3.3. The Structure of Meetings

3.3.1. Work in small groups. Discuss these questions.

1)Did you ever have to take part in meetings? Say what you liked and what you didn’t like about them.

2)How could that be improved?

3.3.2. Setting appointments game

You need to discuss several important issues with your partner. Using the dialogue below as a guide, and the tasks for students A and B (see Attachment) arrange a

meeting for each of them.

1st SPEAKER	Jack, we need to discuss the new advertising campaign.
2nd SPEAKER	When would you like to meet?
1st SPEAKER	Are you free on Wednesday morning?
2nd SPEAKER	Wednesday morning is no good for me. I have a meeting with a client.
1st SPEAKER	Then how about Tuesday after lunch?
2nd SPEAKER	Tuesday around lunch works for me. I’m free from 1:00 till 2:00.
1st SPEAKER	Let’s meet at 11:00 then.

3.3.3. Read the text and explain the difference between good and bad meetings.

The 6 Golden Rules of Meeting Management

Meetings are unpopular because they take up time – usually that of many people. However, there are good meetings and there are bad meetings. Meetings can be an excellent use of time when they are well-run. Unfortunately, the converse is also true, and it seems that time-wasting, poorly run meetings are far too common.

This article describes 6 rules of meeting management that can help make meeting more productive and less frustrating. Each of the rules requires commitment from all participants.

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Golden Rule #1: Run your meetings as you would have others run the meetings that you attend.

This is the most fundamental Golden Rule of Meeting Management. Running an effective meeting – or being a good meeting participant – is all about being considerate of others. All the other Golden Rules of meeting management flow from this principle.

Golden Rule #2: Be prepared and ensure that all the participants can be as well. Distribute the meeting agenda a day before the meeting and make sure everyone

has access to any relevant background materials. Participants, of course, have the obligation of reviewing the agenda and background materials and arriving at the meeting prepared. If the meeting organizer has not provided adequate information about the objectives of the meeting, the participants should take the initiative to ask. No one should arrive at a meeting not knowing why they are there – and what is supposed to be accomplished.

If there is nothing to put on the agenda, the organizer should ask him/herself whether there really needs to be a meeting.

Golden Rule #3: Stick to a schedule.

Start the meeting on time and end it on time (or even early). Starting on time requires discipline by the organizer and the participants. Arriving late shows a lack of consideration for all those who were on time. But if all participants know that the organizer is going to start the meeting right on time, there is a much greater likelihood that everyone else will make the effort to be punctual.

Finishing in a timely manner is also crucial. If everyone agreed that the meeting would last an hour, the meeting should not run any longer than that. Keeping the agenda realistic is important, of course. Finally, if only 20 minutes are required to accomplish the meeting objectives, the meeting should end after only 20 minutes. It would be a waste of everyone's time to let it go on any longer than that.

The time for which the meeting is scheduled is also important. Scheduling regular meetings for inconvenient times (e.g. after the end of the official work day) can have a very negative impact on morale. Emergencies are a reality for most organizations

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and may necessitate meetings at odd times, but routine meetings should be scheduled at a time that is reasonably convenient for the participants.

Golden Rule #4: Stay on topic.

Most groups have at least one person who tends to go off on a tangent or tell stories during meetings. Whether this is the organizer or one of the participants, all meeting participants have the responsibility of gently guiding the meeting back to the substantive agenda items. This should not be done at the expense of all levity, of course, as that is an important ingredient for esprit de corps. Also, storytelling can be very useful if it is being used deliberately as a coaching or teaching tool. As a rule, however, someone needs to guide the discussion back to the agenda if the meeting becomes clearly off track.

Golden Rule #5: Don't hold unnecessary meetings.

Carefully assess how often routine meetings really need to be held. For example, if you have daily staff meetings, how productive are they? Can they be held less frequently? Or, perhaps, can they be held standing up someplace and kept to a few minutes? Staff meetings are crucial vehicles for maintaining good communication in the office, but it is important to find the right balance between good communication and productive uses of time.

Golden Rule #6: Wrap up meetings with a clear statement of the next steps and who is to take them.

