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Question about "pure discussion"


budney

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Hello!

I already broached this subject in the thread on resolutions, because it was apropos of something that's puzzling me greatly.

I'm a member of my church board, whose meetings are conducted using the vocabulary of Robert's rules, but in every way incorrectly. I'm interested in persuading them to adopt the substance of parliamentary procedure, and not just the forms. My argument in favor will be the hours and hours we waste getting business done.

A significant hurdle to making my case is that Robert's rules seem to assume that meetings are all about taking actions; discussion is conducted only with a question before the body, and the question is usually some action to be taken. I am aware of some exceptions, such as a motion of thanks or a resolution that merely makes some official statement--such as a resolution "condemning" or "approving" some happening. But even those seem to involve, at the very least, coming to some sort of conclusion.

My church board, by contrast, regularly takes up topics with no expectation that any conclusion or action will result. For example, we might take up a pastoral topic to talk about Brother Freeloader's chronic unemployment, or Sister Souse's alcoholism, with no intention of giving them advice, or issuing a rebuke, or any other action, and precious little hope that we will come up with any real conclusion. We want to discuss their situation in hopes of generating some sort of idea for helping them, or getting everyone up to date on their situation, but that's about it.

So my question is, how would RONR handle a discussion of that sort? If we merely wanted to observe the formalities, we could pass a resolution to give Brother Freeloader a good spanking, I suppose; then we could have our discussion in that framework, and close out the topic by voting the resolution down. That's a rather frivolous resolution, I realize, but even a more sensible one would still be serving merely as a starting point for a discussion. Or we could move "that it is the sense of this board that our brother's freeloading is bad," and then proceed as I just stated. But these all seem like rather artificial ideas. There's probably something fundamental that I'm missing here.

Or is RONR simply incompatible with simply having a discussion? Some rules of order would certainly be nice to have, since these discussions tend to wander off on tangents and then blow hours of our time.

Thanks!

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Hello!

I already broached this subject in the thread on resolutions, because it was apropos of something that's puzzling me greatly.

I'm a member of my church board, whose meetings are conducted using the vocabulary of Robert's rules, but in every way incorrectly. I'm interested in persuading them to adopt the substance of parliamentary procedure, and not just the forms. My argument in favor will be the hours and hours we waste getting business done.

A significant hurdle to making my case is that Robert's rules seem to assume that meetings are all about taking actions; discussion is conducted only with a question before the body, and the question is usually some action to be taken. I am aware of some exceptions, such as a motion of thanks or a resolution that merely makes some official statement--such as a resolution "condemning" or "approving" some happening. But even those seem to involve, at the very least, coming to some sort of conclusion.

My church board, by contrast, regularly takes up topics with no expectation that any conclusion or action will result. For example, we might take up a pastoral topic to talk about Brother Freeloader's chronic unemployment, or Sister Souse's alcoholism, with no intention of giving them advice, or issuing a rebuke, or any other action, and precious little hope that we will come up with any real conclusion. We want to discuss their situation in hopes of generating some sort of idea for helping them, or getting everyone up to date on their situation, but that's about it.

So my question is, how would RONR handle a discussion of that sort? If we merely wanted to observe the formalities, we could pass a resolution to give Brother Freeloader a good spanking, I suppose; then we could have our discussion in that framework, and close out the topic by voting the resolution down. That's a rather frivolous resolution, I realize, but even a more sensible one would still be serving merely as a starting point for a discussion. Or we could move "that it is the sense of this board that our brother's freeloading is bad," and then proceed as I just stated. But these all seem like rather artificial ideas. There's probably something fundamental that I'm missing here.

Or is RONR simply incompatible with simply having a discussion? Some rules of order would certainly be nice to have, since these discussions tend to wander off on tangents and then blow hours of our time.

Thanks!

A major tool to keep meetings from drifting off the way you describe is the rule that the motion comes first, followed by debate, and debate MUST be confined to the merits of the question (motion). Discussion when no question is pending is not allowed. This is RONR's way of keeping the meeting on track. Otherwise, anyone can babel on about anything with no point, and the chair has no guidance as to whether or not their ramblings are germane to the pending matter.

Meetings are for the transaction of business, gossip and shooting the breeze can take place before and after.

