success.

Building consensus may run counter to some students’ sensibilities about the democratic process.

After all, in countries like the United States, the will of the simple majority often is viewed to be

the best. While this strategy may work well in government, it may not be appropriate in

business, where bad feelings can affect morale or even loyalty to a project or organization.

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Module 19 - Planning, Conducting, and Recording Meetings

 Teaching Tip: Ask students to share for 10-15 minutes experiences when they have

been silenced or ignored during a meeting. How did they feel? Afterward, how

loyal did they feel to the project? To team members? To the organization? What

steps could the group have taken to invite their participation? What could the

student have done to make his or her feelings better known to the group?

 Teaching Tip: Not everyone shows active participation in a meeting the same way.

Some people are gregarious and talkative, while others may be silent and show

participation by taking copious notes. Culture may also play a role (see Module 3).

In some cultures, for instance, younger members may defer opportunities to speak to

older members. Ask students to brainstorm for 10 minutes how a meeting can

accommodate so many different communication styles and preferences. What can

the chair do to invite participation from all members? How can participation be

measured? Should it be?

Building consensus takes time. It can be frustrating for some group members, and sometimes

groups won’t be able to come to consensus. To help ensure that consensus is likely and that

groups reach a decision, groups should follow one of two strategies: standard agenda and dot

planning.

The standard agenda is a seven-step process for solving problems, as

illustrated on PP 19-10. It includes

1. Understand what the group has to deliver, in what form, and by

when.

2. Identify the problem.

3. Gather information, sharing it, and examining it critically.

4. Establish criteria.

5. Generate alternative solutions.

6. Measure the alternatives against the criteria.

7. Choose the best solution.

 Teaching Tip: Conduct one of your lectures in the form of a standard agenda. The

class period before, inform the students of what essentially will be covered during

the next class period. Identify time limits as well as expected outcomes. Then let

the students go through each of the seven steps, helping you (as meeting chair)

decide how and when to address each topic. The next class period, follow their plan.

Afterward, ask the students to reflect on how well the “meeting” went, with attention

given to both strengths and weaknesses in the approach.

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Module 19 - Planning, Conducting, and Recording Meetings

Dot planning offers a way for large groups to choose priorities quickly. Essentially, group

members brainstorm ideas and then each member places a dot—one color for high-priority items,

another for low-priority items—next to each issue. In this way, everyone can see what the group

believes to be the most important issues or ideas.

In-Class Exercise: Create an oral presentation project for your students—perhaps,

research the organizational culture of a particular company. Make it a group project

of 3-5 students each. Introduce the project several weeks prior to the end of the

term, when students will deliver their presentations. As part of the project, have

them dot plan topics for discussion. Let them turn in the dot plans as part of the

overall presentation, with a short description of how successful each student believed

the dot planning was for their group.

Networking LO 19-4

Getting to know people within and beyond your own organization helps

you build a network of contacts, colleagues, and friends. Thanks to the

Internet, networking is in many ways easier than it has been before, but

professionals should bear in mind that online networking, while

convenient, may not offer all of the advantages of face-to-face

communication.

As PP 19-11 through PP 19-13 show, to network

 Get to know people outside your organization.

Join community organizations.

Take a course at a local college.

Join a professional society.

 In your own organization, reach out to people.

Go to lunch with co-workers.

Meet at least one additional person a week.

Seek out people in your department as well as those

beyond it.

 Teaching Tip: Students today often easily make friends by adding them to social

networking tools, like Facebook or MySpace pages. But what experiences do they

have with face-to-face opportunities? Ask students to spend a week getting to know

at least five other students in their classes, programs, or campus. Then ask them to

reflect on how easy or how difficult it was meeting people face-to-face compared to

those online. What tips might they offer others on how to “break the ice” with

people? What might be a good, safe way to meet people and expand their network?

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Module 19 - Planning, Conducting, and Recording Meetings

How can I be an effective meeting participant? LO 19-5

Be prepared.

While some meetings, such a impromptu ones around the water cooler, occur serendipitously,

most successful meetings require planning, some of it extensive.

