Tuesday 21st February 2012 - Making meetings think creatively

Today I have been involved in two discussions. In fact, both of them could be described as discussions about discussions. Both were about gaining the space to think about some of the bigger issues affecting us.  The question is how to gain the space to think about these matters that go beyond the everyday concerns that take up most people's regular hours. And a related question is how to construct agendas that open up the possibilities of thinking differently.

This morning we had one of the regular (although not frequent) meetings labelled UEB-HoDs.  These involve the members of the University's Executive Board, along with the heads of academic departments, certain key faculty figures such as the Directors of Research and Innovation, Learning and Teaching, and Operations, and the heads of professional services departments. Much of the discussion was around the value of our meetings, and the sorts of topics that ought to be covered.     When  I started out as a PVC these meetings had a Politburo style - in others words, the executive sat in a long line facing everyone else and the whole meeting progressed through statements from members of the executive followed by questions from 'the floor'.  I take the credit for getting the format changed so that we all now sit around round tables - but the spirit of the executive passing out information to the others is still too prevalent,in my opinion.  Today, through discussions at each table, we started to get to the view that these meetings ought to be two way channels of communication whereby all those present can put forward ideas for further discussion at the Executive  Board, rather than just being receivers of information.

This evening I had arranged a dinner for the Faculty Directors of Learning and Teaching, and the head of Learning and Teaching Services, with the aim of moving away from the run of the mill business that we often discuss and to brainstorm very large scale changes that the university might want to make over the next few years in its teaching provision.  But with such a discussion there was a need to define some sort of agenda.  The Head of LeTS and I ended up by specifying four possible avenues for major change in order to start the discussion going.  Actually once tongues had been loosened I sat back and said very little for the first 30 minutes while others present played with ideas.

But weeks will now go by without any real opportunity to take up the big ideas from either of today's meetings.  Should we reserve one day a month to move away from the everyday and consider the bigger picture?  And in doing so how should we ensure that we generate genuine discussion and not just one way communication? Sometimes it's as hard to get these things right with colleagues across the institution as it is to facilitate optimum levels of discussion in student seminars.