If any decisions were made at the meeting (even if the decision was to "study the issue more") the meeting organizer should clearly summarize what needs to be done and who is going to do it. If the organizer fails to do this, one of the participants needs to speak up and request clarification of the next steps. This is crucial. If the participants leave the meeting and no one is accountable for taking action on the decisions that were made, then the meeting will have been a waste of everyone's time.

These simple rules can go a long way in making meetings more productive. Implementing them is not always easy, as they require preparation and discipline, but doing so can make a huge difference to the productivity of your organization.

Meetings generally follow a more or less similar structure and can be divided into

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the following parts:

I - Introductions

Opening the Meeting

Welcoming and Introducing Participants

Stating the Principal Objectives of a Meeting

Giving Apologies for Someone Who is Absent

II - Reviewing Past Business

Reading the Minutes (notes) of the Last Meeting

Dealing with Recent Developments

III - Beginning the Meeting

Introducing the Agenda

Allocating Roles (secretary, participants)

Agreeing on the Ground Rules for the Meeting (contributions, timing, decisionmaking, etc.)

IV - Discussing Items

Introducing the First Item on the Agenda

Closing an Item

Next Item

Giving Control to the Next Participant

V - Finishing the Meeting

Summarizing

Finishing Up

Suggesting and Agreeing on Time, Date and Place for the Next Meeting Thanking Participants for Attending

Closing the Meeting

3.3.4.Answer the questions to the text.

1)Why are meetings unpopular?

2)What is it necessary to do before the meeting and why?

3)What should the participants of a meeting be stuck to?

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4)What is the right way to end a meeting?

5)What is the common structure of meetings?

3.3.5.Put the words of the Meeting Chairman in the right places so as to get a conversation at a meeting according to the structure provided in 3.3.3.

1.MEETING CHAIRMAN: If we are all here, let's get started. First of all, I'd like you to please join me in welcoming Jack Peterson, our Southwest Area Sales Vice President.

2.MEETING CHAIRMAN: I'd also like to introduce Margaret Simmons who recently joined our team. Meeting Chairman: Welcome Bob. I'm afraid our national sales director, Anne Trusting, can't be with us today. She is in Kobe at the moment, developing our Far East sales force.

3.MEETING CHAIRMAN: Let's get started. We're here today to discuss ways of improving sales in rural market areas. First, let's go over the report from the last meeting which was held on June 24th. Right, Tom, over to you.

4.MEETING CHAIRMAN: Thank you Tom. So, if there is nothing else we need to discuss, let's move on to today's agenda. Have you all received a copy of today's agenda? If you don't mind, I'd like to skip item 1 and move on to item 2: Sales improvement in rural market areas. Jack has kindly agreed to give us a report on this matter. Jack?

5.MEETING CHAIRMAN: Unfortunately, we're running short of time. We'll have to leave that to another time.

6.MEETING CHAIRMAN: Thank you very much Jack. Right, it looks as though we've covered the main items. Is there any other business?

7.MEETING CHAIRMAN: Good idea Donald. How does Friday in two weeks time sound to everyone? Let's meet at the same time, 9 o'clock. Is that OK for everyone? Excellent. I'd like to thank Jack for coming to our meeting today. The meeting is closed.

a) MARGARET SIMMONS: May I also introduce my assistant, Bob Hamp.

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b)JACK PETERSON: Thank you for having me, I'm looking forward to today's meeting.

c)TOM ROBBINS: Thank you Mark. Let me just summarize the main points of the last meeting. We began the meeting by approving the changes in our sales reporting system discussed on May 30th. After briefly revising the changes that will take place, we moved on to a brainstorming session concerning after sales customer support improvements. You'll find a copy of the main ideas developed and discussed in these sessions in the photocopies in front of you. The meeting was declared closed at 11.30.

d)JACK PETERSON: Before I begin the report, I'd like to get some ideas from you all. How do you feel about rural sales in your sales districts? I suggest we go round the table first to get all of your input.

e)JOHN RUTING: In my opinion, we have been focusing too much on urban customers and their needs. The way I see things, we need to return to our rural base by developing an advertising campaign to focus on their particular needs.

