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Ever sit through an unproductive meeting? Me too. While half my mind is engaged with the business at hand, the other half lapses into a silent, running commentary on all the blunders. This is a tangent, I say to myself, or Please stick to the topic, or Let’s not micro-manage, and, eventually (to myself), Rick, stop being so critical. I always seem to commit the sin of having a critical spirit in meetings that run off the road.

The ultimate cure for meetings in the ditch? Never hold a meeting, I guess. But we need meetings—productive, healthy meetings—to take care of the campus ministry God has given us. If you work through the following suggestions with your fellow leaders, say, at the beginning of each term, you may find yourself enjoying excellent meetings—with both halves of your mind.

1. Know your goal. First, make sure that your team is broadly aware of the goals of InterVarsity on your campus. Next, be sure of what’s on the agenda for this meeting. Finally, be as clear as possible about the particular item of business at hand.

Too often we don’t know what we’re trying to accomplish. Lack of direction (or too many items to cover) can derail any project.

2. Pray. Ask for God’s guidance and wisdom, seeking overall unity, not just unity on a particular issue. A team that enjoys harmony in its inner relations and philosophy of ministry will move quickly through tedious business. Team prayer, Bible study and recreation (you know, plain ol’ goofing off) can all help build unity.

3. Determine the options on an issue or project. As you come together to discuss an issue, don’t work from a blank slate. Ask people who are gifted in the area under consideration to do some advance work. If they can come ready to present some plausible options, you’ll have a more succinct and tangible discussion, and you’ll save hours of time.

My friend Lloyd Brandt is a retired banker and serves on the boards of many organizations. He said to me once, "Boards can react, but they cannot act." What he meant is that a board of directors (or a team like yours) can evaluate proposals and options that are already cooked up, but usually cannot create recipes from scratch during regular meeting time.

Once I sat (fidgeting) through a meeting where eight people tried to create a brochure from square one. Impossible. It was like playing verbal "Twister." We should have given a couple of creative people a week to give birth to our piece, then bring two or three samples in for discussion so we could properly react.

Note: The people doing advance work on a project may need initial ideas and general direction from the larger team. Time to brainstorm! Two key words for brainstorming: don’t evaluate. Allow everyone’s ideas to flow freely. A critical spirit is definitely out of place here.

4. Select the best option. Once the options are presented, it’s time to interact, hearing people’s responses and input. At this point, be sure everyone has the chance to be heard. The leader should feel free to hear many voices.

The pattern I see in meetings is that solutions tend to flow toward loud, verbal people, or, ironically, toward an "underdog," quiet voice that rarely speaks. Sometimes we adopt an idea merely because Kristin said it. We don’t want to offend Kristin. Or we go with Luis’s idea because he hardly ever says anything, and we want Luis to feel included. Or we go with the default: Jean and Moua give their confident opinions on every question. They must be right.

What’s wrong with this picture? We haven’t interacted with ideas. Suppose this were a planning session for an expensive (in dollars and hours) campus-wide outreach. Because of our unhealthy communication patterns (disguised as care for individuals), we may have just picked the wrong topic or speaker. Later, we’ll pay.

People on healthy teams refrain from investing their own self-esteem in their ideas. Instead, they desire feedback, interaction and even healthy criticism. It’s possible to respect the person and reject the idea. If everyone on the team is willing to interact freely with ideas—and allow their own ideas to be "free game"—wise decisions will follow.

In this stage, focus on the ideas, not your opinion of the people offering them. Then use appropriate criteria to evaluate the best of the solutions:

• Does it have biblical warrant?
• Is it truthful?
• Does it meet the stated goal?
• Are sufficient resources available?
• Is it practical?
• Will it build people up?

5. Continue to pray. Again seek humility and harmony as you adopt a decision.

6. Decide who will oversee implementation. Assign one person or one team to be in charge of moving ahead on the decision. One person doesn’t have to do all the work, but one person should be the contact person or coordinator. Clarifying who is in charge shows respect for peoples’ time and effort. I talked with a chapter president one time about her "90 percent" decisions. She would lead the group through nine-tenths of the decision making process, only to fail at the very end. She just couldn’t look anyone in the eye to ask if they’d coordinate the project or be the contact person. By the next meeting, no work would have been done. Needless to say, the team fell gradually into disillusionment. It was all talk, no action. Healthy teams ensure responsibility for their decisions.
 

1. Buy into the group wisdom, trusting that God will honor, protect and bless.
2. Ask to re-visit the issue later. This can mean asking to re-evaluate once implementation has gone far enough to create some results.
3. Resign, although this is a very serious decision that must not be made alone. There is a good chance that choices (1) and (2) will resolve dissension over time, and the group’s decision should be given a chance to prove itself.

Recently, a church hired me to lead a new ministry. I asked at the time whether the church elders supported the ministry, and the answer was that they were unanimous. I found later that each individual elder was not, in fact, in favor, but still, they were unanimous. Dissenting voices had submitted to group wisdom. There were no grumblings on the side, no acts of "decision sabotage." They stuck together, and by God’s leading the work is moving ahead.

8. Implement the decision: The person responsible helps his or her team carry it out. Be sure the team reports back after a designated period of time for re-evaluation and to be assigned next steps if necessary (the process begins another cycle).

Practice these principles and soon your team will be on track, coming prepared to listen, finding harmony in prayer and taking responsibility for action. Being on a leadership team really can be rewarding, not a waste of your most precious resource—time.