Making Committees Work A working committee is to most people an oxymoron – committees are often seen as a way to avoid work! Government committees for example are widely seen to be a way to cool down a hot issue. Even in the private sector and in business organisations, getting committees to function effectively is by no means easy. It is not easy to strike a balance between action and discussion. People who are committed to making the committee work – usually end up doing all the work – and then pretending the committee did the work! This of course is a poor way of working. I’ll try to list out some of the problems with committees and some styles and tactics one can use to ensure that the committee gets some work done in reasonable time. 1. No action for ages, and then sudden tumultuous haste – upsetting everything on everybody’s schedule! Keep in mind that a lot of folks will be quite happy with this arrangement – and will consider it a perfectly reasonable and realistic way to run the committee. Usually these will be men -- no gender slurs intended! 2. Discussion, discussion, no conclusion! Usually everybody who’s on a committee will have an opinion, and there is nothing odd about that. However, the committee can slide into a lot of discussion, with no conclusion, unless – ah, we’ll get to that later. 3. Discussion, discussion, wrong conclusion! This is slightly different from the previous, because the discussion did not take into account the different points of view and was not properly summarised, and people gave up! 4. The committee breaks up into smaller groups – even groups of 1 are possible! The groups start doing their own thing. The committee fails to act as a committee but becomes a collection of different, possibly disparate views, espoused by individuals and groups within the committee. 5. The committee starts drafting the report in its meetings! This is a terrible mistake of course, because words should be written by one person, but the idea or point is what needs to be discussed clearly. 6. A report that nobody feels full ownership for, or pride in. This of course is the outcome of the above style of functioning. How to fix it 1. Ground rules. The committee will take a cue from the leader. The leader has to set clear ground rules. This includes rules about time, roles, behaviours and outputs. Ground rules should include: a. Duration of each meeting b. Timings that are not allowed (say beyond 8 pm, or whatever) c. Allocation of rules (everybody works!) d. No occupying airtime for more than say 5 mins at a time e. How to handle a situation of no consensus f. How to handle a situation where people don’t show up for the meeting g. Timely delivery of work assigned 2. Manage time. Control the discussion, keep it on track. Keep an eye on time. Share teleconference times and adhere to them. Get clarity on the time schedule and deliverables upfront. Make sure you mean business. Set the tone upfront. Share tools, templates, etc. in advance. 3. Partition and apportion. Rather than try to get everybody to do everything during the meeting, it may be better to allocate work to sub-groups and invite them to summarise their work in the meeting. 4. Understand the strengths and weaknesses of the committee members and leverage the strengths and avoid situations in which the weaknesses become dominant. For example, if a particular individual is sharp but makes long interventions, assign written work to them rather than verbal interventions. 5. Achieve clarity in each point. This is the biggest challenge for the committee leader. This requires clear-headedness, empathy and a sharp mind. Good note taking skills will help the leader to clearly share what was discussed. The leader should never assume that others have understood and so they can themselves afford to depend on others’ understanding. The leader has to be absolutely clear and secure clarity for themselves and the team. 6. Share meeting notes. Preparing clear meeting notes – indicating what was discussed but particularly what the conclusion was on each point – will help the committee keep up with its own work. 7. Be firm. Never mind if you lose the popularity contest for the moment. If the leader is not firm, the committee will suffer and the work will suffer. 8. And of course finally, ignore rules 1-7 above! Be flexible, adaptable, change according to the situation. Some groups require a light touch, some appreciate heavy handed management. More structure may be good, but every leader has to understand, that what works for them may not work for all the others. Committee chairs often don’t enjoy positional power: the members are all peers, and it is necessary to understand and modify behaviour -- and display situational leadership. But the following -- you can always do! 1. Delay is failure. Start early, or start in time. Lost time can only be recouped by even more structured actions, and will increasingly be like rolling a stone uphill, up a steeper and steeper slope. 2. Manage, don’t do! I have seen committee leaders end up doing all the work. Often, people assume that is the rightful duty of the leader. It does not need to be so. Committee leaders should develop skill in getting work done by others, and should try to restrict their own role to team management, process control, quality control and delivery. I better be off – I have a committee meeting starting at 9 pm!
Posted on: Sun, 17 Aug 2014 11:55:28 +0000
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