Chairing a Meeting - Free eBook in PDF Format

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Chairing a Meeting eBook  

Book Description - ISBN 978-1-62620-996-1 (27 Pages)
Even the most contentious issues can be dealt with constructively and resolved to everyone's satisfaction if the chair controls the meeting well. On the other hand, a badly run meeting leaves all of the attendees feeling frustrated that they have wasted their valuable time. This free eBook explains how to chair each stage of the meeting to ensure that your meetings are both productive and popular.

Chapter 1 - Chairing a Meeting
The Chair carries the ultimate responsibility for the success of the meeting and is responsible for making sure that all business is discussed in line with the timed agenda, everyone's views are heard and clear decisions are reached.

Chapter 2 - The Skills Required to Chair a Meeting
It is the responsibility of the Chair to ensure that all the business is discussed in line with the agenda timings and that everyone's views are heard and discussed and that clear decisions are reached and accepted.

Chapter 3 - Meeting Rules
By taking a proactive approach to what constitutes acceptable behavior at your meetings, you can prevent bad feeling developing between participants and make your role of Chair more effective.

Chapter 4 - Chairperson's Responsibilities Before the Meeting Begins
Before the meeting, the Chair should: define the meeting objective and decide if this is the best way to address the issues, ensure the key contributors and those with authority to make decisions are invited to attend, develop a well thought out and timely agenda and assign a competent individual to take the minutes.

Chapter 5 - How to Begin the Meeting
At the start of the meeting, the Chair should: Introduce the participants and make everyone feel welcome, state what it is that the meeting seeks to achieve and use this to focus the group as well as making clear how long the meeting will last and the times of any breaks.

Chapter 6 - Chairperson's Responsibilities During the Meeting
During the meeting, the Chair should: keep the meeting focused and on time, and encourage participation and contributions from everyone, agree and minute all the key points, draw out contributions from those who have a point of view or question but may be reluctant to communicate it.

Chapter 7 - Chairperson's Responsibilities After the Meeting
After the meeting, the Chair should: check the minutes prior to circulation, review and evaluate the meeting results against the objectives.

You will learn:
  • To develop an agenda that ensures the meeting achieves its goals.
  • What pre-emptive actions you can take before the meeting to avoid common problems.
  • How to keep the meeting focused and encourage full participation.
  • How to discreetly prevent others from taking control or holding up progress.
  • Why you must always review and evaluate the meeting results against the objectives.

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Very Informative and Practical
I'm a management consultant who travels to different offices to help office staff understand how important time management and organization are. One thing that I get asked about is how to effectively hold a meeting. While this is not my area of expertise, I decided to go online and check out what people had to say about chairing a meeting. I stumbled upon this site and am so glad I did. This e-book on chairing a meeting is not only informative, it is easy for people to understand and can help someone learn how to hold a successful meeting.

When you chair a meeting you not only have to be organized, you have to be prepared every step of the way to ensure that your meeting is productive and conveys the message you need it to convey. You have to organize beforehand, have your materials ready, and anticipate any questions that can arise. The book also lays out a few more important ways to keep your meeting effective by encouraging participation, not letting someone try to take over the meeting and by reviewing the minutes of the meeting when it is done to ensure that your meeting goals were achieved.

The book starts off with the most important factor of a meeting, chairing it well. The chair must be the authority of the meeting to keep everything in control and to ensure that the meeting stays on track. The chair must allow everyone to speak and needs to keep an eye on the time to keep the group engaged and to make sure the meeting is effective. One thing to keep on hand, according to the book, is a timed agenda. It is not necessary to follow it to the "T", but it is always a good guideline.

The book also points out that not everybody is familiar with a formal meeting. I found this really helpful because there are many times people who are quiet during meetings are mistaken as being uninterested or not engaged. That may not be the case, and therefore, the chair needs to be aware of the signs that show that a person is not comfortable speaking. If the chair can point out who is uncomfortable, they can help make the environment easier for that person to feel comfortable in.

In the e-book there are some great directional charts you can follow to have a better idea of how to chair a meeting, staying on task, allowing everyone to speak, and staying impartial. Everyone has opinions and views, so it is important for the chair to remain as neutral as possible to ensure that everyone is happy and there are no negative sentiments during the meeting that could possibly frustrate people or derail the meeting.

There are key characteristics that make a good chair, and if you are going to chair a meeting in the near future, it is a good idea to check out the characteristics the book takes note of. Being diplomatic, assertive, and attentive are all good characteristics to have to ensure your meeting goes well.

To maintain structure, a chair must also behave in a way that makes everyone feel comfortable. The chair should not speak too loudly or too quietly and shouldn't cut someone off. The chair should also differentiate between opinion and fact, and should not present opinion as fact. This is noted down in the book and is a very important point to consider.
Once the meeting is done it is important to go over the minutes and your objectives. It is necessary to know if your goals were achieved and whether or not you stayed on task.