Also, note that the business of an assembly is making decisions, no matter how trivial they may seem to outsiders. Just cut the idle chatter.

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And then, once you are done with the brainstorming, you CAN use RONR's rules to collectively decide which idea you came up is "best" and you want to carry out to, one hopes, solve the problem at hand.

That changeover is when your "freeform" group becomes a deliberative assembly, with a decision to make.

There are professional facilitators who can and do keep brainstorming sessions from going off the rails. They are NOT meeting "chairman" in RONR's sense, but do prevent "forever" meetings.

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OK, I hear what you're saying.

JD, the meeting is sorta, mostly about making decisions, and some of our "discussion" really is idle chatter wandering off the topic at hand. Cutting that out is part of my goal here.

In addition, I see the merits of starting with the question whenever possible. In many cases it would give discipline to the discussion, where some sort of decision really is the end result. In those cases, bantering back and forth until finally someone says, "OK, I have a motion!" is a huge time-waster.

I still need to ponder how it's possible to introduce discipline into the meetings while still permitting something that the others would regard as acceptable "discussion." What I'm hearing is that IF there's such a thing as "pure discussion," then it would be necessary to go beyond RONR to incorporate that into the structure.

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The best way, in my opinion, is to intervene when there is ongoing discussion of an item and it's clear that there are opinions but no focus of discussion. At that point, make a motion to focus discussion, and then try to guide people to suggesting amendments as they see fit. Work on coming to a group opinion, rather than experiencing the travesty that is discussing a ton of stuff and having everyone go out thinking that they've convinced everyone else of something when they haven't.

Don't try to force it all right away. That road ends only in tears.

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I still need to ponder how it's possible to introduce discipline into the meetings while still permitting something that the others would regard as acceptable "discussion." What I'm hearing is that IF there's such a thing as "pure discussion," then it would be necessary to go beyond RONR to incorporate that into the structure.

Let's assume I'm a member of the board. I want to do the right thing and attend all meetings but my time is limited. So if there's no more business to take care of, I'd like to go home. (Okay, I'm not really going home but that's beside the point.) Other members are free to stay until the wee hours, engaged in "pure discussion" to their hearts' content. And I can rest, assured that no business will be conducted after I left (and the meeting was adjourned).

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OK, I hear what you're saying....

It seems to me that you need, and want, to distinguish clearly between when your group intends to make decisions (either of the “hire Brother Freeloader” or the “sense of the board variety), which is behaving as a **deliberative assembly** (see RONR, p. 1 -- yes, just the first page), and when it “takes up topics with no expectation that any conclusion or action will result.” As Guest Edgar says, those of you who want to discuss without resolving something might be engaging in a waste of time to those who devote their time to the business of the organization and then have other things to do (home or not; see the Bar Committee discussion from a couple days ago). Others might consider such discussions a highlight of their week. (That’s a large part of why people like to converse.)

It seems to me that what Original Poster Lenny wants is to get people together at a particular time, mostly the same people, in this instance his church board, to do both. You might try either holding a business meeting, with freeform discussions either before or after the business meeting or both; or hold the business meeting, and when the sense of the group is to discuss something loosely, call a recess for a defined period, like fifteen minutes or a couple of hours, depending on what people there want, and at the end of the defined period, the chairman calls the meeting to order again.

And yes, as Dr Stackpole points out, there are ways to moderate the loose discussions.

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Having been on one such church board myself, I think I know where Lenny is coming from: One or more of the board members may be aware of a situation that may or may not require some sort of action. When they all get together for the meeting, it would be nice to be able to say, "Hey, guys, I just heard, this morning, that one of our parishioners lost her job, and broke her arm. Then her husband left her, and her car caught on fire on the interstate. I don't know what to do, but I think we should do something. Does anyone have a suggestion?"

RONR doesn't seem to allow for that, as all discussion must begin with a fully formed motion or resolution. What do you do, if you want to bring up a topic in order to arrive at a motion or resolution?

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Having been on one such church board myself, I think I know where Lenny is coming from: One or more of the board members may be aware of a situation that may or may not require some sort of action. When they all get together for the meeting, it would be nice to be able to say, "Hey, guys, I just heard, this morning, that one of our parishioners lost her job, and broke her arm. Then her husband left her, and her car caught on fire on the interstate. I don't know what to do, but I think we should do something. Does anyone have a suggestion?"

