Tips for Running an Effective Meeting (Even for Stratas and Non-Profits)

Over the past few years, Langley City’s Corporate Officer and Council have been updating our processes and procedures as part of our overall “Achieve Organizational Excellence” core focus area for the City. As you can imagine, meetings are important to local governments as this is how business gets done. How we manage these meetings and ourselves during them is important. While I normally don’t post too much detail on process improvement work at the City, I’ve attended and participated in enough government, strata, and non-profit meetings (spicy and not) over the years to know that this information may be useful for many other community members. Better-run meetings lead to better outcomes.

There are key things to consider for meetings to be successful and to protect the rights of different people or stakeholders.

Majority Viewpoints: The majority viewpoint is what moves forward.

Minority Viewpoints: People with a different viewpoint from the majority viewpoint have the right to be heard and to present their views.

People Absent from the Meeting: People must be informed of when and where a meeting will take place with adequate notice and have the right to know the outcomes of a meeting.

All Individuals Attending a Meeting: Following the correct procedure, everyone who has the right to participate in a meeting can participate, put forward recommendations, and vote.

The Organization for which the Meeting is Held: The organization has the right to good governance and well-run meetings.

Now, I know these fundamental principles seem super basic, but I’ve seen meetings go off the rails because these principles aren’t followed. I’ve attended strata meetings where people didn’t have the right to fully participate, where people didn’t accept the outcomes of a vote, and when things degraded into yelling matches.

Now diving a little deeper, there are some best practices to help ensure your meetings will run smoothly.

Order and Efficiency: Have an agenda and follow it. Add suggested timings for each topic to ensure the meeting runs on time. The meeting chair must ensure that the meeting runs on time and adheres to the fundamental principle.

Focus: Ensure that you have a focused discussion that avoids repetition or rehashing. Focus on the topic at hand.

Equality: Ensure that everyone has the opportunity to share a view, and also limit the time someone can speak on each topic. This protects both majority and minority viewpoints.

Decorum: Do not yell, use crude language, question someone's motives, or interrupt someone who is sharing a viewpoint that you don’t support. When you feel the temperature rising in a room, it is okay to ask for a quick break to help cool things down.

You may find yourself in a meeting where someone is intentionally creating chaos and disruption. I’ve seen this happen in strata meetings I’ve attended in the past. By incorporating some of the recommendations outlined in this post into your meetings, you can help ensure that they run as smoothly as possible, allowing for good discussion and informed decision-making. If you want to learn more, I suggest you read the book “101 Boardroom Problems and How to Solve Them.”

Langley City Council committed to continuing the process of improving our meetings at the October 20th meeting.