Making Meetings Work



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We have all attended meetings that were boring, mindless and profoundly ineffective. Meetings don’t have to be a waste of time. Rather, they can be productive if the leader or chairperson practices these five strategies and gets down to the business of running the meeting instead of being run by it. People will then leave the meeting with smiles, not frowns on their faces.

Introductions.
If people don’t know each other, allow participants about 30 seconds to introduce themselves to the group. You can also have a quick progress update to allow everyone air time in the beginning of the meeting.

Ground rules.
Have participants agree on ground rules, or expectations for this particular meeting. These simple rules of the road, not only set the standards, but also are gentle reminders to those who are taking a different road or direction. Some examples are: “One conversation at a time,” or “We will come to consensus on these particular issues,” or “What is said in this room, stays in this room.”

Parking lot.
When a non-agenda issue threatens to take over the discussion, stop the meeting and write, with permission from the group, this new issue on a wall chart called unfinished business. By doing this you acknowledge the item but don’t address it immediately. Parking lot issues are discussed at the end of the meeting or at a later date.

Questions.
To structure an orderly discussion of each agenda item, ask questions that address these facets of an issue: What are the facts? What are the pros and the cons? What other options are there? Where should the decision be made...at the committee level or by the entire group? What might be the next steps?

Breaks.
People work better for longer periods of time when they are able to take short breaks, no longer than 5 or 10 minutes. Breaks are a good time to get feedback on the progress of the meeting or talk with people who have been antagonistic, disruptive, or unusually silent. It’s better to take a break, take the pulse, and regroup then to doggedly push on despite a sense that the meeting is getting out of hand.



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Chats with Kelly Gotlieb, "The" Internationally Renowned Pioneer in Computing - Kelly talks about his remarkable family

This is the next blog in the continuing series of interviews with top-echelon and renowned professionals. In this blog, I interview Calvin C. (Kelly) Gotlieb, C.M., M.A., PhD.D. (University of Toronto), D. Math. (Hon., University of Waterloo), D. Eng. (Hon., Technical University of Nova Scotia); Order of Canada; Fellow CIPS (FCIPS); Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, the British Computer Society and the Association for Computing Machinery.

The ACM has an array of special honours and awards each year and I did an interview with Kelly on the ACM Awards. Kelly has chaired or co-chaired the ACM Awards Committee for sometime and continues this work today. I had the good fortune to meet up with Kelly at the the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair or ISEF that ran in May in San Jose where we were judges. In June, I joined Kelly at the ACM Awards Committee meeting and Awards Banquet in San Francisco where past interviewee Chuck Thacker received his Turing Award, the Nobel Prize of Computing. I took some candid shots at the awards banquet with my Smartphone Smile. The first is Chuck Thacker holding his award and the second is of Kelly.

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In this interview, Kelly shares stories about his remarkable family.

Enjoy!
Stephen Ibaraki

Kelly Gotlieb is currently Professor Emeritus in Computer Science and in the Faculty of Information Studies at the University of Toronto (UT). He is a computing pioneer, whose innovations and accomplishments helped lay the foundation of an entire worldwide industry, educational stream, and profession. His contributions are so profound and their impact so diverse and in so many areas that the lasting value cannot be comprehended. Have a look at this blog to find out more: http://blogs.technet.com/cdnitmanagers/archive/2006/09/29/459971.aspx

To listen to the interview, click on this MP3 file link

DISCUSSION:

Interview Time Index (MM:SS) and Topic

:00:41:
Kelly, please share your insights about your early family life before you were 20 and how this shaped your future?
"....I guess I was a geek before that word entered into our vocabulary....I did well in school but wasn't conscious of being a geek because I thought that was what everybody did...."

:03:20:
You had a wonderful person you met in your life, pretty early on. Can you share with us how you met Phyllis?
"....I took to her right away and proposed after about two months. She said no because she was in school then, and we didn't in fact get married until about two years later....When I was very young I had the good sense to make a conscious decision that I had to marry someone who I could talk to all my life....and that certainly happened...."

:04:48:
Kelly talks about the many contributions of his late wife, Phyllis Gotlieb.
".....She eventually wrote 18 books - poetry and science fiction and she received international recognition for those. Her books and short stories have been translated into a dozen languages....The premier science fiction award is called the 'Sunburst Award' and that was named after her first book which was really considered a classic...."

:09:53:
Kelly shares with us about his three children, son Leo Gotlieb, and daughters Margaret Gotlieb and Jane Lipson.

:14:17:
Do you have any closing thoughts about family and what this has meant to you?
"....Phyllis said I was born to be a grandfather and now that I have four and three wonderful children, I feel truly blessed...."



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