by Daniel B. Griffith, J.D., SPHR, SHRM-SCP
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Boards and committees must keep formal meeting minutes as a matter of public record. Other groups have no such requirements but simply desire to maintain a written accounting, whether they call it minutes, notes, summaries, or other term. Required or not, the process can get out of hand and become counterproductive, whether due to recorder inexperience, political infighting, a CYA mentality, or any number of other miscalculations.
Written records of deliberations provide assurance of reliability and consistency, but that only pertains to well-functioning groups. I’ve worked with groups experiencing interpersonal conflict and found, on occasion, that their process for formalizing deliberations says a lot about how and why conflict has evolved and created dysfunction. Groups must decide how important formalized recordings of meeting deliberations truly are and, if required or desired, the form they must take to avoid common landmines. Consider these landmines and approaches for navigating them:
Lack of Succinctness
Well-run boards understand what to include, and not to include, in minutes and the legal implications involved. This guidance is instructive for any group regardless of legal requirements. Robert’s Rules of Order is a trusted source for meeting deliberations. Minutes include, among other details: type of meeting; date, time, and location; list of attendees; and motions, seconds, and motions carried. They are written in an objective voice that focuses on facts with limited use of adverbs, adjectives, and other modifiers. They provide sufficient information to create reliability about decisions made and allow for memory recall to support future deliberations. They should not include information about how members voted, their opinions, off-the-record conversations, or personal commentary by the recorder. Templates and advice on minutes are readily available, such as from Boardable and The Center for Association Leadership. The exploding landmines that follow often occur when groups fail to follow these protocols.
Untrained, Unprotected Recorder
It is common in meeting deliberations to bring in an administrative assistant or other designated employee who has no other function than recorder. This person has no voice or decision-making power yet holds tremendous power in how recordings are prepared. Training and coaching are needed to ensure the person creates the record properly. Ground rules may be required regarding how group members interact with the recorder, such as not allowing post ex parte conversations to influence the recorder regarding what goes in the notes and how matters are expressed. The group leader should provide oversight to ensure the person can function without undue interference or influence.
Faulty Consensus Processes
The process of formal meeting minutes involves additional steps for approval, corrections, and acknowledging minority dissent (among other protocols). Less formal groups may also wish to have a process for ensuring agreement on the record. Problems arise when groups lack structure or discipline, to ensure appropriate consensus processes, or lack the ability or will to manage rogue members. Here’s a sampling:
- No finality: A member is allowed to rescind prior votes or other agreements reached from prior meetings, leading to a new vote or further discussion culminating in a different decision and causing the group to backtrack from implementation already begun.
- Absent members reappear: Despite ample opportunity to provide input prior to a decision, absent members object post decision and are given sway, again resulting in no finality.
- Offline maneuvering: A member lobbies to modify the record substantively, often to favor their perspective, and skew the objective nature of the report. This may include efforts to influence the unprotected recorder. It may also include lengthy email exchanges, arguing finer points, endless wordsmithing, and outright criticism about how the record was created or of others who created it. It is exacerbated when others feel goaded to respond with suggested changes either to mollify the critic or defend original language – and so on until all objectivity is lost.
- Dishonesty: A member says “I never said that” or “I never agreed to that” when all others know he or she did and the record accurately reflects the same, again resulting in no finality along with debates and lingering distrust.
These scenarios assume the errant group member has received full opportunity to participate, so the first solution is to ensure processes for creating, reviewing, and approving the record are fully participatory and transparent. This leaves members without excuse for latent, manipulative, or dishonest post-record behaviors. A second solution is to adhere to efficient recordkeeping protocols and have the integrity, and will, to guard against latent incursions to preserve the record as it stands once appropriate review has occurred. A third solution is to manage the rogue member offline. Whether through conversation, coaching, discipline, mediation, or other efforts to address uncooperative behaviors, the group leader – and, where appropriate, supportive group members – should work with the individual outside the context of meeting deliberations and post-meeting review processes. The individual should not be allowed to derail formal meeting processes, nor should the group embarrass the individual publicly before the full body.
Emphasis on Form Over Substance
How much time is your group involved in meaningful meeting deliberations that result in productive implementation of decisions? How much is productivity attributed to reliance on the meeting record in contrast to simply knowing your responsibilities and moving forward to get the job done? What time suck is involved in belaboring formal recordkeeping and squabbling over irrelevancies? Most importantly, unless required as a public entity, how essential is a formal record?
Consider how your group engages in deliberative decision-making (or doesn’t). Recordkeeping is likely not the problem, but a symptom of the problem, albeit one that stands out because the group’s dysfunction becomes evident from the record. If this emphasis on form over substance is occurring, consider reorganizing. For example, seek third-party support from a meeting facilitator, mediator, or organization development specialist to assess group interactions and reset to engage in healthier, more productive behaviors. In the process, you can reevaluate the role formal recordkeeping plays and how it serves rather than obstructs the work to be done.
