I attended a meeting of a community-based health care organization
Each person in the meeting was issued with a copy of the meeting’s agenda. The entire meeting hall was segregated into three sections where eight persons (senior officials) were seated in the front. Another group of six people (leaders of the committee) were adjacent the ‘senior officials’ while the rest of the hall was occupied by a multitude of around 400 people. One corner of the building had transparent ballot boxes while each seat in the entire conference hall had a microphone and an inbuilt microcomputer. A person identified as Chris Hart and the overall leader of the meeting as well as the health organization read the agenda of the meeting (National League for Nursing, 2013). Agenda one was welcoming members, guests, special experts, and visitors. Agenda two to six involved presentations of reports and recommendations. Each agenda also had a comments section, followed by voting. The reports to be presented were, however labeled differently. For example, agenda two was ‘presentation of report and recommendation by the investment committee leader.’ Subsection one of agenda two was commented by a special expert while subsection three of agenda two was an open forum. The last subsection of agenda two was voting.
The leader of the organization addressed agenda one and invited Mary Young to continue with agenda two on presentation of the report and recommendation. The key message in the entire report was investing 2% of all proceeds realized in the last financial year in putting up a cancer diagnosis and treatment center. Young disclosed that her committee had done comprehensive analysis and consultations in the best way they could spend two hundred million dollars. She acknowledged that there were many viable options to invest related to health care, but a cancer center was more viable than other options that were proposed during the last meeting. The recommendations of the committee were supported by the special expert and many of the people who were given a chance to air their voices in the open forum. I later understood that the people given a chance to air their views were randomly selected, by senior officials, through the microcomputer system (Huxham & Vangen, 2009). Every person in the hall submitted his or her request to voice his or her opinion, but only ten people were given a chance to air out their opposing or accepting opinions. In the end, the entire agenda was unanimously voted by all 350 members of the community health organization who have a voting right.
Agenda five was different from other items presented during the meeting. Specifically, the committee was tasked with reviewing service rates in the community-based health facility. After lengthy presentations involving data analysis, the committee recommends zero percent increase on service rates. Six respondents gave negative comments on the recommendations of the committee, while five people, including the special expert, gave positive comments. The entire meeting was, therefore, divided. Members of the committee convened a separate meeting, with members, on various corners of the meeting hall to build consensus and convince members to vote in support of the recommendations (Miller & Miller, 2014). Finally, the report failed to garner the minimum number of votes. The leader of the organization authorized that the fifth agenda will be repeated because this was critical to the success of the organization. Further, he authorized that members will vote for or against the report using the manual or traditional voting system as per the rules of the organization. Each member with the special voting right was therefore required to nominate a person, who will sit in the committee that will repeat the report. In the end, the meeting was adjourned, and members advised to check their email for a schedule of the next meeting.
Analysis
The meeting employed shared governance. Each member had a voting right. Further, the input of an expert was allowed. Still, committee members had the right to lure members to support their report.
References
Huxham, C., & Vangen, S. (2009). Leadership in the shaping and implementation of collaboration agendas: How things happen in a (not quite) joined-up world. Academy of Management journal, 43(6), 1159-1175.
Miller, J. P. & Miller, R. W. (2014). Leadership Styles for Success in Collaborative Work Retrieved from http://www.leadershipeducators.org/resources/documents/conferences/fortworth/miller.pdf
National League for Nursing (2013). COALITION-BUILDING Retrieved from http://www.nln.org/docs/default-source/advocacy-public-policy/coalition-building-pdf.pdf?sfvrsn=0
