Although Agenda Despots seek complete control of their meetings' agendas, many organizational cultures value openness and collaborative approaches to meeting management. Many Agenda Despots must therefore feign openness to topics contributed by attendees. Here are seven methods for controlling the agenda without seeming to do so.
- Abuse the not-agenda
- A not-agenda is a list of topics that won't be addressed at the meeting. (See "First Aid for Painful Meetings," Point Lookout for October 24, 2001) Although most meetings don't specify not-agendas, not-agendas can be abused. One method is publishing the not-agenda before soliciting contributions for the agenda, thereby fending off contributions before they're offered.
- Freeze the agenda
- In this approach, Agenda Despots announce a freeze date after which topic contributions can't be considered. By setting this date early enough, or setting it to precede a significant scheduled news-generating event, the Agenda Despot can exclude disfavored topics that depend on late-breaking news.
- Don't solicit agenda contributions
- Some attendees need a little nudge before they dare contribute agenda topics. Some need reminders. By failing to provide nudges or reminders, Agenda Despots attenuate the contributed topic stream, and might even prevent disfavored contributions.
- Abuse the parking lot
- The "parking lot" is a list of topics and issues that arise during the meeting, and which aren't on the agenda. (See "Using the Parking Lot," Point Lookout for September 12, 2007) Parking lot abuse is the systematic ignoring of parked items. They're never addressed. In this way, Agenda Despots can continue to ignore topics that attendees might have contributed for the agenda in advance, and which the Agenda Despot nevertheless excluded from the agenda. If the contributors then raise their excluded topics during the meeting, the Agenda Despot parks them.
- Falsely promise inclusion
- When contributions do arrive, and one of them is unwelcome, the Agenda Despot can claim, "That topic would fit nicely in <name-of-already-included-topic>," which can mollify the contributor. At the meeting, the contributed topic is treated only cursorily, if at all.
- Reject contributions
- Rejecting contributions is always possible,Many of these techniques
are active deceptions but doing so can degrade the Agenda Despot's credibility, especially if he or she has solicited contributions. At times, the price might be worth paying, if the suggested topic is troublesome, and if the Agenda Despot has little credibility left to lose. - Schedule disfavored topics for the end
- When Agenda Despots can't exclude from the agenda a suggested but disfavored topic, they can include it in the agenda, but schedule it near the end of the meeting. When earlier topics overrun their allotted times (if time allotments are published at all), the Agenda Despot, with great (but feigned) regret, can announce that "Regrettably, we must postpone this topic to a later date."
Many of these techniques are active deceptions, because they present the Agenda Despots as being open to contributions when in fact they are not. Using the concept of active deception, see how many additional techniques you can devise. First in this series Top Next Issue
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Related articles
More articles on Effective Meetings:
- Take Any Seat: I
- When you attend a meeting, how do you choose your seat? Whether you chair or not, where you sit helps
to determine your effectiveness and your stature during the meeting. Here are some tips for choosing
your seat strategically.
- Our Last Meeting Together
- You can find lots of tips for making meetings more effective — many at my own Web site. Most are
directed toward the chair, or the facilitator if you have one. Here are some suggestions for everybody.
- Rationalizing Creativity at Work: I
- Much of the work of modern organizations requires creative thinking. But financial and schedule pressures
can cause us to adopt processes that unexpectedly and paradoxically suppress creativity, thereby increasing
costs and stretching schedules. What are the properties of effective approaches?
- Chronic Peer Interrupters: II
- People use a variety of tactics when they're interrupted while making contributions in meetings. Some
tactics work well, while others carry risks of their own. Here's Part II of a little survey of those tactics.
- New Virtual Meetings for Teams
- Now that so many members of so many teams are working from home, the virtual meeting has taken on a
new form, and new importance. Here are suggestions for making your virtual team meetings more effective.
See also Effective Meetings and Conflict Management for more related articles.
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- As the saying goes, "You can't delegate your own accountability." Despite wide knowledge of this aphorism, people try it from time to time, especially when overcome by the temptation of a high-risk decision. What can you delegate, and how can you do it? Available here and by RSS on July 10.
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