Effective Meetings at Work Super Series

INSTITUTE OF LEADERSHIP & MANAGEMENT

SUPERSERIES Effective Meetings at Work FOURTH EDITION

Published for the Institute of Leadership & Management by OXFORD AMSTERDAM BOSTON LONDON SAN DIEGO SAN FRANCISCO SINGAPORE

NEW YORK PARIS SYDNEY TOKYO

Pergamon Flexible Learning An imprint of Elsevier Science Linacre House, Jordan Hill, Oxford OX2 8DP 200 Wheeler Road, Burlington, MA 01803 First published 1986 Second edition 1991 Third edition 1997 Fourth edition 2003 Copyright © ILM 1986, 1991, 1997, 2003 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any material form (including photocopying or storing in any medium by electronic means and whether or not transiently or incidentally to some other use of this publication) without the written permission of the copyright holder except in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 or under the terms of a licence issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency Ltd, 90 Tottenham Court Road, London, England W1T 4LP. Applications for the copyright holder’s written permission to reproduce any part of this publication should be addressed to the publisher

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN 0 7506 5882 7

For information on Pergamon Flexible Learning visit our website at www.bh.com/pergamonfl

Institute of Leadership & Management registered office 1 Giltspur Street London EC1A 9DD Telephone 020 7294 3053 www.i-l-m.com ILM is part of the City & Guilds Group

The views expressed in this work are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of the Institute of Leadership & Management or of the publisher Author: Jane Edmunds Editor: Heather Sergeant Incorporating some previous material by Howard Senter and Diana Thomas Editorial management: Genesys, www.genesys-consultants.com Composition by Genesis Typesetting Limited, Rochester, Kent Printed and bound in Great Britain by MPG Books, Bodmin

Contents

Workbook introduction 1 2 3 4 5

Session A 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11

Session B

v

ILM Super Series study links Links to ILM Qualifications Links to S/NVQs in Management Workbook objectives Activity planner

v v vi vi viii

One-to-one meetings

1

Introduction Types of one-to-one meetings Setting up meetings Communicating in one-to-one meetings Formal meetings with staff Taking notes Counselling interviews Disciplinary interviews Grievance interviews Other methods of one-to-one communication Summary

1 2 2 3 12 13 15 17 20 22 29

Giving and receiving feedback 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

31

Introduction The role of feedback in communication Giving feedback to improve performance Feedback in less formal situations Appraisal meetings Receiving feedback Summary

31 32 36 37 42 44 49

iii

Contents

Session C

Group meetings 1 2 3 4 5 6

Introduction Different types of meetings Preparing for meetings Taking part in a meeting Following up on meetings Summary

Performance checks 1 2 3

Quick quiz Workbook assessment Work-based assignment

Reflect and review 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

iv

Reflect and review Action plan Extensions Answers to self-assessment questions Answers to activities Answers to the quick quiz Certificate

51 51 52 59 66 70 75

77 77 79 80

83 83 86 88 89 93 93 95

Workbook introduction 1 ILM Super Series study links This workbook addresses the issues of Effective Meetings at Work. Should you wish to extend your study to other Super Series workbooks covering related or different subject areas, you will find a comprehensive list at the back of this book.

2 Links to ILM Qualifications This workbook relates to the following learning outcomes in segments from the ILM Level 3 Introductory Certificate in First Line Management and the Level 3 Certificate in First Line Management. C9.4

Giving and receiving feedback 1 Understand the nature and importance of feedback 2 Use feedback to check the effectiveness of communication 3 Use feedback to improve the performance of others 4 Use feedback to motivate individuals 5 Invite and accept feedback to improve own performance

C9.5

Meetings 1 Understand the different types of meetings and their relevance in communications and decision-making 2 Prepare to contribute to a meeting 3 Make effective contributions to a meeting 4 Maintain own notes of a meeting 5 Follow up after a meeting to ensure effective outcomes

v

Workbook introduction

C9.7

One-to-one communication 1 Understand the importance of one-to-one communication 2 Select the most appropriate method(s) to communicate with individuals in given situations 3 Prepare to communicate with an individual 4 Communicate appropriately and effectively with individuals in your area of responsibility 5 Communicate appropriately and effectively with individuals outside your area of responsibility and outside the organization 6 Maintain appropriate records of one-to-one communications

3 Links to S/NVQs in Management This workbook relates to the following elements of the Management Standards which are used in S/NVQs in Management, as well as a range of other S/NVQs. C1.1 C12.3 D1.2 D1.3

Develop your own skills to improve your performance Provide feedback to teams and individuals on their work Inform and advise others Hold meetings

It will also help you develop the following Personal Competences: 䊏 䊏

communicating; influencing others.

4 Workbook objectives Being an effective communicator is key to the success of any manager. In essence, this means giving and receiving information or messages in a way that avoids any misunderstanding and using the method – or combination of methods – best suited to the situation.

vi

Workbook introduction

In this workbook we are going to focus on spoken communication, and visual communication in the form of ‘body language’. Both are at the heart of meetings between two or more people, in which information is exchanged for a wide variety of purposes, ranging from ensuring that people have understood instructions, to making decisions and developing relationships. As a first line manager you can be involved in a huge variety of meetings in the course of a typical week. They may, for example, be with your team, your manager, colleagues, customers and suppliers; they may be informal or formal, one-to-one or in a group. Whatever the nature of the meeting, there are a number of basic skills that you should always employ, including effective listening and questioning, and being aware of your own body language and that of others. We will discuss these basic skills in this workbook. But we will also look at how you need to prepare for different types of meeting, whether they be oneto-one progress, counselling or disciplinary interviews, or decision-making meetings of over ten people. Of course, good preparation is essential to the success of a meeting but it is not enough on its own. You also need to know how to make an effective contribution in whatever role you find yourself in, be it the giver or receiver of feedback in a one-to-one meeting, or the chairperson or participant in a staff meeting. Throughout the workbook we will be considering the range of skills on which effective contributions to different types of meeting are based.

4.1 Objectives When you have completed this workbook you will be better able to: 䊏 䊏 䊏 䊏

communicate effectively in one-to-one situations using the most appropriate method; give and receive feedback as a means of improving communication and performance; organize and run meetings to achieve their objectives; make effective contributions to meetings.

vii

Workbook introduction

5 Activity planner The following Activities require some planning, or at least some thought about which meetings to review, so you may want to look at these now. 䊏

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Activity 9, on page 14, asks you to identify one formal meeting with a member of staff that has already taken place, and one that you know is going to take place shortly, with a view to analysing your questioning, listening and notetaking skills. Activity 21, on page 41, asks you to identify and analyse a meeting that has occurred in the past in which you have given feedback to a member of staff, and one that will occur shortly. Activities 26, 27 and 28, on pages 55, 57 and 59, ask you to review past meetings with your team in which you have discussed information of various types. (If you cannot identify any appropriate past meetings, you might want to consider what future meetings you could review.) Activity 35, on page 68, asks you to rate your own performance as a contributor to a meeting and suggests that you also ask a colleague to give you feedback. All of these Activities may provide the basis of evidence for your S/NVQ portfolio. All portfolio activities and the Work-based Assignment are posted with this icon. The icon states the elements to which the Portfolio Activities and Workbased Assignment relate. The Work-based Assignment on page 80 suggests that you not only assess your own performance as the leader/chairperson in a meeting, but that you also ask a colleague to assess your performance. You might like to start thinking about whom you should approach, and perhaps arrange a time to have a chat with them.

viii

Session A One-to-one meetings

1 Introduction Have you ever been in a situation like this?

One morning Ella came into the office, switched on her computer and proceeded to collect her e-mail messages. She didn’t normally receive anything of much importance first thing, so she was rather surprised when an e-mail arrived from Graham, her manager, marked ‘personal’. She was even more surprised – in fact, shocked – when she read the e-mail: ‘Ella, I’m afraid it’s taking far too long for you to complete that project proposal I asked you to draw up next week. I’ve decided to hand the job over to someone else. You should get on with your normal work this morning.’ Ella almost cried out in dismay. ‘I don’t believe this,’ she thought. ‘How could he push me off the project just like that? Why didn’t he talk to me first?’

If you have experienced something like this, you’ll know only too well that there are many situations in which there is no substitute for a one-to-one meeting. Although other forms of communication have an important role to play in effective management (as we’ll discuss later in this session), if you want to deliver a message to someone in an understanding way, and get their reactions and respond accordingly, you need to have a meeting.

1

Session A

2 Types of one-to-one meetings One-to-one meetings, whether with members of your team or with people outside the team, can be either informal or formal. Informal meetings with staff can occur on a daily basis. They may arise from a request for information or advice, or because a problem has occurred and a solution needs to be found as a matter of some urgency. Formal meetings will have been set up in advance. They may take place to discuss some aspect of the project you are working on, if it only concerns the work of one team member, but they are more likely to be for reasons such as the formal tracking of work progress, appraisal or counselling. Some of the types of formal meetings you may encounter are covered later in the session.

3 Setting up meetings Informal meetings might happen in the corridor, or at the desk of one of the people taking part. Sometimes it might be appropriate to find a quiet, or neutral space, such as a meeting room, or perhaps some comfortable seating in a coffee area. The question, or comment that gives rise to the meeting will probably determine the location that seems most appropriate. There are two main issues to consider when you are thinking about setting up a meeting that is planned in advance. 䊏 䊏

Where will it take place? If you have your own office, should the meeting be held there, or would a neutral space be more appropriate? How are you going to invite the person to the meeting? The place where the meeting is held has an affect on the tone of the meeting, and can give messages to the person you are meeting before any words are spoken. The right physical conditions will also help you to listen properly, and to get the best out of the meeting.

2

Session A

3 mins

Activity 1

Imagine you have set up a monthly progress meeting with a member of staff at which you want to discuss various problems that have arisen with their work. What preparations can you make to help ensure that you listen carefully and don’t get distracted?

Among the basic preparations you can make are to: 䊏 䊏 䊏

book a quiet room where you can meet; make sure the room is comfortable for both of you; ensure there are no interruptions. The way you choose to ask the other person to attend the meeting can also have an important effect. Sending a memo or an e-mail in which you suggest the time and ask for the other person to confirm, sets a very different tone from just arranging the meeting in person or on the phone.

4 Communicating in one-to-one meetings When the meeting is underway you need to conduct it in the best way to achieve what you need from it. This involves planning, paying attention to verbal communication and taking account of non-verbal communication.

3

Session A

Activity 2

8 mins

The following description of a one-to-one meeting illustrates how not to conduct such a meeting. As you read it, make a note of anything you would avoid doing as the manager in this situation.

Julie manages a small Customer Services team in a large department store. Recently the store has decided to implement a Total Quality Management Programme and she has been on a one-day introductory course where she was asked to look at ways in which her team could improve the service they provide to customers. She holds a team meeting to discuss possible areas for improvement and it is agreed that they would start by looking at the complaints received from customers. The first step is for a member of the team, Anne, to go through the recent files of complaints and sort them into categories. After a couple of days Anne comes to Julie and asks for a brief meeting to discuss what she should be doing. They sit down at Julie’s desk. Julie: How are you getting on Anne? Any problems? Anne: Well, yes there are. I’m not sure how to categorize the complaints. I’ve put complaints about how long we take to answer the phone in one category, and complaints about how long people have to wait in a queue in another. But I’m not sure whether I should put all the complaints about defects in purchased items into one category or into a number of categories. And . . .. Julie: Oh I don’t think you need to worry about that too much at this stage. Just put them all into one category for now. We can always revisit it and divide it up later. You see, all we’re trying to do initially is gather some basic data that we can put into bar graphs and Pareto charts. Once we’ve got the Pareto charts drawn up we can see what causes the most complaints and tackle this. You know, it’s generally the case that around 80% of problems come from 20% of causes, or thereabouts. I was amazed when I heard that. Aren’t you? Anne: Well, yes. I suppose I am. But there was something else I wanted to ask you about and I can’t remember what it is now.

4

Session A

Julie: Don’t worry. You can come back to me later when you’ve remembered it. Are you clear now about what we’re aiming to do? Anne: Oh yes. Thanks.

There are a number of things you might have noticed just in this very short meeting. First, Julie cut off Anne when she was in the middle of asking her question about the problems she was having with sorting out the data. Second, Julie used the meeting to show off her knowledge and give Anne a lot of information she didn’t need at this point. She also used jargon, such as ‘bar graphs’ and ‘Pareto charts’ that Anne might not be familiar with. Finally, in asking Anne whether everything was clear, she wasn’t really checking that Anne fully understood what she had been told. It would have been far better to ask her to outline what categories she was going to use and so establish straight away whether there were any unanswered questions. The basic guidelines you can extract from all of this are as follows. 䊏

䊏

䊏 䊏

Listen carefully to what the other person has to say. Give any questions they have the consideration they deserve, rather than brushing them aside. Stay focused on the reason for the meeting. Do not use it as an opportunity to hold forth and reveal the extent of your expertise on any particular subject. Make what you have to say clear and simple. Avoid any jargon the other person may not be familiar with. Regularly check that the other person is following what you are saying by asking questions that will reveal whether they have understood, rather than just asking them whether they have understood. And one final point:

䊏

if anything important was said in the meeting, make a note of it immediately afterwards.

5

Session A

4.1 Non-verbal communication There are a host of ways in which you can communicate that have nothing to do with the spoken word. You need to bear in mind that your appearance may set the tone for the meeting, while your posture and gestures will affect the way the other person perceives what you are saying. The significance of your appearance will depend on the circumstances. You may not, for example, have to give as much thought to your appearance for a meeting with a member of your team as for a meeting with a senior manager in your organization or a customer from outside. The cardinal rule is that first impressions are important: if you want to convince someone that you mean business, it is better to be smart and well-groomed rather than untidy, even if informal dress is perfectly acceptable. Your posture also plays a part in creating a good or bad first impression: standing or sitting upright gives a much more positive image than slumping. Your posture is part of what is called your body language – that is, the physical signals we give, either consciously or unconsciously, that communicate a message. Such signals can communicate a great deal, so it’s obviously vital to be aware of your own as well as being able to read those given by others.

It is said that your body language can account for over half the impact of your message on the listener.

In addition to posture, the signals of body language include gestures and facial expressions.

