My friend Pierre pointed me to this article and I am grateful I read it:
How to stop the same people from doing all the talking and other strategies to keep your meetings on track.
This talks about COPE.
C - captain, having a meeting leader with facilitation skills
O - outcome, know from the outset what you wish to achieve from the meeting
P - process, how to get to our destination, this is local speak I equate with "completed staff work" and adequate planning for the meeting
E - equity, an equal opportunity to speak. Listen, validate and redirect.
During EXECOM meeting I felt that I was squeezing so many things in that needed top management approval and for many weeks, the others just let me do it. Fearful of taking up too much time, I prepare slides to make sure I get direct to the point and refrain from telling stories. I use my voice to raise the concerns of healthcare workers around me.
I guess maybe it 's time I take a step back to allow others time to shine and avoid dominating the meetings. Of late, we finish after dinnertime and end up hypoglycemic, sighing relief at adjournment.
I learn a lot of communicating and facilitating skills from these meetings such that when people can't seem to agree in one topic, we set that for a side meeting for further discussion, to be able to move on for the interest of time.
Every problem has a solution. We just need to sit down and talk about things. Meetings are opportunities to thresh things out to come up with the best solution, but everybody has to pitch in and make sure each person carries his own weight in work.
