The Council of Elrond and the Value of a Meeting Agenda

Since one has marshaled all subcontractors the way Elrond did with the fellowship in Rivendell, the least one can do to prevent the lords turning into orcs when there is a disagreement is to have an agenda. 

An agenda is as basic as wearing underwear first before your trousers. And please, it is not just a matter of telling what the purpose of the meeting is, an agenda should also set out a list of items to discuss i.e. organized in an order of precedence that will guarantee a smooth flow of discussion as if it were water flowing in some river of the earlier mentioned Elven realm.

If you ask me, a chairperson presiding a meeting without an agenda is like a coachman of a horse-driven coach but without the harness. An agenda is like an implied control mechanism in which can yield the resolution and achieve the goals that one desires; without one, it can convey to the lords (subcontractors) that the endeavor is fortuitous.  

An agenda also ensures minimizing the duration of the micro-summit: people’s focus dwindles when the discussions (it depends if the meeting’s chairperson is not a tyrant like Sauron) exceeds the 30-minute delineation. If it goes beyond 45 minutes and transforms into an epic, then it is likely that thoughts of the council members will be swept away as if it were driftwood on the above-noted Elven River.

As we have a shortage of scribes, I usually get snatched away from my current work to act as a council meeting’s scribe, i.e. to take down notes. It’s difficult to take down minutes without an agenda, especially if the topics are being developed on the spot. I was scribbling topics back and forth. My notes looked like a schematic layout for one of our electrical shop drawings. With arrow leader lines almost forming a loop of sorts. 

The good thing with such an eventuality is that some matters were ambiguous whilst it seems the rest of the fellowship looked bored because just like earlier noted, it dragged into an epic hour and a half conference that might have caused Gandalf snoring already.

Eventually, the remedy falls in the hands of the scribe. He has to write the story of the council meeting regardless of whether he has to draw schematics or practice some form of alien type stenography. He also has to endeavor to check with all attendees what he has written. It is vital that he provides a factual and true record of the meeting. 

I understand some matters at the site are urgent, but that’s why there are toolbox talks and android phones. It’s unbelievable that construction practitioners do such things (and without an agenda) — meetings should be a last resort tool if you ask me. Sometimes all it needs is a phone call or an email. It’s a waste of time, really. Some companies bill such an endeavour by the minute.

Never ever underestimate the value of an agenda during meetings. It gives respect to the word meeting. It also separates the professionals from the amateurs; the idiots from the diligent.