f)ALICE LINNES: I'm afraid I can't agree with you. I think rural customers want to feel as important as our customers living in cities. I suggest we give our rural sales teams more help with advanced customer information reporting.

g)DONALD PETERS: Excuse me, I didn't catch that. Could you repeat that, please?

h)ALICE LINNES: I just stated that we need to give our rural sales teams better customer information reporting.

i)JOHN RUTING: I don't quite follow you. What exactly do you mean?

j)ALICE LINNES: Well, we provide our city sales staff with database information on all of our larger clients. We should be providing the same sort of knowledge on our rural customers to our sales staff there.

k)JACK PETERSON: Would you like to add anything, Jennifer?

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l)JENNIFER MILES: I must admit I never thought about rural sales that way before. I have to agree with Alice.

m)JACK PETERSON: Well, let me begin with this Power Point presentation (Jack presents his report).

n)JACK PETERSON: As you can see, we are developing new methods to reach out to our rural customers.

o)JOHN RUTING: I suggest we break up into groups and discuss the ideas we've seen presented.

p)JACK PETERSON: Before we close, let me just summarize the main points:

·Rural customers need special help to feel more valued.

·Our sales teams need more accurate information on our customers.

·A survey will be completed to collect data on spending habits in these areas.

·The results of this survey will be delivered to our sales teams

·We are considering specific data mining procedures to help deepen our understanding.

q)DONALD PETERS: Can we fix the next meeting, please?

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3.3.6. Read the conversation. What parts of a meeting structure do you find in it?

ALAN	Ladies and gentlemen! Right, I'd like to welcome Signor Arturo
	Foscatelli, our founder and president.
ARTURO	Thank you! I have just completed a tour of our franchisees in the United
	Kingdom and I must say I am very much encouraged by what I've seen.
ALAN	That's good news, Mr Foscatelli, but I think I ought to tell you that some
	of us here are not very happy about the way things are going.
ARTURO	Perhaps that's because you have been looking at figures while I have been

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	talking to people. But I don't want to take up your time; please carry on.
ALAN	Thank you. I'd now like to open up the meeting to questions and
	discussion. Vikki, I think you had something you wanted to say?
VIKKI	Yes. I'd like to have a second look at the sales chart that was distributed
	at the start of this meeting.
IDA	Sales chart?
VIKKI	The sales gap analysis. Ida and her team used it to show that we ought to
	spend more on advertising. Now, on this chart, I'd like to plot the money
	that's been spent already. The scale on the y-axis will be different, of
	course; we can read it in hundreds of thousands instead of millions. It's
	the shape of the curve that I'm interested in.
NIGEL	With respect, may I ask just what this exercise is supposed to achieve?
ALAN	All in good time. Vikki?
VIKKI	The advertising expenditure in 2006 was negligible, because the franchise
	wasn't fully operational. In 2007 it was fifty thousand; 2008 – a hundred
	and seventy thousand; 2009 – four hundred an ten thousand pounds.
NIGEL	Hang on, what was 2009 again?
VIKKI	Four-ten. Right. We can only get a whole-year figure for 2010 based on
	the advertising department's proposals: their budget will amount to – four
	hundred and ten thousand times one point eight five – nearly seven
	hundred and sixty thousand. What happens after that, in 2011 and '12, is
	anybody's guess. But let's join the dots and see what the curve looks like.
IDA	Mr Chairman, and Mr Foscatelli, I really must protest. We didn't come
	here today to play party games.
ARTURO	Oh, I rather enjoy party games. Look at this line. It goes up even more
	steeply than the sales forecast.
VIKKI	Thank you! That's precisely my point. An eight-fold increase in
	advertising over two years has produced less than two and a halftimes the
	revenue.
IDA	And how do you suppose we got the extra revenue? An extra three
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	hundred and sixty thousand in advertising to bring in an increase in
	turnover of one point six million! Or to put it another way, in 2008 our
	advertising budget was ten point five per cent of total outgoings. In 2009
	it rose to eighteen per cent.
VIKKI	Exactly!
IDA	But – but, according to our 2010 figures, even with my proposed eighty-
	five per cent increase, advertising will still only account for twenty per
	cent of outgoings. Twenty per cent!
ALAN	Ladies, ladies, please! Mr Foscatelli?
ARTURO	All I wanted to say was that these 2010 figures are simply targets, and the
	way we’re going I’m afraid we’re going to fall short of them. Figures are
	valuable, statistics are valuable, but statistics, especially percentages, can
	hide as much as they reveal. What matters to me is the bottom line.
NIGEL	I’m very glad to hear you say that, sir. I was afraid we were going to lose
	sight of it altogether.
VIKKI	Oh please!
ARTURO	A franchise network is only as good as its franchisees. I’ve just seen a
	cross-section of our people and I am impressed. Our selection procedures
	are obviously working well. It does seem to me, however, that on the
	training side we are falling down somewhat.
IDA	Forgive me for interrupting. Are we to take this as a motion of no
	confidence in Franchise Development?
ALAN	Hold on, Ida – don’t jump the gun.
ARTURO	All the advertising in the world will not help our brand image if our
	franchisees are not running their own businesses efficiently. The budget
	that I would like to see rise sharply next year is that for education and
	training.
NIGEL	How do you think the money should be spent?
VIKKI	I really don’t think the president should be expected to answer a question
	like that off the top of his head. I would like to point out, however, that
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	my remarks at the beginning of this meeting echo what Mr Foscatelli has
	just said.
IDA	It can’t be easy echoing something that hasn’t been said yet!