RONR doesn't seem to allow for that, as all discussion must begin with a fully formed motion or resolution. What do you do, if you want to bring up a topic in order to arrive at a motion or resolution?

Pick up a telephone, draft an e-mail, strike up a conversation BEFORE the meeting. Lots of people mistakenly think that everything should wait for the meeting and that everyone should show up unprepared.

In a football game, you'll notice the players collect into a huddle BEFORE the ball is snapped (meeting called to order). The quarterback doesn't yell HIKE and then ask if anyone has any ideas.

Get it together ahead of time, so the meeting can run smoothly and efficiently.

In your example, a motion to refer the matter to a committee to report a recommendation might be a good option, if more research and consideration is desired. That'll allow the meeting to continue with its business. You'll find that committees can get a lot done this way.

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RONR doesn't seem to allow for that, ....

With a little stretch, you could consider your suggestion "We ought to do something" as a main motion with a (potential) blank: "something".

Then fill that blank with a functioning "something", via p.162 ff. All you need to do is invent another sub-section for the book: "Filling a blank with a project".

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Wait a minute. Even apart from small board rules, RONR does provide an option for discussion without a motion -- without, as the poster says-- any " expectation that any conclusion or action will result." It is the optional heading which may be included in the meeting's order of business which can be entitled "Good of the Order, General Good and Welfare, or Open Forum". Take a look at RONR (11th ed.), p. 362, ll. 4-19.

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Wait a minute. Even apart from small board rules, RONR does provide an option for discussion without a motion -- without, as the poster says-- any " expectation that any conclusion or action will result." It is the optional heading which may be included in the meeting's order of business which can be entitled "Good of the Order, General Good and Welfare, or Open Forum". Take a look at RONR (11th ed.), p. 362, ll. 4-19.

I fear lumping all the nonsense into one heading might not be the solution that the original poster is seeking, but it is certainly worth it for Lenny to peruse the cited pages. :)

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Here's a followup question: I'm at work so I don't have access to my copy of RONR, but searching online turns up references to a beastie called a "motion to consider informally." Has that been eliminated in the current edition?

The terse citation that I found, from the 10th edition RONR, suggests that informal consideration looks just like normal debate except that the limit on number of times one may speak, is waived. So the length of speeches would continue to be limited, the order of precedence for speakers is still observed, votes are still formal, questions decided by vote are just as "official" as ever, etc.

I thought it was interesting and relevant to mention in this thread, even though it doesn't qualify as the sort of "pure discussion" described in my original post: before entering "informal discussion," a motion must still be properly made. If that were not true, but instead the motion were "to discuss informally the subject of X," we'd have just what I was vaguely looking for in the OP.

The reference I found also made a suggestion like Gary Tesser's, to take a recess.

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Here's a followup question: I'm at work so I don't have access to my copy of RONR, but searching online turns up references to a beastie called a "motion to consider informally." Has that been eliminated in the current edition?

The terse citation that I found, from the 10th edition RONR, suggests that informal consideration looks just like normal debate except that the limit on number of times one may speak, is waived. So the length of speeches would continue to be limited, the order of precedence for speakers is still observed, votes are still formal, questions decided by vote are just as "official" as ever, etc.

I thought it was interesting and relevant to mention in this thread, even though it doesn't qualify as the sort of "pure discussion" described in my original post: before entering "informal discussion," a motion must still be properly made. If that were not true, but instead the motion were "to discuss informally the subject of X," we'd have just what I was vaguely looking for in the OP.

The reference I found also made a suggestion like Gary Tesser's, to take a recess.

A motion to consider informally simply removes the restriction on the number of times each member can speak in debate, but a pending question is still required.

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You could, however, adopt a special rule of order for informal discussion, stating that it is to be a regular agenda item at a certain point in board meetings, and then carefully defining how it is to take place (including such aspects as overall time limits, limits on specific speeches, whether the items must be submitted in advance, and whether it is permissible for motions to arise out of the discussion topics).

What you would be doing, in that case, is essentially "defining" your board's application of the Good of the Order item discussed above.

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