According to a specialist in the psychology of meetings,quoted in today's
The Timesthe most effective board and other committee meetings are of between 5 and 12 people and last one hour. If true, that certainly explains a lot !! Twelve into sixty minutes is five minutes each...
The best meetings that lawyers in their office have are when someone has an idea to 'bounce off' others whose opinion he or she respects.These are impromptu, in that they are not meetings for that case; they arise normally. So you go in with some view of a case, ideally not fixed, though, equally,usually tending strongly to one view or another, and come out either convinced you were right and with yet further reasons for thinking so, or with a fresh view and a new line to pursue. The client never knows this but , as often as not, they are paying for one person's opinion but getting the result of the thoughts of several; that is value for money!That's, incidentally, the best argument for the institution of afternoon tea here, because it is then, after court finishes for the day, that colleagues are certain to be around.It happens in the robing room at court during cases too; clients would be very anxious if they knew that !
Sadly, the great majority of meetings in everyday life are nothing like that. It is commonly said that a camel is a horse designed by a committee. It isn't. It is a "horse" designed by experience and refinement in use.If it had been designed by a committee it would come in way over budget, millions of years late and with a whole lot of unnecessary or inconsistent features put on it because of a need to satisfy the egos of several who would not give way. It might just be that any one of those plans would work, but compromise is the order of the day (or millenium ), and even then there'll be some extras added as a sop to those who are hurt that their whole plan has been mostly omitted in the final mix. And anyway, 'time is passing and we have homes go to'.
The big problem is that individuals do not listen openly and don't respect the others.If they do then it should be possible to make one decision or give advice which is logical,consistent, effective and clear. I have sat amazed while the same lawyers spent over an hour debating whether a carpet, rather than vinyl, should be the flooring in an office lavatory, and if so what grade, and a further time over the supply of milk to the office. They spent far, far less than that in deciding whether to offer a young lawyer a place with the firm or not,but then they were talking and listening on a subject where they had experience and trusted and respected the views of others.On matters domestic and trivial they had no such constraints, and egos and personalities had full rein
It is no obstacle that there are initially as many opinions as there are people provided that those basic tenets are obeyed.
How juries reach a verdict is best not investigated.Chances are that , in the end, there is one strong individual who , whether the others are aware of it or not, is making the verdict. What jurors say afterwards may well suggest calm, individual, reasoning by them all, but the indications ,from speaking to jurors much later, are that the verdict is the result of influence of one or,perhaps, two.