Activity 3 Can you think of a gesture that symbolizes each of the following?

6

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Agreement

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Disagreement

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Boredom

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Anger

6 mins

Session A

䊏

Approval

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Triumph

Some of these gestures are easier to identify than others. In British society, agreement is shown by nodding the head up and down while disagreement is shown by shaking the head from side to side. (It’s exactly the opposite in India, where people shake their heads in agreement.) Boredom is often shown by yawning or supporting your head on your hand. Anger can be demonstrated by a shake of the fist or banging a desk or table. Approval is shown by the thumb-up sign, while triumph is displayed by jabbing the air with a fist. Of course, the signals of body language are often more subtle than the gestures you listed in Activity 1. Furthermore, they often occur in clusters. To give just one example: you can be sure that someone is listening to you critically if they sit with their head resting on one hand so that the first two or three fingers are bent under the mouth to rest on their chin while the third or fourth finger points upwards on their cheek; they have one arm across the stomach and one leg crossed over the other; their body is slightly turned away from you; they are leaning back in their chair – and so on.

6 mins

Activity 4

Imagine you have discovered that a member of your team has made a mistake that will take time and money to put right. You invite him or her to sit down with you in an office to discuss how the mistake came to be made and how it can be avoided in the future. 䊏

What clusters of signals on their part do you think would reveal that they are nervous and defensive?

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What body language might you use to make them feel less nervous?

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What body language on their part would reveal that you have been successful in making them less nervous?

7

Session A

Your answers to these questions will to some extend depend on your own experience. However, it is generally the case that people often show nervousness and defensiveness by folding their arms across their chest, possibly crossing their legs or ankles, leaning back and diverting their gaze. You can make them feel less nervous by making sure you have not got a hostile expression on your face and by gesturing with open rather than clenched hands. You will know that you have succeeded in making them less nervous if they are prepared to look at you directly, sit with legs uncrossed and possibly their hands in their lap.

4.2 Asking questions Of course, there’s more to getting the information you need than just asking questions – you have to ask the right sort of questions. But what exactly is the right sort?

Questions that don’t work Your questions generally need to give the staff member the best opportunity to open up. The following examples don’t do this.

Activity 5

8 mins

Here are four examples of questions used by managers in meetings with staff. They are all unsatisfactory. Write down beneath each one what you think is wrong with it. 1

8

‘The question I have put to you, formally, you understand, is that I believe that you were involved with Tom N – that’s Tom from Packing, isn’t it – in some kind of skylarking with cartons on the loading conveyor. Not that we believe you can’t ever have a laugh, but surely when safety’s involved your common sense should tell you not to do that sort of thing, shouldn’t it? And anyway, the rules are quite clear about the conveyors, and yet I’m told you broke them. Well?

Session A

2

‘So, when they cut back on overtime, I expect you weren’t too happy, were you?’

3

‘What’s the problem exactly? Is it working conditions generally, or is there something specific this time? Hasn’t Karen been trying to speed them up again? Don’t you think this might be just a smokescreen, something they’ve cooked up to hide the real issue? Are they serious? Are they just trying to cause trouble/ What’s really going on?

4

‘I know that before you joined the Customer Relations team you were a sales assistant in the Furniture Department. Did you enjoy the work or not?’

All four questions were bad in at least one way. 1

This question is long-winded and confusing. The manager posing the question seems to be giving some sort of ‘pep-talk’ rather than seeking information. What actually is the question here? It would be better to ask simply: ‘I am told that you and Tom N broke safety regulations on the loading conveyors, fooling about apparently. What is your version of what happened?

2

This is a leading question. It is bad because it leads the member of staff to give the answer the manager seems to expect – in this case ‘No, I wasn’t.’ It is also what is known as a ‘closed’ question (see question 4). It won’t give the manager anything useful. It would be better to ask the question open and neutrally: ‘When they cut back on overtime, what was your reaction?’

3

This is a multi-question. It is long and confusing, and actually asks several separate questions. Worse, these are a mixture of ‘positive’ and ‘negative’ questions. Which one should the member of staff answer first? It would be better to ask: ‘What exactly is this complaint about?’, and then to ask follow-up questions to probe more deeply, like: ‘Do you think that something else might lie behind this?. . . ‘What exactly?’

9

Session A

4

This is a closed question. It invites the member of staff to give a short, factual answer – in this case ‘Yes’ or ‘No’. You may sometimes need to ask a closed question in an interview. But in this case, what the manager really wants to know is what the member of staff liked and disliked about their job in the Furniture Department – and the reasons for it. It would be better to ask questions like: ‘What did you like about being a sales assistant?’, and follow up with questions like: ‘ How did you respond when a customer started to complain about something?’ These are open or ‘openended’ questions.

Using open-ended questions Open-ended questions are questions which get the other person talking because they can’t be answered with a short factual answer or a simple ‘Yes’ or ‘No’. They often begin with words like how, why, where, who, when, how far, what, in what way.

Activity 6

5 mins

Take the fourth question from the last activity: ‘I know that before you joined the Customer Relations team you were a sales assistant in the Furniture Department. Did you enjoy the work or not?’ Write down five open-ended questions you might ask the member of staff instead.

There are all sorts of things you could ask. They include the possible questions listed on page 93. The most useful way for a manager to run a meeting with a member of staff, is to ask open-ended questions. This gets them talking, instead of just making ‘yes’ or ‘no’ answers. Of course, you may then find that you need to ask further questions, prompting and probing to find out more.

10

Session A

Prompting and probing Prompting questions, such as those that follow, simply encourage the speaker to continue. 䊏 䊏 䊏

‘And then what happened?’ ‘So what did you do next?’ ‘Was that how it ended?’ If you want to know more about something, you can ask a probing question. This will focus the speaker, as in the following examples.

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‘You say you got involved in an argument with a difficult customer. What did the customer say to start the argument?’ ‘What did you say in reply to the customer?’ ‘How did the argument end?’ It’s not enough just to ask questions.Whether your questions are closed or open, probing or prompting, they will count for little if you don’t listen to the replies carefully.

4.3 Effective listening If, as a manager, you consistently fail to listen effectively to your staff, you will run the risk of losing touch with what is happening. Staff will become reluctant to talk to you, and there may well be a corresponding drop in staff motivation and morale. Listening is a very important skill. How often have you been in a situation where it’s clear that the other person is not listening properly? What, are the give-away signs?

3 mins

Activity 7

Write down four ways in which people make it obvious they are not listening properly to what someone is saying.

11

Session A

Among the most obvious signs that someone is not listening properly are: 䊏 䊏 䊏 䊏

they are constantly looking around, rather than at, you; they interrupt when you are in the middle of a sentence; they ask a question that is irrelevant or to which you have already provided the answer; they suddenly change the subject. Whatever they do, the effect on the speaker is to make him or her feel irritated, frustrated or even humiliated at the thought that they might be considered too boring to listen to. Probing questions can result in more information or clarify a particular point, but you can learn even more by listening to the feelings behind the words. Is the speaker embarrassed, nervous, proud, angry or whatever? What does their tone of voice tell you? The same words can mean something quite different depending on the tone of voice. Body language also gives you extra clues about what a person actually means (we looked at body language on page 6). A useful way of making sure you have understood the message a person is trying to convey, is to summarize what has been said every so often during the meeting. You can begin with ‘so what you’re saying is. . .’ If the person agrees at the end of what you say, you can be reasonably sure you have understood correctly. You can then move the conversation on by asking another question.

4.4 Ending a meeting It is important to end a meeting well, so that you both feel you have made the contributions you wanted, and that they have been heard and understood. You can use the summarizing technique to check that you have listened properly to what has been said and that the other person agrees with your understanding of what has been said. It is a lot easier to give this summary if you have taken good notes.

5 Formal meetings with staff Among the formal meetings you can hold with staff are: 䊏 䊏 䊏 䊏 䊏

12

counselling interviews; disciplinary interviews; first-stage grievance interviews; weekly, fortnightly or monthly progress meetings; appraisal meetings.

Session A

2 mins

Activity 8

What would you say is the main task of the manager in the majority of formal one-to-one meetings with staff? Tick the box which best sums it up. 䊏 䊏 䊏 䊏

ⵧ ⵧ ⵧ ⵧ

To give the staff member information. To get a relaxed and informal conversation going. To give the staff member the opportunity to ask questions. To get useful information out of the staff member.

In fact, the most significant element of all formal meetings with staff is getting staff to talk and provide information. 䊏 䊏 䊏 䊏 䊏

In counselling interviews: about their worries and problems. In disciplinary interviews: about their version of events, their explanation and attitude. In grievance interviews: about the nature and origins of their grievance, and what they want to happen as a result. In progress meetings: about what they have and haven’t managed to achieve and any problems they may be encountering. In appraisal meetings: about their progress in achieving their performance objectives and their understanding of their strengths and weaknesses, successes and failures, and training needs. The important thing is to get the staff member speaking rather than doing too much speaking yourself. The questioning techniques we have already covered are vital for a successful meeting.

6 Taking notes In a formal meeting, it is vital that you make notes on your conversation and its outcomes. Whenever possible, prepare a list of questions in advance, and then: 䊏 䊏

write brief notes and comments against each question as you go along; as soon as the meeting has finished, go back over your notes and expand them or correct them while your memory is still fresh.

13

Session A

Note-taking is a skill that requires practice. It’s always a mistake to try and write down everything the other person says in a meeting. Far better is to listen and then write down the main points in your own words, using headings and numbers wherever possible. Remember to always treat any notes you take in a formal one-to-one meeting as confidential.

Activity 9

30 mins

This Activity may provide the basis of appropriate evidence for your S/NVQ portfolio. If you are intending to take this course of action, it might be better to write your answers on separate sheets of paper.

S/NVQ C1.1

For this Activity you need to identify one formal meeting with a member of staff that has already taken place, and one that you know will take place very shortly. 1

Thinking about the meeting that has already taken place, write a brief account of the following. 䊏

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The preparations you made for the meeting (such as booking an appropriate room and drawing up a list of questions). What was discussed during the meeting (do you have sufficient notes on this?). How the meeting was concluded (again, are your notes sufficient?).

In writing this account, what have you learnt about your skills in framing questions and taking notes? In what ways can they be improved?

14

Session A

2

Thinking about the future meeting, write a brief account of the following (before and after the meeting, as appropriate). 䊏

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The preparations you make for the meeting (including your list of questions). The answers you receive to your original questions. The answers you receive to any follow-up probing questions. How the meeting is concluded.

When you have written this account, review it and identify any ways in which you think your questioning, listening and note-taking skills may have improved since you completed part 1 of this Activity.

So far we have discussed the things that all formal meetings have in common. But, of course, there are also major differences between the various types. Here, in this session, we will focus on just three. 䊏 䊏 䊏

Counselling interviews. Disciplinary interviews. Grievance interviews.

7 Counselling interviews As a manager you will be aware that staff sometimes have problems, either at work or in their personal life, that require you to give sympathy and support. As a general rule, you should leave the job of helping people through serious problems to trained counsellors. However, this doesn’t mean that you can never play a role in counselling, as the following example illustrates.

15

Session A

Jon’s work was causing concern to his manager, Didi. He was making mistakes, failing to complete tasks on time, and taking too much time off sick. Didi realized that some change had come over Jon, who had at one time been a good worker. She called him in for a private chat. ‘I wanted to talk to you, Jon, because your work has been below standard lately. That creates problems for you, for me, and for the rest of the team. Things can’t go on like this indefinitely, and I’m sure you wouldn’t want them to. You seem unhappy in yourself, and I wonder if there’s a problem that I could help you deal with. Would you like to tell me about it?’

Poor performance can often be dealt with by either training or disciplinary warnings, but there is often an underlying problem that training won’t alter and that disciplinary action will only make worse.

Activity 10

5 mins

From your own experience, jot down four or five possible explanations for someone’s work performance starting to deteriorate.

Such a slide in performance is usually due to something outside work itself, such as money troubles, difficulties with relationships, worries about children, or illness/death in the family. There are, however, also some work-related problems, of which the most common are: 䊏 䊏

loss of prestige, perhaps through demotion or a public reprimand; conflict with one’s colleagues or manager. As a manager, you have the responsibility to try to identify the problem and, if it is work-based, to deal with it. Preventing and resolving conflict is an important part of managing the team successfully.

16

Session A

It is not your job to solve personal problems for team members. A counselling interview has two functions. The first is to help you understand the person’s difficulties, so that you can make a better decision about how to handle the problem. The second – and more important – is to help the individual clarify his or her problems and start to seek ways of overcoming them.

The subject of counselling in the workplace is addressed in Delivering Training in this series.

In a counselling interview it is particularly important to encourage the other person to talk, and largely keep quiet yourself. The key to success is letting the interviewee reach his or her own conclusions. You should not: 䊏 䊏

jump to conclusions about the nature of the problem; offer advice or opinions. You should:

䊏 䊏 䊏 䊏 䊏

listen carefully; prompt if necessary; ask questions to help clarify the situation; take notes – but remember that they must be treated as highly confidential; guide the person towards a course of action that may provide a solution. The solution may be for the person to seek professional advice, perhaps from a trained counsellor, but you cannot make him or her do so. However, you are entitled to draw attention to the effects the problem is having at work, and agree a reasonable timescale for the person to take some steps to deal with it.

8 Disciplinary interviews In some situations where a member of staff’s standard of work really begins to deteriorate, it is not counselling that is required but a disciplinary interview. Disciplinary interviews should not be about punishing staff, but about encouraging them to improve their standards of work when they have fallen below those laid out in their job description. In any event, you should always try to deal with any difficulties on an informal basis before embarking on the first stage of a formal disciplinary procedure, which is to give the member of staff a formal oral warning in a meeting. The following example will give you an idea of what’s involved in holding a disciplinary interview.

