GROUP

COMMUNICATION –
NOTICE, AGENDA,
MINUTES

Chethana G Krishna
Introduction
 Groups form to accomplish some objective – to
complete some kind of task or it may be to
strengthen interpersonal relationships between the
group members
 Communication among members of a group leads
to group decisions
 To take effective decisions, the group members
need to communicate openly and freely with all the
members of the group
Roles people play in groups – Self oriented roles

 Controlling: Dominating others by exhibiting

superiority or authority
 Withdrawing: Retiring from the group either by
becoming silent or by refusing to deal with a particular
aspect of the group’s work
 Attention seeking: calling attention to oneself and
demanding recognition from others
 Diverting: focusing group discussion on topics of
interest to the individual rather than those relevant to
the task
Source: Bovee and Thill, Business Communication Today
Group maintenance roles
 Encouraging: drawing out other members by
showing verbal and nonverbal support, praise, or
agreement
 Harmonizing: reconciling differences among
group members through mediation or by using
humor to relieve tension
 Compromising: offering to yield on a point in the
interest of reaching a mutually acceptable decision

Source: Bovee and Thill, Business Communication Today

Task-facilitating roles
 Initiating: getting the group started on a line of
inquiry
 Information giving or seeking: Offering (or
seeking) information relevant to questions facing
the group
 Coordinating: showing relationships among ideas,
clarifying issues, summarizing what the group has
done
 Procedure setting: Suggesting decision-making
procedures that will move the group towards a goal
Source: Bovee and Thill, Business Communication Today
Factors in group communication/ dynamics

 Size: Smaller the group, better the communication

 When the group becomes larger, members have fewer
opportunities to interact
 Researchers believe a group of 5 – 7 members to be ideal
for decision making and problem – solving tasks

 Longevity: Groups formed for short term goals (to

arrange a dinner ) focus more on the task
 Groups for long-term assignments devote a lot more time
to maintain relationships among members
Factors in group communication/ dynamics

 Leadership: Aims at achieving task goals, maintain

interpersonal relationships to make for greater
group success
 Perception and self-concept: Each member has his
own perception and self concept about how the
group should function but the successful working
of a group depends to a great extent on its ability to
satisfy the expectations and support the self
concept of its members
Factors in group communication/ dynamics

 Status: Some members of a group have a better

social standing or are better qualified than the
others.
 Status determines the manner in which they interact
with each other
 People tend to communicate with peers as their equals,
but they tend to speak upward to superiors and
downward to subordinates
Group decision making
 Brainstorming: Members are encouraged to
generate as many ideas about a topic as they can.
Every idea is recorded. The group then adopts
those that seem most feasible or most useful
 Consensus: all the group members agree on the
final decision after discussion and debate
 Compromise: group members come to an
agreement by giving up some of their demands
Group decision making
 Majority vote: the decision is based on the opinion
of the majority of its members
 Decision by leader: the group allows its leader to
take the final decision
 Arbitration: an external body or person makes a
decision for the group
Meeting
 Oral communication tool for the management
which facilitates exchange of ideas and interaction
among a concerned group of people
 Meetings are conducted to discuss matters to arrive
at a decision by the majority of opinions
 Facilitates the functioning of an organization in an
orderly, planned, deliberate and democratic manner
for a purpose, planning, procedural and
psychological factors that govern in a meeting
Effective meetings
 The success of a meeting depends on the ability of
each individual member of a group to communicate
with the rest of the group as a whole
 Meeting – most of the times is a failure associated
with wasted time and boredom
 Held at regular intervals for no particular reason
 There are too many people present to make decision
 Planning – For a successful meeting, careful
planning is crucial
The planning process
 To plan a meeting the convener must consider the
important questions:
 Why have a meeting at all?
 What type of meeting is called for?
 Who should be asked to participate?
 Where should the meeting be held?
 When should it be held?
Why have a meeting at all?
 Underlines the need for a specific purpose
 Long standing purpose – example: the daily morning
briefings in police stations
 No true purpose defined clearly – example: a meeting
called to present the company’s alternative home loan
scheme may have either of these three purposes: to
inform the employees about the alternatives, so that
they can choose the one they want; to allow the group
to decide whether they want to adopt the new plan; or
to persuade the employees to opt for the new plan
What type of meeting should be held?

 Informational meetings:
 Easiest to plan
 Inform the group of recent developments
 Convener does most of the talking but there is also a
scope of two-way communication
 Enables convener to take feedback from the group
about whether they understand and accept the new
proposals
What type of meeting should be held?

 Problem solving meetings

 Fewer participants than informational meetings
 Usually focus at arriving at a decision – changing
existing procedures, adopting a new system, etc
 Sometimes, such meetings also used to generate new
ideas
What type of meeting should be held?

 Change facilitating meetings

 Has to be carefully planned
 Example: Company trying to gets it employees to

adopt the new savings scheme, the convener has to

look for ways to ‘sell’ the new concept to the
employees
 What are the advantages?

 Why should an employee adopt the new scheme?

 What are the objections the employees bound to raise?

