How to Have Better Meetings

A Guide for Revolutionaries Working Together

Meetings Matter

There are few more effective steps you can take to improve the collective power of a group of people than to set a meeting schedule and stick to it.

Bad meetings are draining, inefficient, and disheartening.  Good meetings let you get more done, faster, and make you feel powerful - part of something important.

The basic fact on which all organizing is based is the undeniable reality that our power can be amplified when it is coordinated.  With a plan, our power can be greater than the sum of its parts.  

Here are some essential steps to having better meetings:

1. TIME:  Show up on time, and finish on time.

Our free time is scarce and this system is already bleeding it away from us in a thousand ways.  Devoting some time to organizing is a sacred act.  Despite best intentions, many of us stop going to meetings because we feel our time is being wasted. Give this sacrifice on behalf of yourself and your comrades the respect it deserves by showing up on time, keeping track of time as you move through the agenda, and ending when you say you’re going to.  Delegate a time-watcher at each meeting to keep things moving. And keep tangents and side-jokes within a reasonable limit.  This will go miles toward keeping people coming back.

2. COORDINATING:  Delegate a meeting coordinator.  Rotate this position.

Disorganization is not freeing or democratic.  It often prevents efficient use of time and as Jo Freeman reminds us in The Tyranny of Structurelessness, defaulting to the informal power dynamics in a social group is in fact less democratic than organizing formal ones which can be debated and structured intentionally to promote democracy and accountability.  A good coordinator can keep things moving, help prompt important discussions, and identify critical questions.  Do what works for you, but I recommend picking a coordinator (or ‘facilitator’) and making this a rotating position gives everyone in the group exposure to grow their leadership skills.  Know who will be coordinating the next meeting before it happens; They are the best person to send out a reminder message and help the group prep for the meeting.

3. AGENDA:  Build an agenda, stick to it.

An agenda is just a plan for the topics you want to cover.  The first job of the coordinator should be to help the group make an agenda.  Start with introductions and check-ins for any news and announcements.  Then remind the group of any items left over from a previous meeting, and take suggestions for new items to cover.  Once you have an agenda, help the group identify action items needed for each item, delegate tasks, and move on to a new item when all critical loose ends have been addressed.

4. NOTES:  Take notes.  Even if you’re not the note-taker.

For most groups, note-taking will be essential, along with keeping official notes in a record that anyone in the group can access.  This keeps a record of decisions, tabled items from previous meetings, and lists of who was assigned what tasks to keep things accountable and forward-moving.  However, don’t leave it to the note-taker.  Keep your own organizing journal where you can keep track of tasks you’re responsible for and important information you might need.  And make sure the official note-taker isn’t always the same person:  This is a common way that informal and undesirable hierarchy can creep in.  And don’t forget: NOTHING legally questionable should ever be put into writing, digital or otherwise.

5. DECIDING:  Have a clear, formalized process for confirming decisions.

Formalized decision-making is the heart of democratic process. Whether this is through a simple majority vote or 100% consensus, you need to be able to leave any meeting knowing what you did or did not agree to, and this process needs to be clear, consistent, and transparent to every member.  Not every decision needs collective agreement:  Remember to leave plenty of room for people to act autonomously and contribute to the group informally - for example, don’t legislate the statements or chants people bring to a protest, except within extremely broad limits.  And as anyone who has experienced the bureaucratic hell of a group trying to write a document by committee knows, MANY tasks are better delegated to someone to do on their own time and debated only once they’re done, if at all.  However, in general decisions that affect everyone should be decided by everyone.  The group, and the coordinator, are responsible for identifying these decisions, and making sure there is plenty of room for debate and compromise before something is brought to a vote.

6. RESPONSIBILITY:  Be disciplined in your commitments and responsible in your actions.

The success of your group, and of the movement for democracy and liberation as a whole, lives or dies through the disciplined action of each member. One of the central reasons for meeting at all is to give us a chance to live a life that is accountable to our own principles.  Do what you say you’re going to do, and uphold what your group agrees to, even if you don’t think every decision was perfect. It’s not the end of the world if you show up to a meeting with a task unfulfilled, but if this is a repeat problem, think about asking the group for help with how you can be more accountable in the future.

7. CONFLICT:  Democracy requires conflict.  Be assertive, open to difference and compromise, and always assume best intentions.  And leave if you must.

You will have conflict. Within basic boundaries of what should never be tolerated (ie, advocacy for racism and sexism) conflict is not only inevitable, it is desirable: The point of democracy is a world where we’re allowed to disagree and to fight for our principles without fear of oppression.  A democratic approach to conflict in your group requires you to be assertive and transparent about your wants and needs.  It also requires you to assume the best intentions of others without trying to shame, invalidate, or intimidate them.  Do NOT tolerate bullying, insults, or interpersonal abuse within your group and be mindful of how you carry yourself when you’re disagreeing passionately.  At the same time, don’t try to stifle conflict or shut people down because they’re feeling strong emotion.  If you realize you have fundamental and incompatible disagreements, or if you just flat out don’t get along with a particular group, leaving to form a new chapter can be the best thing for everyone, and the Good Neighbors Democracy Movement has been set up to encourage this when necessary.

8. RAISE THE BAR:  Operate with a strategy for building power and making progress into the future, and be wary of falling into unproductive patterns.

Most of us have been there:  The Food Not Bombs chapter or zine distribution collective that carries on tirelessly, year after year, making the same rounds, and doing commendable work, but never seeming to build toward any identifiable revolutionary horizon.  Sometimes it feels like all we can do is keep moving, even if we know deep down we want more. It is essential that we challenge ourselves and our groups to take our revolutionary aims seriously and push ourselves toward more ambitious plans.  This is not a call to thoughtless, rash action, but the opposite:  Break from the thoughtless inertia of habit and reaction, and instead MAKE A PLAN to go on the offensive and make real concrete progress toward a better world.  Have a strategy for how you’re building power and capacity - how you will expand operations, and how this fits into a clear and realistic path for a movement that can genuinely break from capitalism and undemocratic government control.  In practical terms, try to help your group make plans within a broader strategy rather than just coming up with small tasks to keep you busy or to react to whatever outrages the system is dishing out.  If you don’t have a plan for how your group will make us all meaningfully more free next year than we are this year, you need to up the ante and raise the bar.

So that’s it.  A few tips for how to make meetings more useful and meaningful, and a challenge to take our own revolutionary dreams a little more seriously.  Good luck.  See you at the next meeting!