I found this book to be very informative and practical. It laid out a perfect guideline on how to chair a meeting and I'm sure anyone who reads it will be better equipped to handle a meeting if they are to do so in the future.
Carl Lamb

I Found Many Tips and Pointers That I Will Use
To me, chairing a meeting can be a little overwhelming. If the meeting does not go well, then it is because the chair did not properly handle the meeting. I have always worried if I was prepared enough for a meeting and that I was organized. After reading this book, I have found many tips and pointers that I will use. I do not have to worry about the success of my meeting because of what I learned from this book. I like that the book lists what are the qualities that a good chair must possess. It really helped me evaluate myself to see if I had the qualities that I need, and also to see what I needed to improve upon. I did find that I need to improve some of my own personal traits so that I may be a better chair.

I felt that the book went too far in depth when discussing how a chair should be impartial. I feel the author could have said this in fewer words. I feel that it should be fairly obvious that anyone that is in charge of a meeting needs to be neutral in that type of setting. I do feel that it was important to mention that you do need to be diplomatic; I just think less time should have been spent on that section of the book.

This book really opened my eyes to setting rules for the meeting. I did not know that it was acceptable to do that. I learned how setting rules can improve the overall mood of the meeting. The book states that if you do not set rules it can cause other attendees to become distracted by activities that not only distract themselves but also others around them. Setting rules is a great way to keep focus on the task at hand and also to keep attendees behavior in check. Poor behavior for an attendee can dramatically affect the meetings success. If everyone attending the meeting knows what is expected of them as far as behavior it can improve the overall quality of the meeting.

One of the most useful things I found in this book is the section "the duties of the chair". The author lists all of the duties that need to be performed prior to the meeting, at the start of the meeting, during the meeting, and after the meeting. It is important for you to read this section of the book, more so than any other part of the book. To me, the second half of the book is really where the author gets to the point of the specific duties of the chair. I do think that the beginning of the book is important too, but the second half is where I really gained knowledge that I can use to help me to be a better chair. In the last half of the book, each stage of the meeting, starting from before the meeting to after the meeting, is clearly outlined. It is a great idea to outline this section so that you can follow it when it is time for your meeting.

Before the meeting you will set you agenda and send it out to anyone who could be attending the meeting. At the start of the meeting will distribute the agenda to all of the attendees. During the meeting you will try to keep anything that is a distraction to a minimum while trying to keep everyone focused on the agenda. After the meeting, it is important to evaluate how the meeting went. Did it stay on track? Did it last the appropriate amount of time? Was it effective? I believe that reading this book will fill you with the knowledge that you need to take your agenda and meeting to the next level.

If you are like I was, you may think that chairing a meeting is something that is overwhelming. If you feel pressure about this then you will want to read this book. It gives helpful hints throughout it that are helpful to prepare for the meeting, to chair the meeting, and ways to improve yourself for your next meeting. This is a book that everyone leading a meeting should read. I wish that I had found this book years ago. It would have saved me so much time and stress. Also, this book is short enough that you can read it on your lunch break! You will be able to reference this book when preparing for your next meeting. You can follow the steps that were outlined for each of the stages of chairing a meeting. Following each step will help you become more organized.
Heather Singleton


Meetings Without Rules Turn Into Anarchy - A few simple rules can make all the difference between achieving your goal or not. Nowhere is this more evident than in meetings. By setting expectations appropriately everyone can share common values and behaviors .

Do Your Meetings Overrun or Go Off-topic - How many meetings have you attended where it has become an exercise in tedium and futility, rather than being a productive use of your knowledge and time? Too many too count. Is this how others describe your meetings how can you turn your meetings into efficient decision making exercises? The answer is 'preparation'.

An Effective Agenda is the Key to a Successful Meeting - Five simple questions will ensure that you and anyone in your team only attend meetings that have been properly prepared for and will be an effective use of your time. In turn, you can ask these same questions of your own meetings to ensure that they are productive activities and that everyone who comes is properly prepared for the meeting.

Encouraging Open and Honest Communication - Building a team that can thrive, even in this time of worldwide economic recession is a challenging task, to say the least. While several factors go into creating a successful team, communication is the foundation upon which every great team is built. Failure to communicate will undermine even the most qualified team, company, or organization.

Setting a Meeting Agenda - The best way to ensure that those attending your meeting are clear about its purpose is to send them an agenda in advance. Your communication should demonstrate that the focus of the meeting is for a specific reason and not just a broad general discussion.

Are Conference Calls a Productive Use of Your Time - Conference calls are becoming more and more common nowadays. Some companies even use them on a daily basis and for a variety of different functions. But are they truly helpful? We all know that they take up time and keep you tied to the phone for the duration…but do they really accomplish enough to make it worth the time?

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