17

Session A

Chris worked as a manager in the Investment Department of a large bank. She was always busy and rarely had the time to check and ‘authorize’ all the transactions carried out by her staff. Consequently, it had been established that the responsibilities of her staff included checking and ‘authorizing’ each other’s work. If this wasn’t done and a faulty transaction went through, the bank could lose a lot of money. Every now and then Chris had a look at the authorized transactions to see that they were in fact being checked properly. After a while she noticed that there were a fair number of mistakes in the transactions supposedly checked by Dave. When she watched him more closely she saw that when he was given something to authorize, he did so straight away without checking it first. She decided that she would try and have an informal chat with him first to see if there were any problems she didn’t know about. During the coffee break Chris took Dave aside and asked if there was any reason why he couldn’t spend more time checking his colleagues’ transactions. His only reply was that he didn’t know what she was talking about – he always checked things properly, although he did it as quickly as possible because as far as he was concerned his own work always took priority. Chris then had a look at Dave’s file in the Human Resources Department and discovered that he had received a formal oral warning in another department for regularly cutting corners on work that wasn’t specifically his own. She felt that she had no alternative but to hold a formal disciplinary meeting with Dave. She booked time in a quiet office, where they could meet without interruptions, for the following day, and informed Dave, both orally and then in writing, making it clear that he could have someone with him if he wished. In preparing for the interview, Chris had another look through Dave’s file to check whether there was anything that might explain his behaviour. In fact, there seemed to be very little apart from his general attitude that he always wanted to get out of the office on time and so didn’t do anything that he regarded as not strictly necessary. She then drew up a list of questions against which she could make notes as the interview proceeded. She began the meeting by welcoming Dave into the office and then explaining what the main purpose of the interview was to establish whether any disciplinary action should be taken against him. She then outlined what she had discovered about his lack of thoroughness in checking other people’s work.

18

Session A

Dave tried to excuse himself by saying that his own work was enough to keep him busy all day. However, he also acknowledged that all the other staff managed to carry out proper checks. He thought he probably had problems with time management and didn’t really argue with what Chris was saying. She stuck to the facts, concentrating on Dave’s work rather than making any comment on his character or general attitude. She was determined not to become embroiled in an argument or make Dave feel intimidated. She needed to hear what Dave had to say on the subject and find a way of moving forward. Finally, Chris and Dave agreed on a plan whereby Dave would undertake to scrutinize each transaction he was asked to check, and then hand it on to Chris. Once she was satisfied that Dave was doing the job properly, she would switch to doing spot checks on his work. Chris then warned Dave that she would be giving him a formal oral warning as the first stage in a disciplinary procedure, against which he had a right of appeal. A note on the warning would be put in his file but would be disregarded after three months if his subsequent performance was satisfactory. Should his performance fail to be satisfactory, he would be given a written warning.

5 mins

Activity 11

Thinking back over the interview between Chris and Dave, what would you say are the main points to bear in mind when preparing for, and conducting, a disciplinary interview?

In preparing for a disciplinary interview, you need to make sure you have a quiet room where you can meet without interruptions. You must then inform the member of staff about the meeting. It is usually better to do this orally, but you should then send him or her written confirmation, making it clear that you are embarking on the first stage of the disciplinary procedure. Further preparatory work should be checking the staff member’s past record and establishing whether there is any likely explanation for the staff member’s behaviour. You also need to draw up a basic list of questions.

19

Session A

In conducting the interview you should always remember that the purpose is not to attack the other person and put them on the defensive, but to concentrate on what is wrong with their work and encourage them to talk freely. You need to adopt a constructive attitude so that by the end of the interview you have reached an agreement on the way forward. Finally, you must tell the member of staff that a note on the formal oral warning will be put in their file.

9 Grievance interviews It’s always important that your staff feel they can talk to you. This applies as much to raising complaints with you as it does to any other kind of subject or interaction. There’s a wide range of issues staff may complain about, including pay; discretionary benefits (such as extended paternity leave); health and safety arrangements; and work procedures and conditions. It’s your job to listen carefully to whatever a member of your staff has to say before matters are taken up at a higher level in the management hierarchy. You also need to guard against taking a defensive position, even if the complaint seems to imply that you are at fault in some way. In all grievance interviews, the basic rule is to gather information and react in a constructive way.

9.1 Throwing questions back You may find in a grievance interview – and also in a disciplinary or counselling interview – that the member of staff will want to find out where you personally stand, and try to manoeuvre you onto his or her side. Here’s just one example of this. 䊏

‘Do you think it’s right that we should give up 20 minutes of our lunch break twice a week?’ To protect your own authority, you need to resist answering ‘No’, but at the same time avoid setting yourself squarely against the other person. Start by seeking more information in a neutral manner by, for example, throwing the question back.

䊏

‘Yes, I realize it’s an important issue, but what do you think about it?’ or

䊏

20

‘Well, you obviously feel strongly about it. What do you think?’

Session A

This doesn’t mean that you should endlessly avoid giving a straight answer to any question. But sometimes it’s wise to keep yourself out of the discussion by asking another question.

8 mins

Activity 12

Here are three examples of questions asked by a member of staff during a grievance or disciplinary interview, which you, as a manager, might feel you shouldn’t answer directly. Write down what you could say to avoid being drawn into giving your personal opinion, while allowing the other person to express his or her opinions freely.

1

Interviewee: ‘Don’t you think there’ll be trouble if this isn’t settled by the end of the week?’ Your response:

2

Interviewee: ‘Do you think it’s right that the office are on flexible working hours and we’re not?’ Your response:

3

Interviewee: ‘Don’t you think I was within my rights to refuse that instruction?’ Your response:

21

Session A

These are all leading questions: the member of staff is trying to trap you into giving an opinion on a sensitive issue when you don’t want to. You can maintain your neutrality by throwing these questions back, and still allow the discussion to continue, like this:

1

‘Well, it’s obviously very serious. What do you think is likely to happen?’

2

‘Why do you want to be on flexible hours?’

3

Refusing an instruction is a disciplinary matter, about which you may need to make a ‘right or wrong’ judgement. So while you could usefully throw back the question by asking: ‘Tell me why you think you were justified’, you may have to face up to the fact that you and the other person are in disagreement.

10 Other methods of one-to-one communication So far in this session we have concentrated on communication in the form of one-to-one meetings – in particular, one-to-one meetings with staff. In fact, many of the guidelines that apply to meetings with staff also apply to meetings with people in other departments or outside the organization altogether. Whoever the other person is, the meeting will be more productive if you pay attention to their body language and employ your listening and questioning skills to the full. Depending on the precise purpose of the meeting, it may also be helpful to have a list of questions against which you can make notes. Of course, there are many situations at work where a meeting is not the most appropriate form of communication with another person. A brief conversation, either in person or on the phone, may be all that is required if you want to sort something out quickly or make an arrangement. In different circumstances, you may feel that a written form of communication, such as a letter, fax, memo, or formal report, is more appropriate. Nowadays, a muchfavoured form of communication is sending and receiving e-mails. These have the advantage of providing quick and informal communication in the same way as a conversation on the phone, but you can also print them out and keep copies in a file.

22

Session A

Here we are going to look at just some of these alternative methods of communication and how you can employ them to greater effect, concentrating on: 䊏 䊏 䊏

the phone; e-mails; letters.

10.1 Using the phone Most people think that they’ve got little to learn about using the phone. But in fact, many of us could improve our telephone skills.

3 mins

Activity 13

Think of the last two or three times you’ve been rung up at home by telesales people. What characteristics would you say that they all have in common? Jot down as many as you can think of.

Have you noticed that no matter how rude you are to telesales people, they always manage to remain polite? Some of them also manage to sound friendly. Furthermore, they always know exactly what it is they’re going to say, and they always speak slowly and clearly. This should give you some indication of what to do when you ring someone in another department or outside your organization. It may not always be appropriate to do all, or even some, of the following, but as a general rule: 䊏

䊏 䊏 䊏

write brief notes on what you’re going to say before you pick up the phone (and, where you know it will be important to have a record of the conversation, jot down brief notes on what the other person says as you go along); stay polite throughout the conversation; stay sounding friendly throughout the conversation (keeping a smile on your face will help you to do this); speak slowly and clearly.

23

Session A

10.2 Sending e-mails E-mails are being used more and more to communicate with others both within and outside the organization. They have the great advantage of being extremely quick to use. However, they can also be completely inappropriate in situations where it’s important to treat another person with some sensitivity or see how they react to a particular message. An over-reliance on e-mail can also result in a number of problems within an organization. It may, for example, become a substitute for face-to-face communication between a manager and his or her staff, with the result that issues that should be discussed are left unresolved. It may also result in people being overwhelmed by the number of messages they receive, as they are endlessly copied in on messages sent between others. This can have unfortunate consequences if it results in someone not reading all the e-mails they receive, or not reading them all properly.

Activity 14

3 mins

What measures might you take to help ensure that your e-mails are always read carefully by the people to whom you send them?

The first thing you might do is make a point of only sending e-mails to people, or copying them in on e-mails sent to others, when you really need to – and not because there’s just a chance they might be interested. You might also give your messages titles that will mean something to the receiver, and make them as brief, straightforward and direct as possible.

Remember to beware of information overload when using e-mails.

24

Session A

10.3 Writing letters If you want to get a clear message across to someone outside your organization, there is often no substitute for a well-written letter. There are a few basic rules to follow when writing a business letter. 䊏 䊏 䊏 䊏 䊏 䊏 䊏

Plan what it is you want to say. Make the subject of the letter obvious at the start. Keep your text as concise as possible. Use short sentences and paragraphs. Avoid jargon. Read through your first draft and be prepared to cut out any superfluous words or sentences. Make a final check of the spelling and punctuation. You will find a more detailed discussion of how to write letters in the workbook in this series entitled Writing Effectively. The main point to bear in mind here is that while a well-written letter may be a perfectly acceptable alternative to a meeting, you will have no way of knowing what effect it has unless you receive some feedback. We turn to the subject of feedback in the next session.

20 mins

Self-assessment 1

For each of the statements 1–4 , state whether it is TRUE or NOT TRUE, and write a brief sentence explaining why. 1

2

If you want to communicate with one member of staff, there is never any more suitable way of doing this than holding a one-to-one meeting.

TRUE/NOT TRUE

The great thing about one-to-one meetings is that they can be held anywhere. TRUE/NOT TRUE

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Session A

3

4

Your posture is part of your body language and can have a major effect on the impact of your message.

TRUE/NOT TRUE

A sure sign that a person is not at all nervous is that he or she sits with their arms folded across their chest. TRUE/NOT TRUE

For question 5, complete the sentences with a suitable word from the following list. Note that one word is used twice. REASON 5

QUESTIONS

JARGON

EXPERTISE

In an informal meeting with a member of staff: a you should listen carefully to what the other person has to say, and give consideration to any b stay focused on the

they have for the meeting

c avoid using it to reveal the extent of your

on a subject

d avoid using e use

to check that they are following what you are

saying. 6

In what type of meeting should you aim to get each of the following sets of information? a Information: progress in achieving performance objectives; strengths and weaknesses; training needs. Type of meeting: b Information: their version of events; their explanation and attitude. Type of meeting: c Information: the nature of their complaint and what they want to happen as a result. Type of meeting: d Information: their worries and problems. Type of meeting:

26

Session A

7

8

Which of the following questions are OPEN and which are CLOSED? Put a circle around whichever word is appropriate for each question. a Have you made progress towards achieving your performance objectives?

OPEN/CLOSED

b What happened to make you walk out of the meeting yesterday?

OPEN/CLOSED

c Do you like working in this department?

OPEN/CLOSED

d How did you feel when the customer started shouting at you yesterday?

OPEN/CLOSED

e Would you like to tell me what happened to spark off your argument with Sam yesterday?

OPEN/CLOSED

Which of the following statements are good advice about how to conduct a counselling interview and which are not? What is wrong with the statements that you think are not good advice? a b c d e f

9

Listen carefully. Don’t ask prompting questions. Offer advice. Take notes. Draw attention to the effect the person’s problems are having at work. Tell the person that he or she must see a trained counsellor.

Which of the following statements about the purpose – or purposes – of a disciplinary interview is/are correct? The purpose(s) of a disciplinary interview is/are to: a Warn staff that they are about to be punished for work below acceptable standards. b Inform staff that they are going to receive a written warning about the need to improve their work. c Encourage staff to improve their work when it has fallen below acceptable standards. d Establish whether any disciplinary action should be taken.

27

ⵧ ⵧ ⵧ ⵧ

Session A

10

What do you think would be the most appropriate form of communication for you to use in each of the following situations? Explain why. a A member of your staff constantly arrives late and looks tired all the time.

b You need to get some sales figures over to a manager in another building straight away, but the e-mail server has broken down.

c You get a message that an irate customer has been on the phone that morning demanding when she’s going to get her insurance cheque.

d Your staff need to be told about a possible change of premises and what the implications of the move might be.

Answers to these questions are on pages 89–91.

28

Session A

11 Summary 䊏

If you want to deliver a message to someone in an understanding way, and get their reactions and respond accordingly, there’s no substitute for a one-to-one meeting.

䊏

Before you hold a meeting, it’s important to think about where it’s going to take place and how you are going to set it up.

䊏

Our body language consists of the physical signals we give, either consciously or subconsciously, that communicate a message.

䊏

In any one-to-one meeting, it’s vital that you listen carefully to what the other person has to say and give any questions they have the proper consideration.

䊏

Among the signs of a poor listener are that he or she: 䊏 䊏 䊏 䊏

constantly looks around rather than at you; interrupts when you are in the middle of a sentence; asks irrelevant questions; suddenly changes the subject.

䊏

If anything important is said in a meeting, you must make sure you make a note of it immediately afterwards.

䊏

The most significant element of all formal one-to-one meetings with staff is getting them to talk and provide information. This means asking open-ended questions.

䊏

As a general rule, you should leave the job of helping people through serious problems to trained counsellors, but this doesn’t mean that you have no counselling role at all.

䊏

In a counselling interview you can play an important role in identifying when poor performance is caused by an underlying problem that training won’t alter or disciplinary action will make worse.

䊏

Disciplinary interviews should not be about punishing staff but about encouraging them to improve their standards of work when these have fallen below those outlined in their job descriptions.

䊏

In a grievance interview it is your job to listen carefully to the complaint being made by a member of your staff before it goes any higher up the management hierarchy.

䊏

In addition to meetings, methods of one-to-one communication include phone conversations, letters, faxes, memos, formal reports and e-mails. You have to decide which of these methods is most appropriate in any situation where you need to communicate.

