[AiYa – MeetingArkAdmin]

What are some of the issues around Attendees? Who do you invite – and not invite? Does your meeting require a Quorum?

[Ron Eagle]

Two simple rules:

Keep attendee volumes to the minumum required (at or just above quorum) to produce the decision/outcomes you are chasing. Too many attendees will make this more difficult so:

Ruthlessly review each proposed attendee to see for instance:

do they play an active part in this project and/or the decisions you require TODAY?

do they play a beneficial role in some other way i.e a high profile supporter, influencer?

are they an actual structural, regulatory, legal or specialist requirement in THIS session eg legal issues, H&S  issues being discussed, board voting appointee etc.?

using these types of interrogatory queries of attendees will help whittle numbers down to the minimum necessary to make progress and make it easier to arrange in the first place.

[AiYa – MeetingArkAdmin]

Hi Ron!

Thanks for starting this off.

I was wondering if you had encountered situations in organisations where there is a culture of inviting just about everyone who might even be peripherally effected by the meeting to be there “just in case”. I have been in many meetings like this and wondering if there are any interventions to gently change the culture to reduce meeting attendee number without kick-back?

[Ron Eagle]

Unfortunately a most common cause of folk acquiescing to invites even where they feel their contribution my be nugatory is rank being pulled. If a senior figure invites you there may be a reluctance to refuse. If we are cynical there is also the opposite where folk attend many meetings to appear to be busy and part of influential groups simply to build up there appearance and perceived value rather than adding full value by their attendance, The former can be manged either  y professional integrity explaining what you attendance is inappropriate or by comparing it to other mission important concurrent that would suffer form loss of time. The latter needs either an astute chairperson(s) to start calling the bluff on these individuals or by others noticing the relatively small contribution they make. In most cases the ego tripper will be spotted at some point.

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