Jan den Holder.
Aspects
of minute-taking as a profession: who takes the minutes - where, why and how?
Lecture on the occasion of the 45th Intersteno Convention in
1.
What is to be understood by minute-taking?
Minute-taking
comprises two activities: 1) to note down in a concise way the matters that are
being dealt with and decided on during a meeting; 2) the editing of these notes
to produce the minutes of the meeting. Those present at the meeting must
afterwards agree with these minutes and therefore the approval of the minutes
of the last meeting is always one of the first items on the agenda of any
meeting. The approved minutes are the legal evidence of what was being dealt
with and decided on at a particular meeting.
Meetings are being
held on all levels and therefore minute-taking takes place on all levels: from
the annual members' meeting of the lawn tennis club to the board meeting of an
industrial company and to the Council of Ministers of the European Union.
2.
Reasons for professional minute-taking
The more important,
higher or powerful the body that is assembled for a meeting, the more
meaningful and momentous the minutes of such a meeting are. Hence the greater
the need of their reliability and accuracy, and also the greater the importance
of their timely appearance. On these managerial, administrative or governmental
levels minute-taking cannot depend on the voluntary assistance of a board
member or other person present at the meeting.
Professionalizing of
minute-taking, i.e. making it a salaried job, warrants that 1) the minute-taker
has sufficient expertise; 2) there will always appear draft minutes in time.
3.
Who is taking the minutes on a professional basis?
The professional minute-taker
may be a person who takes the minutes only from time to time, as part of the
job he fulfils, or the minute-taking may be his main occupation. Furthermore
the professional minute-taker may be an employee of the body that calls the
meeting or he may be working as a freelancer or otherwise on a temporary basis.
I shall argue why it
is plausible that minute-taking in most cases will be part of a broader job and
that such a person, taking the minutes from time to time, will be an employee
of the body that calls the meeting. It then also becomes clear why there are
not many professional minute-takers who are working on a freelance basis. To
this end it is advisable to make a comparison with the stenographer.
4.
The difference between minute-taker and stenographer
The professionals
whose occupation it is to make verbatim reports of meetings and court sessions
-- we shall call them stenographers -- are far more numerous than the ones that
have minute-taking as their main job. Stenographers can be called in to record
verbatim any meeting or conference and that without much preparation. They are
proficient in producing within a very short time a well-edited verbatim report
of speeches and discussions, nowadays mostly with the help of tape recording,
voice recording etc.
Minute-taking on the
other hand often concerns the concise registration of managerial or
administrative or technicalities. This requires, for the same meeting, a
greater knowledge of the matter at issue, a greater familiarity with procedures
and more insight then is necessary for the verbatim recording of the spoken
word. A minute-taker must well know the sphere of action and procedures of the
body that is assembled and, preferably, also the personalities of those present
and their views. This knowledge, that makes it easier to take the minutes, is
present in secretaries at all levels. By taking the minutes these functionaries
exploit the knowledge they have already acquired in other parts of their job.
On the other hand, if minute-taking is a person's only occupation he must
acquire the necessary knowledge separately -- either for the account of his
employer or for his own account if he is a freelancer. This counteracts the
spreading of that particular kind of occupation. Professionals which do have
minute-taking as their main job are mainly working for organisations that have
meetings of a political or advisory character. These meetings demand another
kind of minutes, somewhat more extensive, than the regular board and management
minutes. These minute-takers are doing a job that is comparable to some of the
work of stenographers.
5.
Concise reporting
Both the
minute-taker and the stenographer may record meetings that are not directly
meant to take decisions nor are these meetings on an equal level with the
parliamentary debate that needs verbatim recording. These are for example
committee meetings meant to take stock of the opinions of political parties or
social organisations about governmental policy, to negotiate about it or to
reach agreement on it. It is then up to the minute-taker or stenographer to
select and summarise the relevant parts of the discussion and thus produce a
concise, well-structured report of the meeting. The minute-taker, to this end,
will have to find his way in a less concrete and less businesslike discussion
than he is used to. The stenographer in turn will experience that, to be able
to select and summarise the relevant parts of the discussion, he has to study
to a greater extent the underlying documents than is the case with verbatim
recording.
It is against this
background that the Dutch stenographers may voice their preference for certain
fields of policy. The staff of our stenographic service then tries to make
allowance for these preferences when assigning the concise reporting of
committee meetings to individual stenographers.
Minute-takers
working freelance prefer to record for longer periods the meetings of the
same body or committee. In this way they
acquire the necessary special knowledge of the sphere of action and procedures
of this body or committee and in this way they also acquire experience with the
particular kind of minutes that are required. Switching to a new body or
committee means also a new period of mastering these details which in the
beginning seriously slows down the speed with which the minutes or the report
can be produced.
6.
Where is it that professional minute-taking takes
place?
In general the
answer to this question is: everywhere where a meeting consists of people who
by virtue of their profession or official function are taking part in this
meeting.
Minute-taking in its
essential form mainly takes place in meetings that have a managerial,
administrative character: board meetings, staff or management meetings, council
meetings, members' meetings. Here it is the secretary of for example the
general manager or the chairman of the board who most likely will minute the
meeting and afterwards make the draft minutes under the supervision of his or
her boss. These are minutes that typically are presented for approval at the
next meeting.