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Session B Giving and receiving feedback

1 Introduction The following scenario may be familiar to you.

Kay sent out over 50 invitations for her fortieth birthday party well in advance as she wanted to know how many would be able to come in good time. On the bottom of the invitations she put RSVP (Please reply), but two weeks before the party she had still not heard from several people. Consequently, she had to spend some hours over a couple of nights ringing people up to find whether they were planning to come. How much time it would have saved – not to mention the worry of wondering if people were going to turn up – if they had bothered to reply.

All Kay needed from everyone was a few words. Without them she had no way of knowing whether her invitation had been received and what the response was going to be. In short, what she needed was feedback. In this session we will begin by looking at the role of feedback in establishing whether your communication has achieved its intended purpose. We will then go on to examine the role of feedback in improving performance, focusing on how to give and receive it in regular progress and appraisal meetings.

31

Session B

2 The role of feedback in communication Feedback is generally an essential part of what is called the communication process. We send a communication to someone else – the receiver – and in return we receive feedback.

2.1 The communication process The communication process has a number of stages which involve: 䊏 䊏 䊏 䊏 䊏 䊏

a sender; a communication (information or a message); a purpose; a receiver; an action or outcome; feedback. Take a simple example.

Ravi needed a copy of a recent training video from the resource centre. He phoned the person in charge, Ellen, and told her what he wanted. She promised to find the video and send it to him. A little later, she phoned back to say it was on its way and would reach him that afternoon. The video reached Ravi in the afternoon internal mail.

32

Session B

2 mins

Activity 15

Answer the following questions about this successful communication. 䊏

Who was the sender?

䊏

What was the purpose?

䊏

What was the communication?

䊏

Who was the receiver?

䊏

What was the action or outcome?

䊏

What was the feedback?

You should have had no difficulty in identifying those elements of the communication process. You probably also realized that communication is an out-and-back process. A sender sends a communication out to a receiver, who in turn sends one back. This return communication – feedback – tells the original sender that: 䊏 䊏 䊏

the message has got through; the action, if any, has been taken; the purpose has been achieved. In other words, feedback tells us whether the communication process has worked and achieved what the sender of the message set out to achieve. The communication process therefore looks like this.

Purpose

Action

Sender

Communication (information, messages)

Receiver

(receiver)

Feedback

(sender)

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Session B

2.2 What happens without feedback? Without feedback it’s possible for all kinds of things going wrong. The simple example of Ravi and Ellen illustrates this point.

Activity 16

3 mins

In the Ravi/Ellen case study, Ellen called Ravi to tell him what she was doing. If she had not done this, what effect would it have had?

Ravi asked Ellen to supply him with a particular video. If she had not given him feedback, he would not have been sure that his purpose would be achieved. Was the video actually available? Had Ellen taken down the details correctly? Would she send it as requested? Would it reach him on time? If Ravi really did need the video quickly, and he heard nothing from Ellen, he would be almost certain to (a) fret about whether he would get it, and (b) to ring her back at some point to find out what was happening. The alternative was to reschedule his own work on the assumption that the video might not reach him on time. In this particular case, the result of not receiving feedback would have been inefficiency and time-wasting. If there was a general tendency for people throughout Ravi and Ellen’s organization not to acknowledge the receipt of messages and give feedback, you can imagine how much time would be lost as a result.

2.3 Feedback in meetings Feedback can come in many different forms. For Ravi and Ellen, it was in the form of a phone conversation, but it could have been in the form of an e-mail. In meetings – whether they are one-to-one or group meetings – it can be in the form of body language and tone of voice, as well as in the actual words that are spoken. As a manager either running or contributing to meetings, it’s important that you are alert to all forms of feedback so that you can respond accordingly.

34

Session B

Take the following example.

Fred is the manager of the Claims Department in an insurance company. One of his staff, Marie, has been away for a couple of weeks and has not heard about the latest senior management initiative, so he arranges a meeting with her. At the agreed time she comes to his office looking a little apprehensive as she’s not sure what the meeting is about. Seeing this, Fred immediately assures her that the meeting is not about anything she has, or hasn’t done, but about a new customer care initiative. As he says this he notices her expression turning to one of detachment. Then, when he invites her to sit down, she immediately crosses her legs and folds her arms across her chest. Without speaking a word, the feedback she has given to Fred is that she’s not very interested in the subject of customer care. If Fred doesn’t find some way of engaging her interest at the outset, he will be wasting both his time and Marie’s.

3 mins

Activity 17

If you were Fred, what might you do in response to the visual feedback you receive from Marie?

The answer depends to some extent on Fred’s personality and the relationship he has with Marie. Assuming that it is normally an amicable one, he might try cracking a joke. But a safer strategy might be to ask a series of questions so that Marie has to become engaged in the meeting. He should definitely avoid just ploughing on with whatever he had planned to say. The effect would be to make a presentation to Marie rather than have a two-way discussion with her. Now suppose Fred is invited by his manager to come to a meeting about the latest thinking on the customer care initiative.

35

Session B

Activity 18

3 mins

Fred’s manager starts off the meeting by saying that the board has come up with some exciting new ideas. What body language on the part of Fred do you think would show that he is really interested in hearing about these ideas?

The first sign that Fred is interested might well be that he leans forward slightly. His legs might be crossed, but this won’t mean he’s not interested unless his arms are crossed as well. Remember – it’s the combination of what people do with the different parts of their body that is important in reading body language. The same applies to facial expressions. If Fred has a frown of concentration you might take this to mean that he’s not interested. You need to look at his face as a whole, and see that his expression is generally open, to get a true picture of what he’s feeling.

3 Giving feedback to improve performance Whatever the form of feedback, it can nearly always help to improve the performance of both yourself and others, and act as a significant motivator – provided, of course, that it’s given properly. In fact, it’s one of your responsibilities as a manager to give feedback to your staff with a view to identifying: 䊏 䊏

ways in which their performance could be improved; their achievements, and how they can build on them. You can give feedback to staff at any time, perhaps as part of your daily routine, on a completely informal basis. You can also give feedback once, or possibly twice, a year on a very formal basis, in an appraisal meeting. Between these two extremes are regular progress meetings, perhaps held on a weekly,

36

Session B

fortnightly or monthly basis, where you sit down with staff in a one-to-one meeting to discuss how they are getting on. We’ll begin with the less formal situations and then move on to what’s involved in holding an appraisal meeting.

4 Feedback in less formal situations If you want to get a positive response to feedback, there are a number of things you should avoid doing, as you will see if we return to the example of Fred and Marie in the insurance company’s Claims Department. Fred regarded Marie as one of his better staff. When she spoke to customers on the phone she almost always managed to stay calm and pleasant, no matter what was being said to her. One day Fred received a letter in which a customer complained about the way he’d been treated by Marie. Apparently, Marie had been unable to find the customer’s file when he’d rung up to ask why it was taking so long for his claim to be paid. She had said she would call him back when she found the file, but she never had. Then, when the customer had called again and complained about her failure to call him, she’d been very rude to him. She had subsequently got the claim sorted out very quickly, but he felt very strongly that he should not have had to make the two phone calls. Fred put the letter into his Complaints File and decided to speak to Marie about it later in the day. However, he was then called away to attend an urgent meeting with his manager and completely forgot about it. It was only a few days later, as he was preparing for his regular fortnightly progress meeting with Marie, that he remembered the letter of complaint and got it out ready to discuss with Marie. The only problem was that she didn’t seem to be able to remember much about this particular customer – she had dealt with so many customers since then. What’s more, she obviously didn’t like the way Fred started off the session by placing the customer’s letter in front of her with the words: ‘It seems you need to improve the way you relate to customers’. She became irritable straight away and said that the customer was probably an unpleasant piece of work who deserved everything he got.

37

Session B

Activity 19

3 mins

How do you think Fred should have handled this situation to get a better response from Marie to the feedback he supplied?

Obviously it would have made a lot more sense for Fred to discuss the customer’s complaint with Marie as soon as possible. Leaving it for some days meant that Marie’s memory of events was blurred, thus reducing the chances of learning something from what had happened – such as how to deal in future with the type of comments the customer made. The next mistake Fred made was to start off the meeting with a very negative comment. He would have got a more positive response if he had begun by saying something positive himself. He could, for example, have said that he was normally impressed by the way Marie dealt with difficult customers and so was wondering what had gone wrong in this particular situation. And once they had finished discussing what had gone wrong and the lessons to be learned, it would have been a good idea to remind Marie of the particular things he thought she did well. Let’s now turn to another situation in which Fred gives feedback to a member of staff. While Fred had been on holiday for a few days, a new member of staff, Sanjay, had joined the Claims Department. Fred hadn’t had much of a chance to look at Sanjay’s work, but his initial impression was that Sanjay didn’t take his work seriously enough. He seemed to be forever smiling and telling jokes to his colleagues. Prior to Fred’s progress meeting with Sanjay, he had a look at some of customer files that Sanjay had been working on. They nearly all seemed to be in good order, but one contained a lot of scribbled notes and was obviously incomplete. At the meeting Fred began by saying that he had a general feeling that Sanjay wasn’t that interested in what he was doing. If this was indeed the case, could Sanjay tell him what it was that he didn’t like? Sanjay looked surprised at this. He thought he’d made a good start in his new

38

Session B

job, getting on well with his colleagues and getting to grips with the paperwork. He didn’t know how to answer Fred’s question since he had no idea what Fred based his view of him on. There was one file that needed some sorting out, but that was all. To Sanjay’s dismay, Fred then picked up the offending file and began to talk about it as though it was typical of his work. In fact, the file was in a bit of a mess because it had been passed round between staff and temporarily mislaid: it was one of those problem cases concerning a stolen car where everything had gone wrong. The insurance company didn’t even know exactly where the car was at the moment. It shouldn’t have been scrapped yet, but there was a suspicion that this had in fact happened. All the scribbled notes were about conversations held that very morning with an increasingly irate customer. Sanjay tried to start explaining all this to Fred. But Fred had decided that he needed to tell Sanjay exactly how the department operated, and that included not leaving scribbled notes in files but writing them up on the appropriate forms. It was only when he had finished that Sanjay was able to say that he had been looking forward to this meeting with Fred as he’d thought it would be an opportunity to discuss a few problems he’d been having. But perhaps that wasn’t the point of progress meetings?

In fact, providing staff with the opportunity to discuss any problems they’ve been having is very much the point of progress meetings. Whether staff really get this opportunity will depend on the way in which you give them feedback. Instead of telling the member of staff what they should have done, or should do in a similar situation in the future, you need to ask questions and encourage a discussion of ideas and possible alternative courses of action. Fred’s meeting with Sanjay would have been a lot more constructive if he had done this.

3 mins

Activity 20

What other mistakes do you think Fred made in giving feedback to Sanjay? Jot down two or three.

39

Session B

Fred’s first mistake was to jump to conclusions about Sanjay’s attitude to his work, and then allow these to influence the way he talked to Sanjay in the meeting. It would have been better to have focused on what Sanjay had actually done rather than how he appeared. He compounded the problem by not explaining what his general impression of Sanjay was based on. Finally, by concentrating on the one file that was not as it should be, rather than pointing to all the things that were good about the other files, Fred took a very negative approach to Sanjay’s work. He seemed to assume that the problems with this one file were likely to be replicated in the future, rather than trying to discover whether this was a one-off situation that was unlikely to be repeated in the future. In short, if Fred was looking for a positive response from Sanjay, getting him to put right the things he had done wrong and feel motivated to improve his work in the future, he went entirely the wrong way about it!

4.1 Guidelines on giving feedback The following guidelines will give you some ideas on how to provide effective feedback. 䊏 䊏

䊏

䊏

䊏 䊏

䊏 EXTENSION 1 For more detailed 䊏 guidance on how to provide effective on and off-the-job feedback, take a look at Effective Feedback Skills by Tim Russell.

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Whenever possible, always provide feedback on a particular activity or project within a day or two of it being completed. Always bear in mind that negative feedback on its own generally has a bad effect. You need to balance the negative with something positive. It’s usually best to start with a positive comment before saying something negative, and to end with another positive comment. Avoid making too many negative comments. It can end up being counterproductive, causing the other person to become defensive and bringing all useful discussion to an end. Just concentrate on a few key points. Ask questions with the aim of sharing ideas and exploring alternative courses of action, rather than telling the other person what you think they should do. Focus on what the person has done rather than on how they have appeared to be or what your general impression of them is. Focus on areas where the person is capable or improving. It will only have a demoralizing effect if you criticize them for something they can do nothing about. Avoid being vague. If there is a problem, make sure you are clear about what exactly the problem is. Don’t assume that because a person has behaved in a particular way in one situation, they will always behave in this way in similar situations. Above all, remember that the ultimate aim of feedback is to be constructive and help people to improve their performance.

Session B

10 mins

Activity 21

This Activity may provide the basis of appropriate evidence for your S/NVQ portfolio. If you are intending to take this course of action, it might be better to write your answers on separate sheets of paper.

S/NVQ C12.3

䊏

How often do you give feedback to individual members of your staff, both on an entirely informal basis and during regular progress meetings? Do you intend to change this in the future, and if so, how?

Think back to the last meeting you had with an individual member of staff in which you gave them feedback. On the basis of the guidelines listed above, in what ways do you think your feedback could have been improved?

䊏

Identify a member of staff to whom you should give feedback in the near future, either as part of a regular progress meeting or at the end of a particular activity or project. How will you prepare yourself for this meeting to ensure that it is constructive? (For example: What outputs will you look at? What questions will you ask to ensure a productive discussion?)

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5 Appraisal meetings An annual, or possibly six-monthly, appraisal meeting is the most formal way of giving staff feedback. This doesn’t mean, however, that it should be an occasion on which both you and the member of staff feel on your guard and are anxious not to put a foot wrong. On the contrary, to be really productive it should be a relaxed, friendly occasion based on mutual trust. As with feedback generally, the basic purpose of an appraisal meeting is to help staff improve their performance by identifying ways in which they can develop. Before an appraisal meeting, a member of staff is usually asked to fill in a form that covers such items as: 䊏 䊏 䊏 䊏 䊏

the progress they have made in achieving their performance objectives over the last year (or six months); any problems they have encountered; their weaknesses and strengths; their needs for future development; their ideas for improving the efficiency of the department or organization. The member of staff then receives a similar form giving the manager’s view of how he or she has performed. The two forms often don’t agree and provide the basis for discussion in an appraisal interview, whose outcomes should include agreement on:

䊏 䊏 䊏 According to research published by the Institute of Personnel and Development (now CIPD) in 1998, 31% of employees felt that they had not got useful feedback from an appraisal interview while 38% were not motivated.