3.3.7. Analyse the conversation in 3.3.6. and answer the following questions.

1.Does Alan agree with Arturo’s assessment of the company performance?

2.Is Nigel friendly or hostile to Vikki? What about Alan?

3.Why does Ida protest?

4.Does Ida think that 20% is high or low? What about Vikki?

5.What party game do you observe in the conversation?

6.Why does Ida ask her question about ‘no confidence’?

7.Why, at the end, is Ida so angry?

3.3.8. Find in 3.3.6. the words or phrases that show you the following:

1.Giving the floor.

2.Clarifying / asking for repetition.

3.Keeping order.

4.Interrupting.

5.Resisting interruptions.

6.Expressing opposition.

7.Irony and sarcasm.

3.3.9. Work in groups of up to five people to role-play the following situation (see cards for students A, B, C, D, E in the Attachment). Read your role card, then hold the meeting. At the end, the chairperson should summarise your decisions. Use advice given in the text and expressions from the lesson and the additional vocabulary below.

Freestyle has developed a new tennis racket called Worldbeater. It is light but gives players increased power and control. It will be launched in the US. The Marketing Department holds a meeting to discuss a strategy.

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3.3.10. Work in groups of up to five people, choose who will lead the discussion. Fill in your solutions into the Work Sheet (see Attachment). Use advice given in the text, expressions from the lesson and the additional vocabulary below.

You are the management staff of a large resort hotel. Lately, you have had a lot of problems. You must discuss these problems with the other managers and then come up with solutions.

The hotel is on an island surrounded by beautiful beaches, coral reefs, and mountains. It seems like the perfect place to have a hotel but…

Problems

Theft: There is a lot of theft at the hotel. Someone is stealing food from the kitchen, money from front desk, and sports equipment from the gym. Guests have also complained that somebody stole their wallets.

Guests are bored: Guests have complained that there is nothing to do. There are no activities at night. In the day, there are few sports and nothing to see.

Complaints about the food: The guests have complained that the food tastes terrible. They also complained that the food is the same every night. Some vegetarians were very angry because every dinner has meat.

There are few guests: Very few people know about the hotel. And the guests who do come say it is too expensive.

Complaints about the staff: Many guests say that the staff is rude and unhelpful. The staff members argue with each other. Sometimes they swear at the managers.

Many things are broken: The roof leaks and many TVs in the rooms don’t work. Sometimes there is no electricity or hot water.

The hotel is difficult to get to: There are no buses coming from the airport to the hotel. The taxi from the airport to the hotel is very expensive.