Next to these
managerial, administrative meetings there are the more politically orientated
meetings where, as we saw, the recording is not strictly done in the form of
minutes but more in the form of concise reporting. These reports are somewhat
less official and not always presented at a next meeting for approval, although
the individual speaker may have the right of correction.
7.
Why is minute-taking done?
In a strict sense
minute-taking is done to put in writing the decisions and agreements that are
reached at a meeting, so as to avoid that afterwards there may be
misconceptions about these decisions and agreements and to ensure that they
will be executed and adhered to.
Often it is expected
from minutes that they contain at least the grounds on which a certain decision
was taken. The minute-taker then has to give a summary of the relevant parts of
the discussion and its conclusions. To these extensive minutes usually a list
of decisions and actions is attached, out of which something like a decisions
bookkeeping may develop. This makes it possible to monitor which decisions
already have been fulfilled and which have not.
In the Dutch
Parliament we know something like it, where the concise reporting of committee
meetings is concerned. The clerk of the committee notes down the promises and
commitments made by the minister or state-secretary during the meeting of the
committee. The resulting list of promises and commitments is being read aloud
by the chairman of the committee at the end of the meeting. This list
constitutes as it were the instant minutes of the meeting and the stenographer
has to incorporate it in his report, where it offers a summary of the results
of the meeting.
The recording of the
meetings of advisory bodies fulfils more than one function. Besides reporting
what was being discussed, these reports also register the process of reaching
agreements and compromises, aimed at formulating a unanimous advice to e.g. the
government. Compromises that have been reached during a meeting are minuted by
the reporter and at the next meeting, by approving the minutes, confirmed. The
clerk of the advisory body will be able to use these reports when formulating
the draft advice.
8.
How are the minutes taken?
Strictly speaking it
suffices for minute-taking to take notes during the meeting in normal
handwriting. In this case there has to be confidence in the special ability of
the minute-taker to take down the essential elements of the discussion in a
trustworthy way. In stead of pen and paper we see today that sometimes
notebooks are used by minute-takers. This offers more possibilities to classify
the typed notes during the meeting. When afterwards editing the minutes, it
comes in handy when the notes are already electronically available.
The registration
techniques as used by stenographers for the verbatim recording of meetings --
pen shorthand, machine shorthand, stenomask, sound and voice recording -- are,
with the exception of pen shorthand and sound recording, not used by
minute-takers. The minute-taker, just because he has to make a summary report,
must devote most of his attention to the discussion and proceedings. For only
in this manner it is possible to distinguish between essential matters, that
have to be minuted, and subordinate matters that may be skipped.
It seldom happens
that the minutes are ready immediately after the meeting. The usual procedure
is that the notes taken during the meeting are afterwards, in a quiet place,
worked out in the form of minutes. Sometimes it is necessary for the
minute-taker to listen to the sound recording of the meeting, but the fastest
way to produce the minutes is by working on the basis of one's own, trustworthy
and clearly written notes.
Standards for
professional minutes and minute-takers
Professional minutes must be:
- truthful;
- concise but
basically complete;
- neutral,
well-balanced and objective;
- ready in time
before the next meeting;
- clearly
structured;
- orthographically
and grammatically faultless;
- readable.
Looking at the
function that minutes have in the meeting process, these are, put in their
order of importance, the standards professional minutes have to meet.
In their aim at
completeness, equilibrium and neutrality minutes and concise reports differ
from the reporting done by journalists. Journalism may answer to high standards
of truthfulness and objectivity, but is always partial in its reporting, as it
is the result of a selection of elements that are deemed relevant by the
journalist in question.
The professional minute-taker has the following profile:
- an adequate
educational background;
- an adequate
mastery of the spoken and written language;
- being able to take
notes rapidly;
- being able to
distinguish matters of first importance;
- knowledge of the
sphere of action of the body that is assembled;
- knowledge of the
relevant meeting procedures;
- being able to make
the draft minutes within a fairly short time;
- trustworthy and
ready to serve in the interest of the meeting;
- an objective
attitude towards the persons present at the meeting and their opinions.
Looking at the role
the minute-taker has to fulfil, producing the minutes, these are in order of
their importance the qualifications a professional minute-taker has to meet. The
educational background the professional minute-taker needs, depends upon the
level of the sphere of action the meeting is covering. These levels range from
an employees council or staff meeting to a cabinet meeting. The concise
reporting of e.g. parliamentary committee meetings demands a broad general
education, active reading of good newspapers and analytical insight.
However, unlike the
journalist, who in his reporting is focused on the aspects he deems interesting
for his readers, the minute-taker has to produce minutes or a concise report
that, as to the essentials, is complete. His selection is aimed at what is
relevant for the meeting and for dealing with the items on the agenda. Unlike
the journalist, who is rather assertive and selective in gathering and
presenting his news, the minute-taker is receptive and aims at a well-balanced
phrasing of the input of speakers and at compliance with the wishes of the
chairman regarding the composition of the minutes.