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the level of performance achieved; outline performance objectives for the following year; further training and development requirements. As a manager giving an appraisal interview, you will need to use all your listening and questioning skills to full effect, and follow the general guidelines on giving feedback.You should be able to pick up on any signs that the member of staff is becoming less than enthusiastic about their job or the organization in general – both of which point to the need for you to find ways of increasing their motivation. Unfortunately, it has been found that many appraisal meetings have exactly the opposite effect on staff, and actually demotivate them.

Session B

5 mins

Activity 22 䊏

Think about the last time you were in an appraisal meeting. How did you feel at the end of the meeting? Were you discouraged, motivated, or just neutral?

䊏

What did your manager do or say to make you feel this way? In what ways do you think he or she might have improved their handling of the interview?

Conducting a successful appraisal interview requires some skill and thought. It’s easy to demotivate someone by not fully acknowledging their achievements and just focusing on what he or she needs to do better. More than any other form of feedback, a one-to-one meeting should give you the opportunity to encourage staff and get them to feel enthusiastic about achieving new goals in the coming year. In some organizations, appraisal meetings are also used to provide members of staff with the opportunity to give feedback to you on your own performance as a manager. This is something that staff often find very difficult to do, particularly when they suspect that any note of criticism will get a negative response. This points to the need for managers to be able to receive feedback as well as provide it, a subject to which we turn in the next section. You will find more detailed coverage of the whole subject of appraisal meetings in another workbook in this series entitled Appraising Performance.

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6 Receiving feedback Asking people for feedback on your own performance – whether they are the people you manage, your colleagues, your manager, or customers – isn’t difficult. Much more difficult is responding to criticism in a positive way so as not to discourage people from making any criticisms in the future.

Activity 23

5 mins

䊏

Have you ever been asked to give feedback to your own manager? If so, what critical comments, if any, did you make?

䊏

How did your manager respond to your comments? Did the response make you feel more confident about giving further feedback in the future, or did it discourage you?

䊏

What might your manager have done differently to encourage you to give more feedback in the future?

There are a number of standard responses that people have to being criticized. They include: 䊏 䊏 䊏 䊏

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ignoring the criticism; denying the criticism has any validity; making excuses; voicing a criticism in return.

Session B

None of these responses are likely to result in a constructive dialogue on how to improve performance. Far more productive is to remain open-minded and ask the person providing the feedback to expand on what they have said. You should then be prepared to agree with the criticism if you think there is some truth to it, as in the following example.

As Publications Manager for a local council, Aysha had numerous demands on her time every day. However, she made a point of having regular fortnightly meetings with her staff on an individual basis, and at one of these she discovered that her deputy, Kurt, was feeling rather overwhelmed by his responsibilities. ‘Is there anything I can do to help?’ Aysha enquired. ‘Well, actually there is,’ Kurt replied. ‘I know you have all sorts of people asking you to do things all day, and every day, but it would really help me if you could sort out what the priorities are a bit more efficiently.’ Aysha could have responded to this in a number of ways. She could have just said ‘Fine’, and asked him if there was anything else, thus effectively ignoring his criticism. She could have denied his criticism by saying that he didn’t know what he was talking about – she always prioritized efficiently. Alternatively, she could have excused herself by replying that she was so rushed off her feet every day, there just wasn’t the time to sit down and prioritize. Or she could have thrown the criticism back at Kurt and suggested that perhaps it was he who needed to prioritise more efficiently. In fact, Aysha realized how difficult it probably was for Kurt to make his critical remarks and that she should respond to them in a nonchallenging and constructive way. ‘It would be helpful if you could give me some examples of what you mean’ she said. ‘Sure,’ replied Kurt. ‘You see, sometimes I work late in the evening to get the text written for a pamphlet that’s needed urgently. I put it on your desk in the hope that you’ll look at it first thing in the morning because that’s the only way to meet the schedule. But then when you come in you often ignore my text and spend hours dealing with phone calls and queries before, perhaps, disappearing off for a meeting.’ Aysha had to admit that Kurt had a point. He had given her one example of how she didn’t prioritize, but if she was honest with herself, she could think of several more. Only the previous day her secretary had pointed out that because she had spent a couple of hours in the afternoon checking proofs, she had missed the deadline for the afternoon post. Why hadn’t she got her letters sent out before she tackled the proofs?

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‘You’re right, Kurt,’ she replied. ‘I’m going to have to plan my days more carefully so that I can give people the input they need when it’s required rather than later. I’ll get back to you as soon as I’ve considered what system I can put in place to ensure that jobs are tackled in order of priority. Many thanks for your comments.’

Of course, there may be situations in which you think the other person’s criticisms are not valid at all – or only partly valid. But even here you can avoid totally denying the criticism and lay the ground for constructive dialogue. Suppose, for example, that Aysha knew she was reasonably efficient at prioritizing, but sometimes emergencies arose that required her immediate attention when she arrived at the office. Her best reply then might be something along the following lines: ‘I accept that’s how it must seem to you Kurt. But sometimes I really do have to rethink my priorities in response to the unexpected. Clearly I need to keep you more closely informed about what is going on.’ In short, to encourage people to give you feedback you need to: 䊏 䊏 EXTENSION 2 䊏 You’ll find further helpful 䊏 advice on how to give and receive criticism in Giving and Receiving Feedback: Building Constructive Communication, by Patti Hathaway.

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invite comments on what you do; listen open-mindedly to what is said in response; ask questions in a non-challenging way; avoid self-justification. Remember, you will not only get criticism when you ask for feedback. You should also get positive feedback that will highlight the things you are doing well and need to continue doing in the future. You yourself can become more motivated by feedback!

Session B

15 mins

Self-assessment 2

1

Fill in the words missing from this diagram of the communication process.

Action

Communication (information, messages)

Sender

(receiver)

2

(sender)

Why is feedback so important in the communication process?

For questions 3 to 6 complete the sentences about giving feedback with a suitable word from the following list. You will need to use some words more than once. COUNTER-PRODUCTIVE VAGUE NEGATIVE 3

POSITIVE

DEMORALIZING

feedback on its own generally has a bad effect. It’s usually best to start with a

comment before saying something

, and to end with another 4

Too many

comments can cause the other person to become

defensive and be 5

comment.

.

Criticizing people for something they can do nothing about will have a effect.

6

Avoid being

about what the problems are.

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Session B

7

Which of the following is not supposed to be discussed in an appraisal meeting with a member of staff? a b c d

8

level of performance achieved complaints about conditions performance objectives for the coming year training and development requirements

Name at least two ways in which you can encourage people to give you feedback.

Answers to these questions are on page 91.

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ⵧ ⵧ ⵧ ⵧ

Session B

7 Summary 䊏

The communication process involves: 䊏 䊏 䊏 䊏 䊏 䊏

a sender; a communication (information or message); a purpose; a receiver; an action or outcome; feedback.

䊏

Feedback is important in the communication process because it tells us that the communication has worked and achieved what the sender of the message set out to achieve.

䊏

Feedback comes in many different forms, depending on the situation. In meetings it can be in the form of body language and tone of voice, as well as in the actual words that are spoken.

䊏

As a manager it’s one of your responsibilities to give feedback to staff with a view to identifying: 䊏 䊏

ways in which performance could be improved; their achievements, and how they can build on them.

䊏

You can give feedback to staff at any time on a completely informal basis, in regular progress meetings and in six-monthly or annual appraisal meetings.

䊏

The most important thing to remember about giving feedback is that negative criticism on its own generally has a bad effect. It’s usually best to start with something positive.

䊏

Too much negative criticism can also be counter-productive. Just concentrate on a few key points.

䊏

In giving feedback, focus on what the person has actually done and on areas where he or she is capable of improving.

䊏

The basic purpose of an appraisal meeting is to help staff improve their performance by identifying ways in which they can develop.

䊏

An appraisal meeting should help to motivate staff.

䊏

To encourage people to give you feedback you need to: 䊏 䊏 䊏 䊏

invite comments on what you do; listen open-mindedly to what is said in response; ask questions in a non-challenging way; avoid self-justification.

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Session C Group meetings

1 Introduction There’s an old joke that meetings are an alternative to work. Do you agree?

Meetings of more than two people can be a pleasure, a necessity, a chore, a nuisance or a test, depending on the circumstances. They can seem like a waste of valuable time. They can be inconclusive and frustrating. They can also be badly organized and poorly chaired. Most managers dislike at least some of the meetings they go to. Many less experienced managers loathe them all.

‘Not another stupid meeting!’ groaned Anil. ‘Why can’t we get on with something useful instead of talking about it all the time!’ Anil’s line manager put him straight. ‘Look, I know you’re keen and want to do practical things, but you’re moving into management now. Your job is to organize, lead and motivate people who do the work, not to do the work yourself.’ ‘Meetings are a big part of every manager’s life and in this company we don’t hold meetings for the fun of it. They’ve always got a practical purpose.’

Meetings are indeed a fact of life: the point is to learn to make them work, both as a participant and when chairing them.

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2 Different types of meetings As in the case of one-to-one meetings, meetings of more than two people may be formal or informal. Informal meetings take place all the time. We are not going to consider them in any detail here as we looked at how to conduct them in Session A. The essential basic rules are: 䊏 䊏 䊏

listen carefully to what the other people have to say; make your messages clear and simple; if anything important is said, make a note of it immediately afterwards.

2.1 Formal meetings If you work for a very small organization, formal meetings may be few and far between, although there is bound to be the occasional meeting with suppliers, the bank, the local authority, and so on. In bigger organizations, there are many more meetings, and they play a much more important role.

Activity 24

4 mins

List the regular formal meetings in which you or your manager take part.

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You may have listed some of the following: 䊏 䊏 䊏 䊏 ‘Committee: a body of persons appointed or elected for some special business or purpose.’ Shorter Oxford English Dictionary.

䊏 䊏

monthly management meetings; production meetings; safety committee meetings; staff association committee meetings; training policy committee meetings; quality circle meetings. These are all regular meetings, scheduled in advance. There will also be various unscheduled one-off meetings to respond to problems and make decisions about issues of various kinds.

3 mins

Activity 25

Here are some suggestions as to why larger organizations have so many more meetings. Tick any that you think might apply, and add any others that occur to you. 䊏 䊏 䊏 䊏

Larger organizations are naturally more bureaucratic. Larger organizations need formal channels of communication. Managers in large organizations see meetings as a way of developing their careers. Many people prefer attending meetings to doing real work.

ⵧ ⵧ ⵧ ⵧ

Other suggestions:

While larger organizations may be bureaucratic, and some managers may see meetings as a way of developing their careers, in general these are not the reasons for formal meetings. Nor do most organizations tolerate people who would rather attend meetings than do real work. Meetings are work, and often generate work for the people who attend them. The real reason for the larger number of meetings is the need for communication. In a small organization, everyone knows everyone else. Usually, everyone knows what is going on without needing any formal system of communication.

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In larger organizations it is different. People work at a variety of tasks in different departments and even in different locations. While there may be informal networks of contacts that cross these boundaries, they are usually quite limited. They also tend to foster gossip and rumour rather than the communication of information. So larger organizations – simply because they are large – can’t rely on informal ways of communicating with and between different groups of staff. They need to establish formal systems and structures. You may also have added some thoughts about management monitoring and control, because this is also more difficult to achieve in larger organizations, for the same reasons. So, depending on the size of your organizations, meetings – both regular and irregular – can be held for a large variety of purposes that include: 䊏 䊏 䊏

communicating information; management control; making decisions and solving problems.

2.2 Meetings for communicating information All meetings involve a good deal of information, but some meetings take place solely in order to: 䊏 䊏 䊏

give information (as when a manager calls a meeting of staff to announce a plan to move to new offices); gather information (as when a representative from each department is asked to report on developments); exchange information (as when staff association or union reps from different locations get together). Consultative meetings – where management wishes to get initial reactions to ideas or proposals – are quite common (as when a manager presents recommendations on how to improve processes or systems). Many of the examples above are of meetings held at senior management level. But as a first line manager you too will sometimes hold formal meetings with your staff in order to give, gather or exchange information.

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Session C

8 mins

Activity 26

This Activity may provide the basis of appropriate evidence for your S/NVQ portfolio. If you are intending to take this course of action, it might be better to write your answers on separate sheets of paper.

S/NVQ D1.2

Think back to meetings you have held with all of your staff and identify any that you held in order to: 䊏 䊏 䊏

give information; gather information; exchange information. Answer the following three questions in each case.

1

What was the exact purpose of the meeting?

2

On what basis did you decide that a staff meeting, rather than any other form of communication, was the best way of achieving this purpose?

3

Was the purpose achieved? If the answer is ‘yes’, what is your evidence for this?

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Session C

2.3 Meetings for management control One of the roles of management is to make sure the organization’s day-to-day operations deliver certain goals and objectives. On the one hand, managers create a plan which: 䊏 䊏 䊏

defines the operations required to meet the objectives; identifies the resources needed to carry out the operations; sets targets for all relevant activities. On the other hand, they design systems which compare what actually happens with the plan:

䊏 䊏 䊏

monitoring and measuring activities and use of resources; reviewing progress against targets; if necessary, modifying future operations in the light of this. This is known as a control cycle.

As you can see, at the heart of the control cycle is the collection, collation and review of information. The review takes place in a meeting at which decisions are made about any necessary modifications to operations, as in the following example.

Abraxis is a charity that helps children with physical disabilities. The management team meets monthly to review activities and budgets. A few days before the meeting, participants are sent two main

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documents. One summarizes the activities of various projects. The other summarizes revenue and costs and compares them with budgets. The meeting concentrates on dealing with areas where there is a significant deviation from the plans, targets and budgets, such as: 䊏 䊏 䊏

projects failing to achieve their targets; revenue shortfalls; excess costs.

The meeting will discuss these points, and try to establish: 䊏 䊏 䊏 䊏 䊏

whether the deviations really are significant; what the consequences will be if they are not corrected; what needs to be done to correct them; who will take responsibility for ensuring that it happens; how and when this will in turn be reviewed.

