Meetings that Will Save the World: or How I learned to stop worrying and love the M-bomb.

We’ve all had to do this before: get up and drag ourselves to the next, seemingly pointless weekly 3-hour meeting of Students for this-or-that-Cause. In fact, this may be so familiar that what I’m about to say will seem shocking.

Meetings do not have to be a dreadful experience! For example, think of the best meeting you’ve ever been to. I’ll wait …

Done? Great! How did you feel when you left the meeting? Did you feel rejuvenated? Excited?

Alright, now for the scary part. Think of the worst meeting you’ve ever had. How did you feel then? Burned out? Disempowered?

What was the big difference in the two meetings?: In one, stuff got done. In the other:

a. Endless off topic conversations.
b. Lasting three to four hours with no clear decisions or outcome.
c. Leaving with no clear sense of what’s happening next.
d. Soliloquies.
e. Any, all or part of the above.

Thankfully, we aren’t doomed to meetings like this for all eternity. But our groups will continue to have these kinds of interactions until we seriously commit to having good meetings!

Meetings are where our groups come together to get stuff done. All those big actions we think about having aren’t going to be planned in thin air; they are going to be planned at meetings! If we want fun, exciting things to happen in our movement, we need to have good, well-facilitated meetings that can foster accountability, strong relationships and support amongst the members of the group.

Adrienne Marie Brown of Ruckus Society said, “I have a deep faith in the power of facilitation to break, stop or slow movement building down … to even make the movement cry. ” I think this is a powerful and accurate statement. Movements are a collection of organizations and individuals moving along a path toward a set of common goals. If groups in the movement suffer because they are having long, demoralizing meetings, than the movement will suffer. Meetings that don’t go anywhere don’t take the group anywhere and the whole movement suffers.

But fear not! Centuries of fighting for a better world have taught us a lot, including how to have productive meetings! And there’s a cornucopia of good practices and resources to help us make meetings actually fun (or at least productive)!

1. First things first. What needs to get done at this meeting? Each meeting should have clear CONCRETE goals that should be met. Organize the agenda AROUND the goals. When planning the meeting out, try framing it like this: “By the end of the meeting, our group will have decided/planned/solved …” When conversation strays from these goals, check with the group about what it wants to do: “We gotta figure out tonight how we’re going to pie Senator Sauron. Do we wanna keep talking about Guitar Hero for a couple minutes, or do we want to table it for future discussion?”

2. Commit to having better meetings! As a group ask yourselves “What are good meetings practices? What will make this meeting better than the last?” Sometimes it helps to start the meeting with a list of “Agreements,” that is each member agrees to follow.

3. Not everything has to be done in one meeting (although, sometimes it’s best if it does.) Only do what needs to be done in a meeting. Movements take time and successful movements aren’t made of tired and burned out change agents. If a LOT needs to get done in a single meeting, consider making a day or an event out of it, complete with food and snacks, games and an after meeting CELEBRATION!

4. Don’t be afraid to ask for help. A facilitator doesn’t need to do everything at once. Ask people to fill roles that need to be filled for the meeting, like a note-taker, timekeeper, stack-keeper to keep order of who is talking, or a scribe to illustrate or map brainstorms. If you’re a newer facilitator try asking for somebody more experienced to share their lessons with you, review your agenda, or to even facilitate with you and let you follow their lead. Also, for large and important meetings, consider if a meeting needs an outside facilitator. This can be especially useful when for meetings that could get very heated. An outside facilitator can be impartial and might be able to bring insight into the issue that people inside the group might’ve not caught.

5. Move around! Have fun! Tell jokes! Bring snacks! We’re doing important work, but that doesn’t mean we can’t have fun and joke around. Celebrate decisions, clap and applaud! Positive reinforcement seriously helps. Take breaks when people look tired or are starting to wane in participation.

These are only a couple of the better lessons I’ve learned in my time facilitating. Many of these skills I’ve picked up from several sources, including

“Meeting Facilitation: The Art and Craft of a Good Meeting,” Adrienne Marie Brown, Ruckus Society.
“Meeting Facilitation: The No Magic Method,” Berit Lakey, Training for Change

Better meetings are an investment in time and energy, but having them can save whole organizations from the demons of burnout and despair. Great meetings keep groups on their toes and maintain energy and morale for a strong, winning movement!

Aaron Petcoff studies History and Spanish at Wayne State University in Detroit, MI. He is a member of Students for a Democratic Society and the Student Environmental Action Coalition. He blogs at http://petcoff.wordpress.com and can be e-mailed at apetcoff@wayne.edu.