I Googled a guide to what makes meetings work and found this excellent list of ingredients prepared by The University of La Verne, a private research university in California.
The meeting I attended today was an example of what happens when practically all these guidelines are disregarded .
It followed the same pattern as countless others I have experienced since I started work at the University of Bologna 15 years ago.
These are some of the main defects of todays encounter which was (I think!) about planning a preparation courses and tests for primary school English language teachers:
- There was no fixed agenda – attendees were simply officially summoned by email.
- The man who chaired the meeting arrived 25 minutes late without making any apologies.
- He shook hands (limply) with all eight of the attendees but didn’t introduce himself or ask for our names ( I hadn’t met him before and still don’t know his name!).
- Mr X spoke for about half an hour without any statements such as “The purpose of this meeting is…..” OR “What I wanted to discuss is….”.