10 mins

Activity 27

This Activity may provide the basis of appropriate evidence for your S/NVQ portfolio. If you are intending to take this course of action, it might be better to write your answers on separate sheets of paper.

S/NVQ D1.2

Think of a review meeting you have held with your team whose purpose was to: 䊏 䊏

1

discuss information gathered through the monitoring of activities; decide what modifications, if any, were necessary. What information was discussed? Was it sufficient for you to be able to establish whether any activities needed to be modified?

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2

What modifications were suggested by you and your team?

3

On what basis did you and your team make your suggestions?

4

What modifications were decided upon? What arrangements were made for ensuring they were implemented and reviewed?

2.4 Meetings to make decisions and solve problems You may remember that one stage of the control cycle was making a decision about what, if any, modifications should be made to activities. The need to make a decision is a common reason for holding a meeting, though not necessarily as part of the management control system. A meeting may be held, for example, to make a decision on how to tackle a particular issue or solve a particular problem. Usually, quite a lot of preparatory work has to be completed before you are in a position to make a decision. Suppose, for example, you discover that you are consistently exceeding your monthly budget, or the number of defects in the goods produced by your department, is going up. You will then have to gather more information to discover what the possible causes may be. What, exactly, is money being spent on? What type of defects are occurring and why? It’s only when you know the possible causes that you can begin to think about the possible solutions. Depending on the particular situation, you may want to do this in a meeting or wait until you, personally, have come up with some possible solutions and screened out the ones that are not really feasible.

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Session C

15 mins

Activity 28

This Activity may provide the basis of appropriate evidence for your S/NVQ portfolio. If you are intending to take this course of action, it might be better to write your answers on separate sheets of paper.

S/NVQ D1.2

Think of a meeting you have held with your staff whose purpose was to make a decision about how to solve a particular problem. 䊏

What was the problem?

䊏

What information did you present to help you and the other participants suggest or discuss viable solutions? Was the information accurate and sufficient? Were there any ways in which it could have been improved?

䊏

What decision did you and your staff make about how to solve the problem?

䊏

On the basis of what information was the decision made? What other information, if any, would you like to have had to help you make this decision?

3 Preparing for meetings Although many meetings are important, they can waste a lot of time better spent doing other things if they are not set up and run efficiently.

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Activity 29

4 mins

Think back to some unproductive meetings you have attended and jot down six to eight words that describe what you felt went wrong.

Meetings can go wrong in many ways. For example, they may deal with trivial issues at some length, or fail to deal with a major issue adequately because the participants don’t have the necessary knowledge or skills.

In his book The Law and the Profits, C. Northcote Parkinson describes a company board meeting in which the members spend hours wrangling about a proposal to spend £500 on a new lawnmower, while a major investment costing millions of pounds goes through in a matter of minutes. The explanation, says Parkinson, is that everyone present understands lawnmowers and has something sensible to say. Only one or two of those present understand the big investment proposal, and the rest don’t feel they have anything sensible to say at all.

Other meetings may seem irrelevant to your own work, be unfocused, be badly chaired, or be dominated by argument between warring factions. Meetings that are boring, go on too long, drift off into digressions, and fail to reach conclusions are also very irritating. So how can these problems be avoided? Part of the answer is, of course, careful preparation. Assuming you are organizing a meeting, whether it be just for the members of your team or for staff from a number of departments or organizations, you need to consider the following. 䊏 䊏 䊏 䊏

Who should attend the meeting? When and where will the meeting be held? What information should participants receive in advance? What will be your role in the meeting? If you are not organizing the meeting, you need to think carefully about what your contribution might be and plan what you might say.

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3.1 Organizing a meeting EXTENSIONS 3 AND 4 Further good advice on how to prepare for meetings, run them and contribute to them, is provided by Managing Meetings by Tim Hindle and The Meetings Pocketbook by Patrick Forsyth.

Before you even begin to start organizing a meeting, you might stop to consider whether it’s necessary at all! You may have no choice, as in the case of a regular committee, departmental or project team meeting. But if there is a choice, are you sure that a less time-consuming alternative, such as a series of phone calls or e-mails, or phone or video conferencing, wouldn’t be sufficient. Once you’ve established that the meeting is necessary, it’s time to consider the following questions.

Who should attend? For some meetings, such as committee meetings, the participants are defined right from the start. But for others, you may need to draw up a list of criteria, such as the following. 䊏 䊏 䊏

Who will be affected by the outcome and so needs to be consulted? Who can supply any relevant information? Who can play a vital role in taking any follow-up action? Bear in mind that three or four participants is the best number if you want a decision to be made quickly. However, six to nine may lead to a more balanced decision, while ten or more will probably give a wide range of views.

When and where will the meeting be held? You need to consider not only when the meeting will take place, but also how long it will take. The ideal length of time for a meeting, if you want everyone to be attentive throughout, is only 45 minutes! Of course, in reality it’s often not practicable for it to be as brief as this. But ‘keep it as short as possible’ should be your motto.

Arranging the time of a meeting can be a major headache, particularly if it’s a one-off meeting rather that one of a series of meetings for which the dates are booked long in advance. People will have lots of other commitments and finding a date they can all agree on requires patience. One method is first to ask one or two potential participants for up to five dates and times when they are available and then to circulate a list of these to see if there’s one that everyone can agree with. The choice of venue may partly be determined by where everyone has to come from. But there will be other factors to take into account, such as what room offers the most suitable physical conditions, and the cost of the room if it has to be hired.

Robin’s manager asked her to deputize for him at a meeting called by the IT department to explain and discuss the benefits of some new software. The meeting took place on a Friday afternoon. The weather was hot and the sun shone relentlessly through the windows of the

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stuffy training room where the meeting took place. Several people tried to open windows, but they were fixed tight by security bolts. It was impossible to concentrate on the speaker. After 15 minutes, Robin had to pinch herself to keep awake. From behind her she heard the gentle snores of the security manager.

Activity 30

4 mins

Poor arrangements mean poor results. Think back over meetings you have attended. List five aspects of the physical arrangements that could have been better.

In meetings, most people spend most of the time listening – and this is something that most humans are not very good at. We generally find it harder to concentrate on someone else talking rather than on speaking ourselves. Anything that makes it more difficult to listen should be avoided. This includes any location that is: 䊏 䊏 䊏 䊏

too too too too

hot; noisy; cramped; uncomfortable.

Another factor to take into account when selecting the venue is whether you can arrange the table and chairs appropriately. Some meetings, for example, may require a boardroom arrangement, where the chairperson sits at the head of a long rectangular table, and the other people sit along the remaining three sides. Other meetings will require a very different arrangement.

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3 mins

Activity 31

What arrangement of tables and chairs do you think would be most suitable for the following. 䊏

A team meeting?

䊏

A meeting whose main purpose is to give information to a lot of people?

The layout in which the chairperson sits at one end of a long rectangular table does little to encourage everyone to make a contribution and feel that their opinion is valued as much as the next person’s. A square or round table, or simply a circle of chairs are far more suitable layouts for a team meeting. On the other hand, if you just want to give information to a lot of people, it’s usually best to have a ‘speaker-audience’ arrangement in which people sit in rows, with or without desks in front of them, and listen to the person or people sitting or standing at the front.

What information should participants receive in advance? Unless a meeting is called at the last moment, the participants should usually receive the following in advance. 䊏 䊏

An agenda listing the main points that will be under discussion, plus some administrative details, such as location and timings. Any documents, such as reports and proposals, that are to be discussed at the meeting, which may include details of attendees. If you’re responsible for drawing up an agenda, it’s often a good idea to ask the participants if there are any items that they would like to have added. Once you’ve had their responses, put the items in a logical order, beginning with:

䊏 䊏 䊏

apologies for absence; minutes of the last meeting; matters arising.

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The second item in this list provides an opportunity to correct any mistakes in the minutes, which serve as a permanent record of what was said and agreed at the previous meeting. We will return to the subject of minutes later in this session. The third item – matters arising – gives participants a chance to bring the meeting up to date on matters discussed last time. Only significant new information should be welcome here. If you are not chairing the meeting, the agenda should be approved by the chair.

Activity 32

3 mins

Here is an agenda for the monthly meeting of a voluntary organizations’ Development Group. Is there anything that you think it would be helpful to add to this agenda? Development Group Monthly Meeting 13 October 2003 3.30 in the Cavendish Centre AGENDA 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

Apologies for absence Minutes of the last meeting Matters arising Launch of Jubilee Fields Project Other possible projects Funding Any other business Date of the next meeting

You may have noticed that there’s nothing on this agenda about when the meeting is intended to finish – a piece of information that could be vital for some people! And assuming that there is a fixed finish time, it would be helpful to add a start time to each item. Otherwise you could spend so much time discussing, say, item 4 that you run out of time before you reach item 6. It’s

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also worth making it clear that ‘any other business’ is to be restricted to a limited amount of time. If people know there’s a major topic they want to raise, they should get it included in the meeting’s agenda. In drawing up an agenda, bear in mind that people need breaks in meetings at least every 90 minutes.

It’s also helpful to make clear what the objective of each item is. For example, is item 4 just about sharing information, or is it about coming to a decision about what is to be done?

What will your role be? Even if you are setting up a meeting, you may not be the best person to act as chair. In some situations it may be worth considering whether it would be better for you to stick to the role of contributor and get someone else, such as your manager, to be chairperson.

3.2 Preparing a contribution Assuming your main role in a meeting is as a contributor, among the things you need to do in advance are the following. 䊏 䊏 䊏

Study any documents (including minutes of the last meeting) that you’ve been sent in advance and get an explanation of anything you don’t understand. In situations where you are acting as the representative of your team or colleagues, ask for their opinions on items on the agenda. Think carefully about what you wish to say on each item and prepare brief notes (bear in mind that you should aim to make your contributions brief and effective). If you have been asked to make a formal presentation, you will need to consider what visual aids, and possibly handouts, you should prepare. For more on this, look at the workbooks Networking and Sharing Information and Planning Training and Development in this series.

3 mins

Activity 33

Is there anything else you think it might be helpful do in preparing your contributions to a meeting? Jot down one or two ideas.

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In some situations it may not be enough just to study the documents that are sent to you; you may need to carry out your own research by, for example, consulting relevant publications or the records of your organization or department. It will also help to find out who else is going to attend the meeting and what their views on various items are likely to be. If they are very different from yours, you will need to consider what points you can make to counter what they might say.

4 Taking part in a meeting There are a number of guidelines to ensure you are effective in your role, whether you are the chairperson of a meeting or a contributor.

4.1 Chairing a meeting As a chairperson, it’s often worth finding out what you can about the participants in advance so that you can predict what their views and priorities are likely to be.

It is possible for a meeting to work without someone being in the chair, but an effective chairperson can make a huge difference to whether a meeting achieves its objectives. The chairperson’s chief responsibilities are ensuring that: 䊏 䊏 䊏 䊏 䊏 䊏 䊏 䊏 䊏 䊏

everyone knows who all the other participants in the meeting are, either by introducing them or asking them to introduce themselves; if an agenda has been sent out with timings, these are modified wherever necessary to meet the requirements of the participants generally; the purpose and objectives of the meeting are clear; the agenda is followed, but not so rigidly that valuable discussion is cut off too soon; the meeting is not dominated by arguments between factions; no one participant is allowed to speak too long and dominate the meeting; everyone has the opportunity to contribute; participants keep to the point; if the purpose of the meeting is to make one or more decisions, these are made by general agreement and are clear to everyone; the meeting achieves its objectives within the allocated time. Clearly, being an effective chairperson requires many skills.

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3 mins

Activity 34

Looking at the list of responsibilities above, what skills do you think an effective chairperson needs to have? Jot down two or three.

It’s hard to imagine someone being an effective chairperson unless they can be assertive. This doesn’t mean being authoritarian or bossy. Rather, it means being firm while at the same time showing respect for others and responding to, rather than ignoring, what they say. A good chairperson has to be able to listen carefully and read other people’s body language for signs that they are not happy with the way things are going. They also need to be aware of their own body language, taking particular care to avoid aggressive or bored gestures. (You may remember that we discussed these in Session A.) Another valuable skill is being able to summarize what’s been said. Doing this at intervals throughout a meeting will help to get rid of any misunderstandings. It will also draw attention to what progress has, or hasn’t, been made, and bring a drifting discussion back to the point.

4.2 Contributing to a meeting Assuming you have done a good job in preparing yourself for a meeting, there are a number of skills you need to employ to make your contributions to the best possible effect. You’ll see that they include some of the skills required by the chairperson. You need the ability to: 䊏

䊏 䊏 䊏

䊏 䊏

be assertive – say what you want to say, but don’t cut across other people or respond to what they have said in an aggressive manner; be calm and polite; listen carefully; read other people’s body language; adapt your own body language to give out the right signals – avoid gestures that signify aggression or boredom, or distracting mannerisms; make eye contact all around the room; speak clearly and to the point, using simple and straightforward language; ask questions that will get an informative reply.

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Assuming you have things that you really want to say on a particular topic, when is the best time to do so? Some people like to get in their contribution at the end of a discussion, while others prefer to wait to the end. Others like to speak as often as possible, no matter whether they really have anything useful to say. However, what is usually most effective is to: 䊏 䊏 䊏

make your first contribution fairly early on; listen to what others have to say; speak again when you have a thought-out response to make.

Activity 35

S/NVQ C1.1

45 mins

This Activity may provide the basis of appropriate evidence for your S/NVQ portfolio. If you are intending to take this course of action, it might be better to write your answers on separate sheets of paper. Before, during and after the next meeting you attend, make notes in response to each of the following questions on how you think you performed. Then give yourself a rating on a scale of 1 to 5 (1 equals poor, 5 equals excellent) and note how you might improve your performance in the next meeting. If possible, ask a colleague who attends the same meeting to also rate your performance and make notes.

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Comment on performance

Rating on scale of 1–5

Areas for improvement

Had you obviously thought about what you were going to say before speaking? Did you keep to the point?

Did you speak clearly enough for everyone to hear what you were saying? Did you use straightforward, jargon-free language? In expressing disagreement with another participant, were you calm and polite? Did you ask questions that got informative replies? Did your body language convey continuing interest in the discussion? Did you avoid distracting mannerisms?

