Polishing Your Skills
Minute Taking Doesn't Have to be Hard!

by Rhonda Scharf

Remember the game “telephone” we played as kids? One person would whisper a message to the person beside them, and they in turn would whisper to the person beside them. The game was fun when the message reached the end of the line and the last person would share aloud what the message was. It was NEVER the original message, and everyone could laugh at the outcome.

That was fun.

The same thing has happened with your minute taking, only it isn’t fun anymore.
It doesn’t have to be that way.

What minute taking isn’t

Minutes are not meant to be a transcript of what happened at your meeting, but that is exactly what has happened for many of us. Minutes does not equal transcript.

Most of us have been following the example of the person who did the job before us, who is doing the job the person before them did. That is not fun. It is probably wrong, too (much like the game of telephone).

The rules for taking minutes have changed over the years, and if you are following a garbled version of what someone did years ago, no wonder you find it difficult to take minutes.

What minute taking is

The purpose of minutes is to provide a corporate history—to record the discussions, the decisions, and the rationale of what happened during the meeting.

Keep in mind your document needs to be a summary. That means you don’t need to capture everything that is said, nor everything that is discussed.

Ask yourself “What will the company need from this document in the future?” Here’s what the company does not need:

• Social updates (such as births, marriages, etc.). It’s fine for these subjects to come up, but the company doesn’t need them to be recorded.

• Details of the discussions. Summarize them instead, focusing on the rationale for decisions that are made.

• Who contributed what to the discussion. The company doesn’t care whether it was Bob or Mary; it cares about the upshot.

Use these 4 critical techniques when taking minutes

1. Employ Keywords.

Try not to write down entire sentences—you will very quickly lose your place and concentration.

For example, instead of writing down "Mr. Jones would like you to return his phone call sometime today," the keywords are “call,” "Jones,” and “today." After the meeting (or later when you are transcribing the minutes) you can put more detail into it.

If you were listening to this tip at a meeting, what keyword would you use to write down the meaning of this conversation? "Keywords."

2. Keep Focused.

It’s quite easy to allow your mind to wander a bit in a boring meeting.

Whenever that happens, bring your focus back to the meeting. Repeat the words you just heard (the keywords), and paraphrase the points to get your own understanding of them in your mind.

Many times we hear the meeting but listen to what is going on in our minds. We need to reverse that.

3. Listen to Understand.

Before you start recording what is being discussed, try to grasp the main ideas (keywords). If we understand the entire conversation, then keywords are easy. If we are trying to write down before we understand, we won't have easy recall.

4. Listen with a Goal.

One of the goals of minutes is to let the people who could not attend be brought up to speed. So your goal is to be able to re-teach what you heard to someone else.

Minute taking can be easy!

Always remember: Keep it simple. Keep it brief. Keep it in a summary format.

Just ask yourself what will be needed in the future from this document, and put that in—and only that.

 

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Check out our Minute Taking Made Easy series of city-based minute taking workshops!