Effective Meeting Organizational Behavior

Trans Lead OB

Solutions at a NPO radio station

In response to a series of unattended Board of Directors meetings in the last several Quarters, the following is an organizational analysis intended to support communications on Company activities for report to investors and stakeholders. The document outlines information on human resource operations, and the organization's strategic plan of transformation. The report will serve as introduction to the forthcoming 4th Quarter Meeting, where presentation of operations will serve as starting point for more general discussion on organizational behavior (OB) changes as they pertain to human resource management. Short-term and long-term strategic objectives, goals and updated strategic plan are inserted for review in preface to the upcoming, annual board retreat and training.

As you are aware of, in the recent past the number of meetings in the Company increased gradually from monthly to biweekly, and finally to once a week in response to the rapid growth of organization since it went global. Quite a few suggestions were made in regard to the quality and value of meetings. While debatable in terms of correlation, there were instances of interruption noted in the analysis of the meeting minutes, and those distractions offer substance to the overall prospectus on Company communications discussed in this report. Having said this, we would first like to thank everyone for ongoing support of the mission and goals of the organization and its employee stakeholders. Having said this, the success of the 501( c ) 3 nonprofit organization, "a local TV station with an open, brave Christian voice," would not have been made possible without the merit of the Board's persistent, positive contribution to the organization though a series of investments and voluntary support on tertiary projects. As community leaders; the Board must propose a strategy to forge ahead with our mission; and through this leadership-based strategy, it is certain that sustainable growth will follow.

In the last several meetings that were met with enumeration and majority vote several distractions were noted. We would like to call attention to new guidelines to Board of Directors meetings, so that action items may be met effectively. To this end, actions listed in Table 1 are to be avoided:

Table 1

Receipt of cell phone calls

Side conversations

Diligent dispute of information presented by staff

Dominance in discussion

Tangential detours in discussion

Table 1. Guidelines to rules of prohibition at Company meetings.

The aforementioned critique will be part of the Station's new ethics disclosure statement. Concurrent organizational Guidelines are now present within internal staff meetings. At the Station, consistency in policy has always been part of our organizational vision. We extend this opportunity to the Board through strategic vision, ensuring baseline responsibility is made evident as part of the Station's commitment to leadership negotiation of organizational conflict management.

Obligation to an ethical principal in OB and community conduct at our Station culture is rooted in the beginnings of our NPO, and should be established as unified representation as a reflection of our lead decision makers (Pynes, 2008). To this end, we would like to advance solution to the following two challenges: 1) assurance that communication is not affecting adherence to the purposes of the organization and monitor effectiveness in achieving results; and that 2) unproductive meetings that have drained company human resources of time and energy will be transformed to productive work sessions. As a result of the two stated issues, we have faced a number of OB related problems in the last several months, including: Low morale; Poor communication; and Lack of team work. We are concerned about the current ineffective practices taking place within the Station's daily internal operations. Resolution in the problem will be implemented through three actionable objectives listed in Table 2.

Table 2

Individual meeting or phone discussion with board members/attendees to recognize the strengths and weaknesses associated with current meeting practices

Create survey to evaluate and collect opinions about how meetings are viewed, used and managed

Improve goal setting skills in addition to utilizing new measures in meeting (e.g. PowerPoint) presentations to enhance participatory engagement

Table 2. Strategic Action Items: Objectives

The objectives are intended to potentially fulfill organizational core competencies provided by NPO best practices recommendations approaches, where OB is improved through methodological applications dedicated to: 1) making good use of time; 2) Emotional intelligence and performance; 3) Social influence; 4) Goal setting motivation; and 5) Team building. The Strategic Action Items are also meant to augment our broader organizational goals where human resources are concerned (Pynes, 2008). OB factors at the Station may be addressed in collaboration with the perspective put forth by the Burke-Litwin Transformational Change Model. The theory offers OB interested nonprofits the opportunity to addresses issues of collaboration and consensus according to the Model's three (3) goal framework, illustrated in Table 3.

Table 3

1. Employees develop and maintain a collaborative culture: Leaders take initiative to help develop continuous improvement and collective responsibility to motivate people. Leaders help the staff to set collaborative goal setting, actively communicate the company's vision, combat isolation, use bureaucratic measures to support cultural changes, share leadership by delegating power.

2. Fostering staff development: Fostering staff development is an integral part of leadership. It enhances the process of professional growth. This is a process to inspire and energize the workforce.

3. Helping people solve problems more effectively: leader stimulates the workforce to voluntarily engage in new activities needed for the transformation. Help the workers work smarter and not harder. Share a genuine belief that a team effort would solve problems more easily than individual effort.

Table 3. Goals outlined in the Burke-Litwin Transformational Change Model (Burke, 2007).

Designed as an OB 'feedback loop' for change, the Burke Litwin proposition argues that demonstrated change within the organization (i.e. NPO) is iterative in response to: 1) Transformational change in the external environment, which directly affects mission, leadership, culture and strategy of the organization; 2) Transactional factors; 3) Motivation follows, affecting performance; and 4) Feedback enables the organization to make assessed changes in both the internal and external environment.

According to Burke, the goal of 'the leader' is to transpire passion, zeal and a vision in pursuit of the organization's vision and strategic growth. The Transformational Leadership Model is well suited to the nonprofit radio sector, as part of the "functional" aspect of the communications field, its business development and governance; where OB is squarely rooted in the competency, and charisma of its Board leaders seen in Figure 1.

Figure 1. Leadership competency.

Where challenges present themselves in the context of the Board itself, there is still the need for incremental improvement, crisis management, and creation of new organizational capabilities (Burke, 2007). Characterized by a downward dynamic of change with horizontal participation, actors initially involved in this OB model are normatively upper management. Organizational climate, organizational culture, first order changes, and second order changes constitute the four (4) part approach, which allows for incorporation of Surveys and other assessment tools as mechanisms for collecting information about the organization and its prospectus, as denoted in Table 4.