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Running an effective MEC meeting

Medical Staff Leader Connection, August 2, 2007

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By the time a physician leader becomes the president of the medical staff, he or she has likely attended countless meetings-too many to remember. The new leader might have even chaired or facilitated some of those meetings. However, many have chaired such meetings without first being taught how to run an effective meeting.

Running a meeting, like many other skills a physician leader must master to carry out his or her leadership responsibilities effectively, was never taught in medical school or residency. That course escaped the curriculum.

The below tips will help you run an effective and productive medical executive committee meeting:

• Buy a one-hour sand timer and learn its magic.
• Set an agenda and stick to it-no surprises.
• Set a time limit for the entire meeting-no more than 90 minutes-and plan ahead so the committee can address all agenda items within this period.
• Create a culture in which meetings always start and end on time.
• To develop that on-time culture, hold a drawing for a small prize at the end of the meeting. Only those attendees who were in their seats at the start of the meeting are eligible to win.
• Presentations should be no more than 15 minute. Inform the presenter of this limit and ask the presenter to articulate the goals at the start of his or her presentation.
• Communicate before the meeting (via e-mail, written memo, etc.) when important or controversial issues will be discussed. This allows attendees time to prepare.
• Address the easy, agreeable items first via a consent agenda to allow more time for the more important and/or controversial issues.
• Don't let one or two people monopolize the discussion-require that before someone speaks twice on a subject, everyone else must have had an opportunity to speak.
• When possible, try to decide by consensus. That way, no one feels like he or she lost (as occurs with voting on individual motions). Consensus means allowing each person to express his or her view and opinion but ultimately pick a decision that most or all can support even if it's not their first choice.
• Observe others who run effective meetings to determine that fine line between opening the floor to discussion (to get people involved) and knowing when to bring a discussion to an end (don't beat a dead horse). This is truly the most difficult thing to learn and accomplish.

Joseph Cooper, M.D.
The Greeley Company

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