Bored meeting

Mike Hodgkiss offers some strategies for making interminable, tedious meetings slightly more tolerable.

The general public in their naivety may be forgiven for thinking that teachers spend most of their time in the classroom but that is not the case. In an average week, the majority of deputy heads will spend at least 72.4 per cent of their time in meetings.

(For a full statistical breakdown complete with Excel charts, PowerPoint slides and correlation coefficient analysis see appendix 4b.3. On the other hand, it might be more fun to have your own appendix removed instead.)

Most of these meetings are tedious and pointless, so to make proceedings a little more lively, try some of the following:

• Spill coffee on the conference table. Produce a little paper boat and sail it down the table.
• Stay behind as everyone else, including the chair of governors, leaves. Thank them all for coming.
• Arrange to have a poorlydressed young woman with an infant quietly enter the meeting, stare directly at the head for a while, burst into tears, then leave the room.
• Bring a hand-puppet, preferably an animal. Ask it to clarify difficult points.

There are clear official roles at a meeting: the chair, the clerk, the facilitator, the timekeeper. And then there are unofficial roles. Have you experienced any of the following?

The most important characteristic of The Sleeper is to dress as innocuously as possible; a blue blazer, grey trousers, blue shirt, grey tie. The crucial factor is never to attract any attention. Give an occasional nod of the head to suggest agreement. Never be tempted to contribute, no matter the provocation or encouragement.

If you need advice on how to fulfil this vital role then suggest to ‘the powers that be’ that as part of your continuing professional development you shadow a college master at either Oxford or Cambridge. They, in my experience, have made The Sleeper role at meetings into an art form.

The Rambler has the knack of being able to re-direct any topic under discussion. S/he will normally bring up an unrelated issue or event – invariably one in which s/he participated and one which puts him or her in the best possible light.

The Rambler is not to be confused with The Babbler who will take an inordinate amount of time to make one point – normally that someone else has already made. This always goes down very well with The Sleeper who can catch up with a nap. You may find that The Rambler and The Sleeper are friends or, if not, colleagues in the same department and after a particularly long ramble which will invariably contain a non-too-subtle criticism of senior leaders, the latter will mumble a grunt in approval.

Every meeting should have The Master of the ******* Obvious. The main characteristic of this person is a belief that his or her comments are insightful and represent a revelation, the like of which colleagues have never witnessed. S/he delivers these pearls with such conviction and sincerity that no one has the courage to state the truth.

No meeting is complete without The Moaner whose constant griping and complaining can wear you down – but remember that The Moaner also makes the rest of us look good in the eyes of the governors.

You may have been told on training days that an effective strategy is not to dismiss what The Moaner is saying, but to gently explain that s/he may be undermining a colleague or having a negative effect on the group.

Ignore this advice. Instead, try this strategy. Elevate complaining to its rightful place in the institution. Hold official BMW (Bellyache, Moan and Whine) sessions where you ask and even reward staff for complaining. Encourage people to exaggerate their complaints and be overly dramatic. The group will get a good laugh out of it and probably generate solutions while they’re at it.

The problem with this can be one of addiction. You’ve made complaining enjoyable and fun, and there’s the real danger people get hooked on it.

The last option is to remember that for The Moaner an audience is the source of their power so you could just walk away and ignore him or her.

Anyway, I would love to tell you more but there’s a meeting I must go to…

• Mike Hodgkiss is deputy head in Essex.

Want the last word?

Last Word always welcomes contributions from members. If you’d like to share your humorous observations of school life, email Sara Gadzik at leader@ascl.org.uk ASCL offers a modest honorarium.

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