Page 21 - Leadership Basics 10

After the Meeting

Inform Others

So you have done all this and the meeting is over. Your job does not end there though. If you have kept
your membership small, you will need to inform others who are concerned with the issues discussed.
Send them some notes of what has taken place, but try to avoid distributing the rather daunting‐
looking sets of minutes which people file away without reading. In the same way you summarised all
the main points covered during the meeting, now do the same on paper. Highlight the decisions taken
and state briefly the implications. You can also outline the main arguments, but avoid excessive and
irrelevant detail.
There are some pieces of information which it is advisable to include. The data serves as a record for
future meetings. Include:
 Date of meeting.

 Names of those present.
 Agenda items:

 Main arguments;
 Decisions;

 Actions;
 Names of people involved.
 Length of meeting (and possibly time given to each item).

 Date, time and place of next meeting.
It is also advisable to underline or type in bold the important pieces of information, namely, the
decisions reached and the actions to be taken.
There is no set way of dealing with this, but whatever method you adopt, you should make it as easy
as possible for the reader to assimilate the important information. In Figure Five is an extract from the
minutes taken at a SLT meeting. Although the discussion on the agenda item was fairly extensive, they
captured the main points for this document which was circulated to all HODs.

Monitoring

Your remaining job is concerned with monitoring. It is not good practice to delegate actions during a
meeting and then forget about them until they are due. You should monitor so that you know the
people concerned are getting on with the tasks and the next meeting (and providing appropriate
support) therefore will have all the information necessary. There is no need to overdo this part of the
process, but simply to keep a watchful eye and to let your colleagues know you are concerned with
and interested in what is going on.

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