4.3 Taking notes In many meetings someone will be appointed to take minutes – that is, short notes on the meeting’s proceedings. This doesn’t mean, however, that you shouldn’t take your own notes on any points that are of relevance to you. While the minute-taker should always aim to present an accurate account of what was discussed and agreed, he or she may make mistakes. And, of course, there will be many situations in which you will need to report back on a meeting – perhaps to your team or manager – or carry out agreed actions. It’s worth looking back to section 6 of Session A, where we looked at taking notes in one-to-one meetings: the same guidance applies to group meetings.

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Minutes Minutes are intended to provide a permanent record of what was discussed and agreed at a meeting, but they should not be verbatim transcript of what was said. Instead they should state: 䊏 䊏 EXTENSION 5 䊏 Taking Minutes of Meetings, by Joanna 䊏 Gutmann, is a practical reference book that includes advice on taking notes and minutes.

who attended the meeting; topics discussed and the key points made by contributors; decisions taken, and the main arguments for and against them; what action, when and by whom, should follow. Minutes are supposed to be word-processed and distributed straight after a meeting. But this doesn’t always happen.

Activity 36

3 mins

Delays in typing up and distributing minutes can cause problems. Why do you think this might be?

People are usually expected to check that the minutes are an accurate record of the meeting. Even if they’ve taken their own notes, this can be difficult when a fair amount of time has elapsed since the meeting took place. A more serious problem is that if decisions have been taken and individuals asked to act on them, the actions may not be taken and the decisions implemented until later than intended.

5 Following up on meetings It’s very easy to hold a meeting to discuss one or more issues, make decisions about what is to be done – and then not do enough to ensure that the various decisions are implemented. This may happen even when minutes are sent out listing what actions are to be undertaken and by whom.

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An action plan is often needed to ensure that decisions are implemented, as in this example. Graham worked as an assistant project manager on a construction site for a large sports centre, where a number of companies were sub-contracted to carry out different parts of the job, from digging the foundations, constructing the walls and roofs, to installing ceilings, screens, handrails, and ducting for wires and pipes. When each team finished work on a particular section they were supposed to leave it clean and tidy for the next team. Unfortunately, this didn’t always happen in practice, and although the issue was raised at various project meetings attended by representatives of the sub-contractors, nothing much was ever done about it. Matters finally came to a head when it became clear that the project wasn’t going to be completed on time. When the senior site managers began to look at all the factors causing delays, it became apparent that one of them was the untidy state in which sections were left by some teams. At a meeting held to discuss ways of reducing the delays, Graham was assigned the job of establishing a system to deal with this particular problem. He was told that he must consider this a priority, and have some proposals ready for discussion at a meeting the following week. Graham had recently heard about another construction site where a vigorous system of auditing had been introduced to good effect. At the other site, the leader of each team was given copies of an audit form containing over 40 questions about the state of the section he or she was working in. The team leader had to fill in the form at least twice a week and hand it in to the relevant assistant project manager. The team was expected to put right anything that they could – such as the piles of spare materials left lying around on the floor, or rubbish generally littering the floor. Any clearing up that required the involvement of more than one team, such as a serious leak leading to puddles of water on the floor, had to be organized by the assistant project manager. When the team was ready to move on to another section, it had to carry out a final audit, called the ‘handover audit’, and ensure that everything was as it should be. Graham decided that this was the way to proceed on his site, and prepared a short presentation for the next management meeting. His proposals got the go-ahead with the proviso that he prepare an action plan to discuss with his manager in three days time. If his manager approved, he was to begin implementation with the aim of having some obvious results in a month’s time. At the end of this process, Graham produced this action plan.

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ACTION PLAN Objective:To establish system for ensuring that all teams hand over sections fully fit to work in. Completion date: 30 August Actions

Staff required

Other resources required

Start date

End date

Write questions for audit form

Graham

5/8

10/8

Produce audit forms

Graham and one admin assistant

12/8

14/8

Organize meeting for team leaders to introduce them to forms

Graham and one admin assistant

12/8

14/8

Run meeting for team leaders

Graham and team leaders

15/8

15/8

Do practice audits with team leaders

Graham and team leaders

15/8

16/8

Team leaders complete two audits and hand in forms

Team leaders and assistant project managers

19/8

23/8

First handover audits carried out

Team leaders

26/8

30/8

Sections checked after first handover audits carried out

Assistant project managers and Graham

26/8

30/8

Activity 37

3 mins

In Graham’s action plan, the column headed ‘Other resources required’ has not been filled in. What other resources do you think each action requires? Make a note of them in the appropriate empty boxes.

In fact, not many additional resources are required at all. In order to produce the audit form, Graham will need access to a word processor and printer, plus plenty of paper. For the meeting he will need a suitable room and perhaps some audio-visual aids so that he can make a presentation. For other actions,

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plenty of audit forms will be needed. But the main resource is people, and their willingness or, in the case of Graham, determination, to implement the plan. If he succeeds, the time spent in meetings before and during implementation will be time well spent.

15 mins

Self-assessment 3

1

What are three of the main purposes of group meetings in organizations?

2

In preparing for a meeting you need to consider: 䊏 䊏 䊏

who should attend; when and where it will be held; what your role will be.

What else do you need to consider?

3

The following are items for a typical agenda, but in the wrong order. Indicate what the right order is by putting a number against each item. 䊏 䊏 䊏 䊏 䊏 䊏 䊏 䊏

4

Minutes of the last meeting Introductions Apologies for absence Project to streamline distribution process: review of progress Deviations from plan: discussion of what is to be done about them Date of next meeting Decisions on what’s to be done and by whom Any other business

Fill each of the gaps in the list of your responsibilities as a meeting’s chairperson with a suitable word from the following list. (One word is used more than once.) DECISION AGENDA

PARTICIPANTS POINT

TIMINGS

DECISION

OPPORTUNITY

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5

䊏

Introducing

䊏

Discussing any

䊏

Ensuring that the discussion.

䊏

Preventing any

䊏

Ensuring that everyone has the

䊏

Ensuring that participants keep to the

䊏

Ensuring that any

on an agenda. is followed without cutting off valuable from speaking too long. to contribute.

is made by general agreement.

being prepared to cut across people when necessary; speaking clearly and to the point; avoiding jargon; asking closed questions; adapting your body language to give the right signals; listening carefully.

How does an action plan help to ensure that decisions made at meetings are implemented?

Answers to these questions are on page 92.

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.

Decide which of the following statements are not correct and explain why. Being an effective contributor to a meeting means: a b c d e f

6

or asking them to introduce themselves.

Session C

6 Summary 䊏

Meetings of more than two people are held in organizations for a variety of reasons, of which the most important are to: 䊏 䊏 䊏

communicate information; contribute to management control; make decisions and solve problems.

䊏

At management control meetings, information collected during monitoring is reviewed, and decisions are made about any necessary modifications to operations.

䊏

Meetings to make decisions and solve problems need sufficient information if they are to achieve their purpose.

䊏

Ways in which meetings can go wrong include: 䊏 䊏 䊏 䊏 䊏 䊏 䊏

dealing with trivial issues at length; failing to deal with major issues adequately; being badly chaired; being dominated by arguments between factions; going on too long; drifting into digressions; failing to reach conclusions.

䊏

To help avoid these problems, careful preparation is needed.

䊏

In preparing for a meeting you need to consider: 䊏 䊏 䊏 䊏

䊏

If you are chairing a meeting you need to ensure that: 䊏 䊏 䊏 䊏 䊏

䊏

the agenda is followed without cutting off valuable discussion; no one dominates the meeting; everyone has the opportunity to contribute; participants keep to the point; any decisions are made by general agreement.

To be an effective contributor to a meeting you need to: 䊏 䊏 䊏 䊏 䊏

䊏

who should attend; when and where it will be held; what information participants should receive in advance; what your role will be.

be assertive; listen carefully; read other people’s body language and adapt your own to give the right signals; speak clearly and to the point; ask questions that will get an informative reply.

Drawing up an action plan plays an important role in ensuring that decisions made at meetings are implemented.

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Performance checks

1 Quick quiz Write down your answer in the space below to the following questions on Effective Meetings at Work. Question 1

What tells us whether a communication has been successful?

Question 2

List three kinds of questions that are generally not useful in interviews or one-to-one meetings.

Question 3

Why are open-ended questions so important in an interview or one-to-one meeting?

Question 4

In which of the following types of interview/one-to-one meeting should the interviewer take notes: a b c d

ⵧ ⵧ ⵧ ⵧ

counselling; disciplinary; grievance; appraisal?

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Question 5

Which of these can be objectives of a counselling interview? a b c d

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To make a decision about the person’s future. To offer the person advice. To help the person recognize the nature of his or her problems. to help him or her find a way of dealing with these problems.

ⵧ ⵧ ⵧ ⵧ

Question 6

What is the main purpose of a disciplinary interview?

Question 7

During a meeting you can receive feedback in various forms. One form of feedback is words. Name two other forms of feedback.

Question 8

If you don’t want to demoralize staff, there are two basic rules to follow in giving negative feedback. What are they?

Question 9

If you want to encourage people to give you feedback, you need to invite comments on what you do. Name two other things you should do.

Question 10

What are three of the main reasons for formal meetings in organizations?

Question 11

When organizing a meeting, one of the first things you need to decide is who should attend. What else do you need to decide in preparation?

Question 12

What are the standard formal items that normally appear on an agenda for a meeting?

Performance checks

Question 13

If, during a meeting, there is something you want to say on a particular topic, when is the most effective time to do so?

Question 14

In chairing a meeting, what should you aim to achieve by the end of it?

Question 15

Why is it usually so important to distribute minutes straight after a meeting?

Answers to these questions can be found on pages 93–5.

60 mins

2 Workbook assessment Read the following and then answer the questions that follow. Write your answers on a separate sheet of paper.

Kate is asked by her manager to arrange a meeting of representatives from seven different departments to discuss some problems that have occurred in processing customer orders. The objective is to draw up proposals for new revised procedures so as to prevent these problems recurring. Kate has never organized a formal meeting like this before, and feels rather unsure of herself.

䊏 䊏

What will Kate need to do in organizing this meeting? What difficulties is she likely to encounter and how might she cope with them?

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Kate’s manager is expecting to chair the meeting, but at the last moment, he is called to an unscheduled meeting with the directors. He tells Kate to chair it herself and make sure that it comes to some decisions that will be acted upon. Kate has never chaired a formal meeting before, though she has been present at several. She does not feel very confident about this meeting, particularly since most of the people attending will be more senior than her.

䊏 䊏 䊏

What will Kate’s main tasks be? What difficulties is she likely to encounter? How can she ensure that the meeting will come to some decisions that will be acted upon?

60 mins

3 Work-based assignment The time guide for this assignment gives you an approximate idea of how long it is likely to take you to write up your findings. You will need to spend some additional time thinking about the assignment, making preliminary notes and talking to one or more colleagues. The results of your efforts should be presented on separate sheets of paper. You should not need more than two or three.

S/NVQ C1.1, D1.3

The assignment many provide the basis of appropriate evidence for your S/NVQ portfolio. It is designed to help you demonstrate your ability to: 䊏 䊏

What you have to do

For this Assignment, identify a meeting of staff that you will need to arrange and lead in the near future. 1

80

communicate; influence others.

Write a few notes on the purpose and objectives of the meeting.

Performance checks

2

Arrange the meeting, taking into account the advice you have been given in this workbook on: 䊏 䊏 䊏 䊏 䊏

3

how to decide who should attend; what factors to consider when deciding on a venue; how to go about establishing a time for the meeting; what documentation participants should receive in advance; what a good agenda consists of.

Prepare to lead the meeting by: 䊏

䊏

studying any relevant documents, including the minutes of a previous meeting; if you don’t know the participants already, finding out what you can about them and the sort of views they are likely to have.

4

After the meeting, make notes on the questions below concerning your performance as leader/chairperson and ways in which it could be improved. If possible, ask a colleague to make notes on your performance during the meeting, using the same list of questions.

5

Compare your notes with those of your colleague and discuss ways in which you might improve your performance as leader/chairperson in a meeting.

Questions to consider during meeting

Question

Notes on how you performed

Ideas for improvement

1 Did you establish that everyone is clear about the meeting’s purpose and objectives? 2 Did you establish general agreement on the time to be devoted to each item on the agenda? 3 How successful were you in sticking to the agenda without cutting off useful discussion mid-flow? 4 How successful were you in ensuring that no one participant spoke too long? 5 How successful were you in ensuring that everyone had the opportunity to make a contribution? 6 How successful were you in ensuring that people kept to the point?

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Question

Notes on how you performed

Ideas for improvement

7 How successful were you in preventing arguments? 8 Did you end the meeting on time? 9 Did you end the meeting with its objectives achieved? 10 Did you stay calm throughout the meeting? 11 Were you firm without being authoritarian or bossy? 12 Did you use the skill of summarizing to good effect, e.g. to bring a drifting discussion back to the point or to push the meeting on? 13 Were you sufficiently aware of other people’s body language? How did you respond to it, e.g. to signs of boredom or anger? 14 Were you sufficiently aware of your own body language? What adjustments did you make? What messages was it intended to convey, or actually conveyed?

What you should write

䊏

Write a concise account of your preparations for the meeting that includes the following. 䊏 䊏 䊏 䊏 䊏 䊏

䊏 䊏

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How you decided who should attend. How you decided on the venue. How you established the time. The agenda. Details of any other documents sent to participants. How you prepared yourself.

Describe your performance as chair, taking into account both your own and your colleague’s comments. Outline the various ways in which you might improve your performance as chairperson at the next meeting you lead.

Reflect and review

1 Reflect and review Now that you have completed your work on Effective Meetings at Work, let us review the workbook objectives. Our first objective was that: 䊏

you will be better able to communicate effectively in one-to-one situations using the most appropriate method. There are many different situations in which a meeting, whether informal or formal, is the best way of communicating with staff. But meetings take time and it’s always worth considering whether another form of communication, such as a phone conversation, a memo or e-mail, is more appropriate. Once you’ve decided that a meeting is required, there are a number of basic skills you always need to employ, such as listening and questioning effectively, reading body language, and taking notes. Particular types of one-to-one meeting have additional requirements. In a counselling interview, for example, you need to be able to demonstrate sympathy and support, while in a disciplinary interview you need to concentrate on being firm while not intimidating the other person. Both types of interview require a degree of sensitivity that you may need to work at developing within yourself. 䊏

Think about the recent meetings you’ve had with individual members of staff. Were they all necessary? Would another form of communication have been just as effective? Alternatively, have there been situations where you’ve used, say, an e-mail or phone conversation to communicate when a meeting would have been more appropriate? Are there any general

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guidelines you can draw up for yourself on when it is best to have meetings with individuals?