Many employees leave the planning up to the meeting chair, but all participants should prepare

for their meetings. Knowing in advance what questions to ask, or working with another

participant to make a “team effort” on behalf of an agenda item, are ways to help ensure greater

success.

As PP 19-15 and PP 19-16 show, participants should

Prepare for meetings.

Make notes so that they can be succinct.

While speaking:

--Show that they’ve done their homework.

--Link their comment to that of someone in power.

--Find an ally ahead of time and agree to acknowledge each

other’s contributions at the meeting.

In-Class Exercise: Let students test their preparatory abilities

by having them prepare for a discussion on a major class

examination. Tell them the class before you will allow them 15 minutes to ask you

questions and have a say in deciding what topic areas will be covered (within

reasonable parameters—obviously, they can’t simply decide to focus on one module

section or cancel the exam). However, because of the time constraint, not everyone

will be able to speak. Tell them that anyone monopolizing the discussion will only

take time away from others and that the students will have to convince you about

both which subjects to cover and why. Afterward, write the topics on the board and

allow the students to dot plan which should be covered. Set a minimum, perhaps

five topics. (Perceptive students will both plan for the discussion and work with

others in the class to create alliances.)

What should go in meeting minutes? LO 19-6

Topics discussed, decisions reached, and who does what next.

Keeping accurate records of what happens in a meeting is important. Minutes of formal meetings

indicate information useful for the moment, as well as the future, and as PP 19-17 shows,

includes

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Module 19 - Planning, Conducting, and Recording Meetings

Decisions reached.

Action items, where someone needs to implement or follow up on

something.

Open issues—issues raised but not resolved.

Who was present, wording of motions and amendments, and vote

results.

Afterward, copies of meeting minutes should be distributed to all concerned parties, as well as

kept on file for future reference.

 Teaching Tip: Meeting minutes can differ in length and format. Bring copies of

minutes from meetings you’ve attended (with confidential information blocked out)

to share with students. As students who may also have minutes to do the same. As a

class, compare the content and styles.

How can I use informal meetings with my boss to advance my career?

LO 19-7

Plan scripts to present yourself positively.

Meetings with a supervisor can be short and impromptu, and some

supervisors offer little feedback to their employees. To make the most of

what may be brief meetings, employees should think about what they

may wish to say prior to such meetings. Planning a brief script prior to a

meeting allows an employee to map out what they want the supervisor to

know and can impress the supervisor with the employee’s efficiency or

forethought (PP 19-18).

 Teaching Tip: Have at least one conference with each student per term, more if

possible. Plan on spending no more than 10 minutes per student, in part to promote

efficiency. Tell the students in advance that in addition to information you wish to

discuss, they will have a few minutes to share with you how they feel they are doing,

as well as ask you questions about issues of importance. Encourage them to plan

scripts. That way, they can practice using scripts while also helping ensure that your

conferences stay on track in terms of time.

Do virtual meetings require special consideration? LO 19-8

Yes. Watch interpersonal communication.

For important projects, build in some face-to-face meetings as well.

Virtual and electronic meetings create special considerations. As PP 19-19 shows, potential

pitfalls include:

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Module 19 - Planning, Conducting, and Recording Meetings

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Module 19 - Planning, Conducting, and Recording Meetings

Be aware of the limitations of your channel.

E-mail may seem more brusque.

Audio meetings lack nonverbal cues.

Videoconferences only show what the lens picks up.

Technology can fail.

When holding a virtual meeting, chairs should have a backup plan in case technology fails—

perhaps a secondary date for the meeting or alternative technology (in the case of a web-based

meeting, perhaps switching to a teleconference.)

 Teaching Tip: Probably everyone has experience problems in the workplace due to

technology failures. Have students share for 10-15 minutes some of their

experiences, while also describing what solutions worked to overcome problems.

Last Word: Learning to have efficient and productive meetings is a valuable skill in

the modern business world. Encourage students to practice these techniques not only

in meetings for your class but for their other classes as well. Constant practice is

probably the best way for students to acquire good meeting skills.

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