University Of Minnesota Extension Back To School Means Back To Meeting Schedules

Press release from the University of Minnesota Extension:

September 7, 2021

In many communities, it seems life revolves around the school year. With school back in session, so are meetings for community groups and organizations that often plan work around summer and vacation schedules.

If your committees are reconvening — or even if the work is ongoing — this could be a good time to think about the health of your group.

Perhaps you haven’t given much thought to the health of the committee(s) you serve on, but you might have found yourself or your group caught in one of the seven common traps as described in Committees That Work: Common Traps and Creative Solutions. Ask yourself the following questions and see if any sound familiar.

Seven common committee traps

Each of the above seven traps has solutions and practical guidelines for helping your committee get out of them … or better yet, to avoid them in the first place.

For example, if conflict or challenging personalities are a problem for your group, then taking time to understand the source of the conflict or learning the general guidelines for dealing with difficult behaviors is important.

Or if meetings keep going off track, then the solution could be using basic meeting facilitation skills to keep the group focused. Another solution is to invite committee members to provide feedback on meetings by doing a short evaluation to identify specific areas where you may need to make changes to make meetings more productive. 

Learning strategies for effective leadership, management and facilitation of meetings will help you do your part in contributing to the health and ultimate success of your committees.

For more information, check out  tips for leading online meetings, planning an effective meeting agenda, best methods for making group decisions, or one of the other topics in University of Minnesota Extension’s public engagement strategies series.

This press release was produced by the University of Minnesota Extension. The views expressed here are the author’s own.