 Let's have a look at how to participate in small groups and meetings. Working in small groups and attending meetings involve more people and can be more complicated than one-on-one interviews. Generally, there are two people involved in interviews, but in groups and meetings, there are more than two people involved and they can be more complex because everyone has different roles. As more and more corporations embrace the concept of participative management involving employees in a company's decision-making, the importance of teamwork has also increased. You will see more and more that meetings are not only restricted to the top management. Companies are involving more and more of their employees at all levels or at least some levels in their meetings. At their best, meetings can be an extremely useful forum for making key decisions and coordinating the activities of people and departments. Theoretically, the interaction of the participants should lead to good decisions based on the combined intelligence of the groups. We will now examine how to understand group dynamics, how to arrange meetings and how to contribute in a productive meeting. Now, a meeting is called for some purpose and this purpose gives form to the meeting. People are assembled to achieve a work-related task, but at the same time, each person has a hidden agenda or a private motive that affects the group's interaction. Such personal motives either contribute to or take away from the group's ability to perform its task. Now, people are playing a role in whatever meeting that they are participating and different people play different roles. These roles that people play in meetings come under three categories, self-oriented roles, group maintenance roles and task facilitating roles. Members who assume self-oriented roles are motivated mainly to fulfill personal needs and they tend to be less productive than the other two types. If a person has taken a self-oriented role in a meeting, then they will only think about themselves, their agenda and the company and the other people sitting in that meeting. If a person has taken a self-oriented role in a meeting, then the meeting will not be productive. Far more likely to contribute to group goals are those people who assume group maintenance roles to help members work well together and also those people who assume task facilitating roles to help members solve the problem or make the decision. Now, when it comes to arranging the meeting, by being aware of how small the people who assume group maintenance roles will be able to work well together. If a person has taken a self-oriented role in a meeting, then the task facilitating role will help members solve the problem or make the decision. Now, when it comes to arranging the meeting, by being aware of how small groups of people interact, meeting leaders can take steps to ensure that the meetings are productive. When you get to know how people interact in small groups, what are their roles, what can they do, what are the different phases. When you get to know all these things in your mind, then you can effectively plan a meeting so that the results of that meeting are productive. The key to productive meetings is careful planning of purpose, participants, agenda and location. These are four things that you have to keep in mind so that your meeting is effectively planned. First is the purpose. Why is that meeting being called? Then what is the purpose of the participants, who are the people and what is the purpose of the meeting? The agenda, what things will be discussed and what is the purpose of the meeting? And location. Where is the meeting? Is the meeting convenient or comfortable or not? The trick is to bring the right people together in the right place to accomplish the given goals in just enough time. And in order to do this, special attention should be given to these four elements. Determining the purpose, selecting the participants, setting the agenda, preparing the location. Whether the meeting is conducted electronically or conventionally, its success depends on how effective the leader is. Nowadays, a lot of meetings are conducted electronically. There are meetings on videoconferencing. Whether it is electronically or conventionally, where all the people are sitting in a table or in a room. The effectiveness of that meeting will rest on the effectiveness of the leader. If the leader has prepared and selected the participants carefully, the meeting will generally be productive. Listening skills are especially important to meeting leaders. The leader's ability to listen will facilitate good meetings. If you are a meeting leader, how can you contribute to the meeting so that it becomes productive? As a meeting leader, you are responsible for keeping the ball rolling. You have to make sure that things keep moving. So, you need to avoid being so domineering that you close off suggestions. If you dominate the meeting so much that people are afraid to speak or think that there is no use in speaking, then your meeting will not be productive. At the same time, don't be so passive that you lose control of the group. You can't afford to let the group move at all and then lose control. You have to find a compromise. If you feel that the discussion is slowing down or lagging, then call on those people who haven't spoken up in the meeting. Ask for their comments. You will pace the presentation and discussion in such a way that you have time to complete the agenda. You have a agenda in your mind and you have allocated some time. So, now your responsibility as a meeting leader is to keep the pace and speed of the meeting so that all the things in your agenda can be covered in a given time. So, don't go ahead of the meeting in time. As time begins to run out, interrupt the discussions and summarise what has been accomplished. Another leadership task is either to arrange for someone to record the proceedings or to ask a participant to take notes during the meeting. As a leader, you are also expected to follow the agenda. Participants have prepared for the meeting on the basis of the announced agenda. If you talk to the agenda, then your participants will not be prepared for that. But if there is not so much of a concern that you want to introduce something else, then don't listen to it. If you have discussed all the things of the agenda, then you can discuss other things as well. Allow enough time for discussion and give people a chance to raise related issues as well. If you cut off discussions too quickly or limit the subject too narrowly, then no real consensus can emerge. So, try to keep the balance. As the meeting gets underway, you will discover that some participants are too quiet and other participants are too talkative. To draw out the shy participants, ask for their input on issues that you know they are relevant to. You might say something like, Irfan, you've done a lot of work in this area, what do you think? If you feel that Irfan is not talking a lot. On the other hand, for the people who are overly talkative, simply say that time is limited and others need to be heard from. The best meetings are those in which everyone participates. So, don't let one or two people dominate your meetings while others just doodle on their notepads. If you just leave a meeting with only one or two people, then the rest of the people will get bored. They will just be writing notes on their notepads. Also, as you move through your agenda, stop at the end of each item and summarize what the group has taken from that. Make sure that you understand the feelings of the group and state the important points that have been made during the discussion for that item. And then move on to the next item on the agenda. At the end of the meeting, in the closing meeting, you have to tie up all the loose ends. In the beginning, you stated the meeting agenda. You stated the main body of the agenda. You said that you want to see the participants, you want to see the pace, you want to see the speed, you want to see the agenda, you want to see how the participants are doing. Now, at the end, you will tie up all the loose ends. Either you will summarize the general conclusions that were made by the group, or you will list the suggestions. Rapping things up ensures that all participants agree on the outcome, and it gives people a chance to clear up any misunderstandings. As soon as possible after the meeting, the meeting leader gives all participants a copy of the minutes or notes, showing recommended actions, schedules, and responsibilities. Obviously, the decisions that have been made in the meeting are recorded in the minutes. So, after the meeting, the meeting leader distributes the minutes in all the participants so that everyone knows that these things have been decided and now we have to do this. In those minutes, the responsibilities will also be written on what to do. Also, like leaders, participants have responsibilities during meetings and these then will be listed out in the minutes. The minutes will also provide a reference for future actions. When we talked about the responsibilities of the participants, you have to remember that if you have been included in a group, then you try to contribute to both the subject of the meeting and to the smooth interaction of the meeting. We have talked about what leaders have to do and what responsibilities they have to lead in a group. Let's see what the responsibilities of the participants are. How can they ensure that they participate effectively in a meeting and that the interaction of the meeting is smooth? You will use your listening skills and powers of observation to size up the interpersonal dynamics of the people and then adapt your behaviour to help the group achieve its goals. Speak up if you have something useful to say but don't monopolise the discussion. So, what is the role of the leaders and the participants? With this, we come to the end of this lecture. Today, we have talked about the four types of interview questions and we have clarified when each type will be used. I have also talked about how groups make decisions, what the roles of different people are within a group and what the preparations and duties are of the people who are involved in productive meetings. With this, we come to the end of today's lecture. Until next time, Allah Hafiz.