䊏

Reviewing recent meetings with individual members of staff, what skills do you need to develop to make these meetings more effective in the future?

The second objective was that: 䊏

you will be better able to give and receive feedback as a means of improving communication and performance. Feedback plays an essential role in the communication process, even if it’s only an acknowledgement that a message or piece of information has been received. Failure to provide such an acknowledgement can lead to timewasting and inefficiency. 䊏

Do you always acknowledge receiving a message or piece of information? If not, how do you decide that it’s unnecessary to do so? In what sort of situations at work do you now think you should always provide feedback as part of the communication process?

Feedback also has an essential role to play in improving performance. This doesn’t mean that you should concentrate on pointing out the mistakes staff have made or what they could do better. To do so could have a demoralizing effect and result in exactly the opposite of what you’re trying to achieve. It’s important always to give positive, as well as negative, feedback, and not make too many critical comments at any one time. 䊏

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Do you give enough feedback to your staff? How could you improve the way in which you give feedback so that it encourages staff to improve their performance?

Reflect and review

It’s often hard to receive feedback – and staff often feel uncomfortable about giving feedback to their manager on his or her performance. 䊏

What might you do to encourage your staff to give you more feedback so that you can improve your performance as a manager?

Our next objective was that: 䊏

you will be better able to organize and run meetings to achieve their objectives. There is nothing particularly difficult about organizing meetings: it is essentially a matter of following some basic guidelines. Running a meeting can be more difficult until you’ve had some practice and begun to feel more confident about it. Whenever you attend a meeting chaired by someone else, it’s a good idea to take note of the strategies employed to keep things moving along. What works and what doesn’t work in attempting to run a successful meeting? 䊏

Is there anyone in your organization whom you consider to be particularly good at running meetings? What strategies do they employ to achieve the meeting’s objectives? (If you’re not sure about the answer to this question now, consider it at the next meeting you go to chaired by this person.)

Participants have as much responsibility as the chairperson in ensuring that a meeting achieves its objectives. Not preparing properly, taking a negative attitude, attempting to dominate, or failing to listen, are among the many things contributors can do to jeopardize the success of a meeting. As a manager you should know that most meetings take place for a good reason and that it’s essential for you to take a positive attitude to them.

Hence the final objective was as follows. 䊏

You will be better able to make effective contributions to meetings. An effective contribution is one that helps the work of the meeting and possibly helps achieve the objectives of the contributor. Thorough preparation is the key. This means reading the documentation you receive, perhaps doing

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your own research, and discussing the issues with your team or whoever else you may be representing. 䊏

Think back to your last meeting at which you were a contributor. Did you prepare properly? Devise some basic guidelines for yourself on how to prepare for a similar meeting in the future.

2 Action plan Use this plan to further develop for yourself a course of action you want to take. Make a note in the left-hand column of the issues or problems you want to tackle, and then decide what you want to do, and make a note in column 2. The resources you need might include time, materials, information or money. You may need to negotiate for some of them, but others could be easy to acquire, like half an hour of somebody’s time, or a chapter of a book. Put whatever you need in column 3. No plan means anything without a timescale, so put a realistic target completion date in column 4.

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Desired outcomes

1 Issues

Actual outcomes

2 Action

3 Resources

4 Target completion

Reflect and review

3 Extensions Extension 1

Book Author Edition Publisher

Effective Feedback Skills Tim Russell Second edition 1998 Kogan Page

This book provides practical guidance on the role of debriefing, on and offthe-job feedback, and summarizing sessions. Complete with checklists and ideas for creating a supportive training climate, the book demonstrates how to give effective feedback with tact, and shows how to deal with defensiveness. Extension 2

Book Author Edition Publisher

Giving and Receiving Feedback : Building Constructive Communication (A Fifty-Minute Series Book) Patti Hathaway Revised edition 1998 Crisp Publications

Few of us are good at giving or receiving criticism. This book gives advice on handling criticism and typical responses, and explains how to give meaningful criticism to others. Extension 3

Book Author Edition Publisher

Managing Meetings Tim Hindle 1998 Dorling Kindersley

Good advice on how to prepare for, and contribute to, meetings – covering topics such as setting the agenda, organizing the location and seating arrangements, taking an active role and listening to others – is provided by this book. A chapter on chairing meetings offers advice on, for example, keeping order, setting and managing the pace, and using formal procedures. A special section is devoted to deciding whether you need a meeting at all. Extension 4

Book Author Edition Publisher

The Meetings Pocketbook Patrick Forsyth 1996 Management Pocketbooks

This is an easy-to-read guide to all the do’s and don’t’s of making meetings successful. It covers advance preparation, chairing, controlling discussions, effective participation and the use of minutes.

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Extension 5

Book Author Edition Publisher

Taking Minutes of Meetings Joanna Gutmann 2001 Kogan Page

This book is a practical reference book written from the point of view of the minute-taker and assuming no help from anybody. Advice is given on: setting up a meeting; sections of a meeting; the agenda; personal preparation; taking notes; the minutes; and recording decisions and actions.

4 Answers to self-assessment questions Self-assessment 1 on pages 25–8

1

It is NOT TRUE that if you want to communicate with one member of staff, there is never any more suitable way of doing this than holding a one-to-one meeting. In some situations it may well be better to use another form of communication, such as a phone conversation or an e-mail. Part of the skill of being an effective communicator is recognizing the most suitable form of communication in any situation.

2

It is NOT TRUE that the great thing about one-to-one meetings is that they can be held anywhere. You often need to pay great attention to where a one-to-one meeting is to be held. The venue often needs to be quiet and private. You also need to consider whether your own office or a more neutral space is most appropriate.

3

It’s TRUE that your posture is part of your body language and can have a major effect on the impact of your message. Slumping in your chair gives the impression that you’re not particularly interested in what’s being said; sitting upright gives exactly the opposite message.

4

It’s NOT TRUE that a sure sign of a person being not at all nervous is that he or she sits with their arms folded across their chest. Sitting with your arms folded can, in fact, be a sign of nervousness if it is accompanied by other gestures, such as sitting with legs crossed, leaning back, and diverting one’s gaze.

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5

In an informal meeting with a member of staff: a you should listen carefully to what the other person has to say, and give consideration to any QUESTIONS they have; b stay focused on the REASON for the meeting; c avoid using it to reveal the extent of your EXPERTISE on a subject; d avoid using JARGON; e use QUESTIONS to check that they are following what you are saying.

6

The types of meeting in which you should aim to get each of the stated sets of information are: a b c d

appraisal meeting; disciplinary interview; grievance interview; counselling interview.

7

a ‘Have you made progress towards achieving your performance objectives?’ is a CLOSED question. b ‘What happened to make you walk out of the meeting yesterday?’ is an OPEN question. c ‘Do you like working in this department?’ is a CLOSED question. d ‘How did you feel when the customer started shouting at you yesterday?’ is an OPEN question. e ‘Would you like to tell me what happened to spark off your argument with Sam yesterday?’ is a CLOSED question, though the person to whom it’s addressed could treat it as open.

8

Options a (listen carefully), d (take notes) and e (draw attention to the effect the person’s problems are having at work) are all good advice to offer to someone in a counselling interview. Option b (don’t ask prompting questions) is not good as it can be very productive to prompt. Option c (offer advice) is not good as your aim in a counselling interview should be to guide the other person to finding a solution themselves rather than telling them what the solution is. For the same reason, option f (tell the other person he or she must see a trained counsellor) is not good. Seeing a trained counsellor can be a solution – or at least part of one – but it must be something that a person decides to do themselves rather than being told to do.

9

The purposes of a disciplinary interview are as follows. a To encourage staff to improve their work when it has fallen below acceptable standards; b To establish whether any disciplinary action should be taken.

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Reflect and review

10

Self-assessment 2 pages 47–8

1

a The member of staff obviously has a problem so an informal one-to-one meeting is needed – possibly a counselling meeting. b If the e-mail server has broken down the quickest way to get the sales figures to the manager in another office is by fax. c The best way of responding to the irate customer is to make a phone call in which you apologize for the delay and promise prompt action. This will demonstrate your concern more effectively than a letter that will take one or two days to arrive. d You need to hold a meeting of all your staff to announce a major upheaval and discuss the possible implications. A letter will not be sufficient as it will not give staff a chance to ask questions and express their concerns. The complete diagram of the communication process is as follows. Purpose

Action

Sender

Communication (information, messages)

Receiver

(receiver)

Feedback

(sender)

2

Feedback is important in the communication process because it tells us that the communication has worked and achieved what the sender of the message set out to achieve.

3

NEGATIVE feedback on its own generally has a bad effect. It’s usually best to start with a POSITIVE comment before saying something NEGATIVE, and to end with another POSITIVE comment.

4

Too many NEGATIVE comments can cause the other person to become defensive and be DEFENSIVE.

5

Criticizing people for something they can do nothing about will have a DEMORALIZING effect.

6

Avoid being VAGUE about what the problems are.

7

The item that is not supposed to be discussed in an appraisal meeting is b, complaints about conditions.

8

Ways of encouraging people to give you feedback include: 䊏 䊏 䊏 䊏

inviting comments on what you do; listening open-mindedly to what is said in response; asking questions in a non-challenging way; avoiding self-justification.

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Reflect and review

Self-assessment 3 pages 73–4

1

Among the main purposes of meetings are: 䊏 䊏 䊏

communicating information; management control; making decisions and solving problems.

2

In preparing for a meeting you also need to consider what information the participants should receive in advance.

3

The correct order for the agenda is as follows. 䊏 䊏 䊏 䊏 䊏 䊏 䊏 䊏

4

The responsibilities of the chairperson include the following. 䊏 䊏 䊏

䊏 䊏 䊏 䊏

5

Apologies for absence (1) Introductions (2) Minutes of the last meeting (3) Project to streamline distribution process: review of progress (4) Deviations from plan: discussion of what is to be done about them (5) Decisions on what’s to be done and by whom (6) Any other business (7) Date of next meeting (8)

Introducing PARTICIPANTS or asking them to introduce themselves. Discussing any TIMINGS on an agenda. Ensuring that the AGENDA is followed without cutting off valuable discussion. Preventing any PARTICIPANTS from speaking too long. Ensuring that everyone has the OPPORTUNITY to contribute. Ensuring that participants keep to the POINT. Ensuring that any DECISION is made by general agreement.

Being an effective contributor to a meeting does not mean: a being prepared to cut across people when necessary; d asking closed questions. Rather than cutting across people you should always be calm and polite. If you only ask closed questions you will not get informative replies. You need open questions to get these.

6

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An action plan helps to ensure that decisions are implemented by establishing what is to be done, by whom, and by when.

Reflect and review

5 Answers to activities Activity 6 on page 10

Among the questions you might ask are the following. 䊏 䊏 䊏 䊏

䊏

What did your job as sales assistant consist of? What did you like and dislike about the job? How did you deal with difficult customers? What experience did you gain as a sales assistant that you think is relevant to your work in Customer Relations? Why did you decide to leave your job in the Furniture Department?

6 Answers to the quick quiz Answer 1

Feedback tells us whether a communication has been successful?

Answer 2

The kinds of questions that are not useful are leading questions, longwinded and confusing questions, and multi-questions, where several separate questions are strung together. Closed questions may or may not be useful, depending on whether the interviewer wants straight factual answers or not.

Answer 3

Open-ended questions (those that begin how, why etc) are vital for getting the other person to talk openly and explain things more fully.

Answer 4

The interviewer should take accurate notes in all of them – that is, counselling, disciplinary, grievance and appraisal interviews.

Answer 5

You should have ticked options (c) and (d). Counselling interviews are not about giving advice (b) or making a decision about the person’s future (a), though it is valid to use the interview to obtain information that you may use later in making a decision, for example, whether to offer additional training, or to make the matter a disciplinary issue.

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Reflect and review

Answer 6

The main purpose of a disciplinary interview is to encourage the member of staff to improve their standards of work when they have fallen below those laid out in their job description. It is not to punish the member of staff, though the interview may end with a formal oral warning.

Answer 7

During a meeting you can receive feedback in the form of body language and tone of voice, as well as the actual words spoken.

Answer 8

If you don’t want to demoralize staff, two basic rules to follow in giving negative feedback are that you balance it with something positive, and that you don’t make too many negative comments.

Answer 9

Among the things you should do to encourage people to give you feedback are to: 䊏 䊏 䊏

Answer 10

Three of the main reasons for formal meetings in organizations are: 䊏 䊏 䊏

Answer 11

䊏 䊏

when and where the meeting will be held; what information participants need to receive in advance; what your role in the meeting will be.

The standard formal items that normally appear on an agenda for a meeting are: 䊏 䊏 䊏 䊏 䊏

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communicating information; management control; making decisions and solving problems.

When organizing a meeting, you need to establish not only who is going to attend but also: 䊏

Answer 12

listen open-mindedly to what people say; ask questions in a non-challenging way; avoid self-justification.

apologies for absence; minutes of the last meeting; matters arising; any other business; date of next meeting.

Answer 13

The most effective time to say something on a topic fairly early on. You should then listen to what others have to say and speak again when you have a thought-out response to make.

Answer 14

In chairing a meeting, you should aim to ensure that all the objectives have been achieved by the end of it.

Reflect and review

Answer 15

It’s important to distribute minutes straight after a meeting because people are expected to check that they are an accurate record of the meeting. But, more important, is that prompt minutes ensure that there is as little delay as possible in getting started on any actions that have been agreed at the meeting.

7 Certificate Completion of the certificate by an authorized person shows that you have worked through all the parts of this workbook and satisfactorily completed the assessments. The certificate provides a record of what you have done that may be used for exemptions or as evidence of prior learning against other nationally certificated qualifications. Pergamon Flexible Learning and ILM are always keen to refine and improve their products. One of the key sources of information to help this process is people who have just used the product. If you have any information or views, good or bad, please pass these on.

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