Chairing Meetings: Upright and without Stabilisers

An article in the Changing Conversations: Changing Outcomes programme.

What have taking your first steps, learning to ride a bike and chairing a meeting got in common?

You may not remember the first. Apparently, I was a ‘late walker’. And when it came to the bike, I remember being grateful for the stabilizers. Perhaps I was just cautious, trying to avoid pain or discomfort. Maybe caution and discomfort are common to these experiences.

When you look at the journey to mastering each of these skills, you find that they share some common features. And what emerges are the qualities of what it takes to chair a meeting well.

Here’s what I picked out:

Balance: Chairs can dominate and end up taking over a meeting. Lean the other way and they may invite others to do so. Neither of these is useful. A sense of balance when Chairing means knowing your role, your group and when and how to intervene. And this keeps the meeting and your group upright.

Momentum: Chairs can get side tracked by their own interests. Or taken down a side road by someone in the meeting. These can lead to sideways movement when forwards is the desired direction. Momentum is created by a Chair who can manage themselves and others well, acknowledge the deviation, point to map and bring the group back to the topic at hand.

The wobble: Chairs can be disturbed by something going wrong, a disharmony, disagreement, emotions. They can also choose to ignore these and plough on. But these moments are all Ok. Listen for them. Find a way to verbally acknowledge them and make a suggestion on a way forward. This will get you back up and moving again.

The importance of others: You didn’t learn to walk or ride a bike alone. You had supporters. As a Chair you have the same thing in your group. Everyone at a meeting has a role to play in delivering the outcome. It’s not all on you. Invite others to take their turn at supporting the outcome. Some may be waiting to be asked.

Coming to a complete stop mid movement: Ah, that moment, just before you topple to the side or plonk down. Remember that? In a meeting, this could be silence. And yet silence doesn’t mean a topple or plonk moment is inevitable. It could be that people are thinking. Something could be happening in the silence, for you, or for others. Hold the silence. Let whatever is coming, emerge. And if it doesn’t then invite it to come out to play. The lights will turn green and you’ll be able to start peddling again.

Beginnings and endings: Spend time on these. And don’t rush them. Before we walk, we stand up, survey the territory, look ahead, check for support. And when we pedal, we need to be able to come to a safe stop. When it comes to Chairing, make a little space for your group to do the same, at the start, to speak, say hello. And at the end to congratulate on progress in the meeting, look ahead and invite final words.

Learnability: For a Chair every meeting is a chance to learn. Just like walking or riding a bike, you had a few goes before it stuck. And this is true of Chairing. You can and will become better at it. By paying attention to your group, who they are, what works, what doesn’t and adjusting your approach accordingly.

They have more in common than you think. And we all learnt to walk and probably ride a bike. And many other things beside. Remember that feeling, when you ‘get it’? It’s worth the effort. And how much easier and how much more fun the journey is for you as a Chair upright, and without stabilisers.

Do you want to become a more comfortable, confident chair? If so, why not come along to my Changing Conversations: Changing Outcomes Masterclass: Effective Chairing: Making Meetings More Productive