The decision now is who has to participate in the

meeting
Who should participate?
 Depends on the purpose for which the meeting is
held
 If the meeting is informational, a large number of
people may be invited – example a product launch
 If the meeting is called to take a decision, fewer
people should be invited, so that all can participate
in the discussion – those who are experts in the
area or those who have the authority to take a
decision will be invited
Where should the meeting be held?
 Usually decided by custom or availability of space
 Seating arrangements can have a bearing on the final
outcome of the meeting
 Theater style and school room style: Appropriate for large
groups that are meeting to obtain information. The leader
does much of the talking and participation is limited
 Banquet style: allows members to see each other

 T formation: brings participants closer together, but focus is

still on the leaders

These arrangements can be used for meetings designed to
facilitate change
Seating arrangement style
 Theater style:

 Classroom style:
 Banquet style:

 T formation:
 Banquet style:

 Participative:
 Equalizing:
Where should the meeting be held?
 Problem-solving meetings generally have the conference table
seating arrangements
 It depends on how the leader positions himself and the involvement
of other members in solving the problem
 Overtly directive: focuses attention on the leader and enables him to
maintain control of the agenda
 Covertly directive: It also enables the leader to retain control, but it is a

more democratic type of seating

 Equalizing Pattern: indicates the leader wants all members to participate

by speaking their minds

 Participative pattern: uses a round table so that status differences are

minimized, and all participants feel free to express their opinions

Conveners must also consider the timing of the meeting
When should the meeting be held?
 Convener should consider the schedules of
participants
 Early Monday morning is seldom a good time as
most participants are anxious to get on with their
week’s schedule
 Meetings scheduled for the afternoon of the last
day of the week – Friday or Saturday – draw a poor
response as most participants are preoccupied with
their plans for the weekend
Notice
 Derived from Latin – means knowledge
 Can be oral or written, issued or published in news
media
 A notice should:
 Be issued by the proper authority
 Observe a minimum period of notice
 State where and when the meeting is to be held
 Be accompanied by an agenda
 Be sent to all individuals entitled to receive it
Agenda
 Notice should be accompanied by an agenda
 An agenda is a list of topics that will be covered at the meeting
 The agenda gives participants a chance to gather their thoughts
and bring relevant information to the meeting
 Drafted by the secretary in consultation with the chairperson
 An agenda should be:
 Specific and in a logical order
 Topics listed should ensure everything important is dealt with
 Any relevant background reading material should be attached
 To make chairing easier through everyone being aware of the
structure and order
Notice and agenda
 If the agenda is given as an annexure to the notice it
contains:
 Confirmation of the previous meeting
 Name of the organization and the date of circulation

 Day, date, time and place of meeting

 The program of business to be transacted

 The background papers of information

When the agenda is in continuation with the notice, only

the business to be transacted is indicated because all
details will already be there in the notice
Items in the agenda
 First item: Confirmation of minutes of the previous
meeting
 Last item: Is usually ‘any other matter with the
permission of the chairperson’
 Order of importance to be maintained along with
numbering as 1.01, 1.02, 1.03, etc
 Effective agenda helps participants to come prepared
and to conduct business effectively
 Scheduled program helps members to avoid
meaningless and irrelevant discussions
Minutes of the meeting
 The minutes of the previous meetings is sometimes circulated
along with notice, and agenda
 If not done, then the secretary reads it out before the start of the
meeting
 Minutes usually is a brief, accurate record of the business
transacted in the previous meeting
 It contains the main ideas discussed, decisions taken, conclusions,
reached, recommendations make and tasks assigned to individual
members and groups
 To ensure precise and accurate record of its accomplishments,
every group that conducts meetings should appoint a secretary to
provide minutes and maintain a written record of the happenings
Minutes – contents
 Name of organization
 Place, date and time of meeting
 Names of chairperson and secretary
 Names of other members present
 Summary of action taken, report only facts presented
 All motions and amendments
 Names of movers and seconders of all motions and
amendments
 Results of voting
Minutes - Data
 Classification of meeting (Regular, monthly, quarterly, special,
emergency, yearly)
 Reference to minutes of previous meeting (note that previous minutes
were accepted as presented or amended and then accepted)
 Reports of actions on matters previously presented to the group (that
is, old business)
 Reports of actions on matters presented to the group (that is, new
business)
 Place, date and time of the next meeting
 Identification of people in attendance
 Identification of absentees and reasons for their absence
 Identification of person responsible for preparing the minutes
Delivery of minutes
 Prompt delivery of minutes has the following
advantages:
 Infers the agenda for the next meeting
 Presents clearly the discussions of the last meeting
 Stimulates to more thinking in advance about the
committee problems
 Helps to take prompt action
 Gets chance to suggest corrections
Application tasks
 The Executive Committee of National Industries Ltd.. 43, Banjara
Jills, Road No 1, Hyderabad held its 3rd meeting at 4 pm on
Monday, 3rd November at their Seminar Hall. The agenda was as
follows:
 4.01 Confirmation of the Minutes of the previous meeting
 4.02 Addition of two rooms to the building – one room for installing

computers and other for storing stationery

 4.03 Establishing a café

 4.04 Appointment of two programmers and a technical assistant

 4.05 Bonus for the year

 4.06 Any other matter with the permission of the chair

As secretary of the Executive Committee, write the Minutes of the meeting

Application tasks
 The following business was transacted at a meeting
of the Executive Committee of Vikas Educational
Institutions: Confirmation of minutes of last
meeting, schedule for various competitive exams,
week-end test schedule, remedial course for weak
students, monitoring process, method for the
analysis of marks and any other matter. Assuming
that you are the Secretary of the Executive
Committee, write the minutes of the meeting.
Invent the necessary details
Application tasks
 Assume you are the secretary of the students’
union. You are expected to plan a management fest
at your college and need to identify the various
extra curricular activities for the competition. You
plan to hold a meeting to get ideas
 Prepare the Notice and agenda
 Write the minutes of the above meeting