Rotating the Chair – Why it’s a bad idea

It seems the fair thing to do.  Give each member of the team a chance to chair the regular team meeting.  It develops their skills, builds their confidence, and adds to their bank of experience.  And, it feels equitable.  But at what cost?

A chair without authority constantly has to refer back to someone else for a decision – that looks weak; a chair without the ‘talent’ to coalesce group frustrates the team’s ability to be successful; a chair without the ‘will’ to be a chair goes through the motions of leading, but doesn’t convince.

For the team members who don’t have the talents, the skills or the will to Chair a meeting, making them the chair is like trying to get Turkeys to vote for Christmas.  Its not fair, it causes undue stress and it likely to show them to be ‘failures’ in front of their colleagues.

Pick the people to chair who have the talent to get groups to agreement, the people who have a willingness to learn and develop chairing skills, and give them clear scope about where they have authority to act.  And lets stop trying to rotate the chair to be ‘fair’ . . . its not.

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