Opening	Good morning/afternoon, everyone.
	If we are all here, let's get started / start the meeting / start.
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Welcoming and	Please join me in welcoming (name of participant)
introducing	We're pleased to welcome (name of participant)
	I'd like to extend a warm welcome to (name of participant)
	It's a pleasure to welcome (name of participant)
	I'd like to introduce (name of participant)
Stating the principal	We're here today to ...
objectives	I'd like to make sure that we ...
	Our main aim today is to ...
	I've called this meeting in order to ...
Giving apologies for	I'm afraid.., (name of participant) can't be with us today, she
someone who is absent	is in ...
	Unfortunately, (name of participant) ... will not be with us
	today because he ...
	I have received apologies for absence from (name of
	participant), who is in (place).
Reading the minutes	To begin with I'd like to quickly go through the minutes of
(notes) of the last	our last meeting.
meeting	First, let's go over the report from the last meeting, which
	was held on (date)
	Here are the minutes from our last meeting, which was on
	(date)
Dealing with recent	Jack, can you tell us how the XYZ project is progressing?
developments	Jack, how is the XYZ project coming along?
	John, have you completed the report on the new accounting
	package?
	Has everyone received a copy of the Tate Foundation report
	on current marketing trends?
Moving forward	So, if there is nothing else we need to discuss, let's move on
	to today's agenda.
	Shall we get down to business?
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	Is there any other business?
	If there are no further developments, I'd like to move on to
	today's topic.
Introducing the	Have you all received a copy of the agenda?
Agenda	There are X items on the agenda. First, ... second, ... third, ...
	lastly, ...
	Shall we take the points in this order?
	If you don't mind, I'd like to go in order today.
	Skip item 1 and move on to item 3
	I suggest we take item 2 last.
Allocating roles	(name of participant) has agreed to take the minutes.
(secretary,	(name of participant), would you mind taking the minutes?
participants)	(name of participant) has kindly agreed to give us a report
	on ...
	(name of participant) will lead point 1, (name of participant)
	point 2, and (name of participant) point 3.
	(name of participant), would you mind taking notes today?
Agreeing on the	We will first hear a short report on each point first, followed
ground rules for the	by a discussion of ...
meeting	I suggest we go round the table first.
(contributions,	Let's make sure we finish by ...
timing, decision-	I'd suggest we ...
making, etc.)	There will be five minutes for each item.
	We'll have to keep each item to 15 minutes. Otherwise we'll
	never get through.
Introducing the first	So, let's start with ...
item on the agenda	I'd suggest we start with...
	Why don't we start with...
	So, the first item on the agenda is…
	Pete, would you like to kick off?
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	Shall we start with ...
	(name of participant), would you like to introduce this item?
Closing an item	I think that takes care of the first item.
	Shall we leave that item?
	Why don't we move on to...
	If nobody has anything else to add, lets ...
Next item	Let's move onto the next item
	Now that we've discussed X, let's now ...
	The next item on today's agenda is...
	Now we come to the question of…
Giving control to the	I'd like to hand over to (name of participant), who is going
next participant	to lead the next point.
	Next, (name of participant) is going to take us through ...
	Now, I'd like to introduce (name of participant) who is going
	to ...
Summarizing	Before we close today's meeting, let me just summarize the
	main points.
	Let me quickly go over today's main points.
	To sum up, ...
	OK, why don't we quickly summarize what we've done
	today.
	In brief, ...
	Shall I go over the main points?
Finishing Up	Right, it looks as though we've covered the main items.
	If there are no other comments, I'd like to wrap this meeting
	up.
	Let's bring this to a close for today.
	Is there Any Other Business?
Suggesting and	Can we set the date for the next meeting, please?
agreeing on time,	So, the next meeting will be on ... (day), the … (date) of …
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date and place for	(month) at ...
the next meeting	Let's next meet on ... (day), the… (date) of… (month) at…
	What about the following Wednesday? How is that?
Thanking	I'd like to thank Marianne and Jeremy for coming over from
participants for	London.
attending	Thank you all for attending.
	Thanks for your participation.
Closing the meeting	The meeting is finished, we'll see each other next ...
	The meeting is closed.
	I declare the meeting closed.

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