All in the Game

Real Meetings

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By Stanley Fish BACKUP

In the six years that I chaired a department at Duke, my graduate seminar was always scheduled at the hour when the other chairs (and my associate chair) were meeting with the dean. Not only was this intentional, it was announced in advance. I'll come to your meetings, I said to the dean, when they are actually about something. The requirement was never met.

What was going on at these meetings I contrived to miss? (I did attend a few early in my tenure.) Most of the time information was being dumped into the ears (certainly not the hearts and minds) of 20 or so department heads whose eyes had glazed over even before they sat down.

You know the drill. Someone from a corner of the university you scarcely knew existed arrives armed with overheads, transparencies, and (now) PowerPoints, and proceeds for 30 or more agonizing, slow-motion minutes to explain how the telephone system works (or is supposed to work), or how purchases are to be transacted and reported (this is largely a recitation of innumerable budget codes), or how nonperforming employees can be disciplined (a process so full of obstacles that an Olympic athlete couldn't jump its hurdles or even remember what they are), or how venture-tech partnerships will finance the college, bring glory to the university, and save the world.

Only two of the generally benumbed stay awake through the whole thing and they, of course, are the two who already know this stuff and actually care about it. Another five minutes is then spent in formulaic expressions of thanks and gratitude; everyone declares an intention to visit the office of the presenter in order to learn more while vowing silently never to think about these matters again.

With that over there's some time left for fake planning. By "fake planning" I mean planning that refers to outcomes that have already been determined in precincts no department head (or dean) ever enters, or to outcomes projected so far into the future that no one in the room will be alive when they are either realized or derailed by contingencies no one foresaw.

The chief pleasure that administration (at any level) offers is the pleasure of achievement, of actually doing something; but if you spend your time talking about things already done by others or going on about things that have the status of science fiction, you will leave the meeting not rejuvenated and inspired (or even in any serious sense informed), but drained of energy and pleased only that it will be at least a couple of weeks before you have to endure this nonsense again.

Sometimes at the end of a meeting, you're given a chance to indulge in some mild boasting and cheerleading. You go around the table and everyone announces an award that a colleague has won or a book that has been published or a grant that has been financed or a recruitment that has succeeded. But inevitably a few people go on too long, display too many "trophies," and generally hog the stage, with the result that (potential) good feeling gives way to jealousy, irritation, envy and all the other base emotions always seething just below the surface of any academic gathering. The effect is the opposite of what was hoped for -- not collegiality but competitiveness -- and you leave with the resolve to play the game of self-promotion better next time, if there has to be a next time.

But what are the alternatives to this dreary scenario? There are only two: Either have no meetings (except an occasional ceremonial one), which on balance doesn't seem to be a good idea; or, have real meetings. The second is obviously the better way to go, but it requires you to figure out what a real meeting would be like.

It will be a real meeting if you use the time to formulate decisions, not announce them. I don't mean every decision; many decisions, especially those that parcel out scarce resources, can only be made by the dean's office; consultation, beyond a certain level of fact gathering, would be a sign of weakness.

But then there are those decisions that fall under the category of policy, and involve such questions as: Could we increase efficiency and lower costs by combining units? Is the writing-across-the curriculum effort working (the answer is almost certainly "no") and what can be done to improve it? Should we accept the invitation of another college to design and offer a joint program? How can we devise a freshman experience that isn't prohibitively expensive?

Such questions do not set departments against one another but draw them into the common project of deciding what to do next, where "next" means in the relatively near future, a future the participants in the conversation can see themselves as helping to bring about. Of course they will only see that if they think you mean it, if they believe you're not just pretending when you solicit their views.

This doesn't mean that you're running an entirely open shop or that by initiating a conversation you commit yourself to its outcome. There's no contradiction between knowing in advance where you want to go and asking others for advice on how best to get there.

If the discussion is not to be aimless and unpredictable, you must monitor and direct its turns. You must continually register (and respond to) the difference between contributions that move things forward and contributions that don't. You must be alert to those moments when a line of thought is to be encouraged and when another is to be cut short lest it get everything off track. You must call on the right people at the right moment, and you must leave the hands of others waving in the air, at least until things are going nicely and no real harm can be done.

You have to intervene when a two-person dialogue or confrontation threatens to turn everyone else into a spectator. You must continually scan the room in order to spy the telltale frown on a back-bencher's face; and you must invite -- no compel -- the silent naysayer to speak. You must know when the resolution you desire is only a few steps from emerging, and then you must help the group take those steps without appearing to have forced them.

And even as you work toward an end you have had in mind from the beginning, you must be prepared to abandon it and be taken by the flow in a new direction which you then embrace as if it had been yours all the while.

What this means is that a real meeting is hard work, at least for the person leading it. In fact, it is an athletic performance, not unlike conducting an orchestra, or taming lions, or herding sheep, or running a nursery school.

After a real meeting you'll need to take a nap, or walk around the campus, or relive the highs and lows with some of your colleagues. Yet at the same time the weariness you feel will not be unpleasant because it will come accompanied by a conviction that something was actually done, that the enterprise was moved forward a bit (incremental progress is the best kind in an academic institution), that your heads and chairs are saying to their faculties: The dean's in his office and all is (relatively) well with the world.

And the best part of a real meeting is that there is always a good reason to cancel it, to say, since there seems to be nothing real to talk about this week, let's give it a pass. But because a fake meeting is (by definition) without content, there is as little reason to cancel it as there was to call it in the first place. Both in single duration and in sequence, fake meetings go on forever.