Stand-Up Meetings: A New Model for Administrative Conferences

Abstract

EVEN THOUGH ITS POPULARITY as a seminar and lecture topic has recently declined on conference agenda, the problem of communication among key administrators has neither been resolved nor diminished. Much attention in the past has been devoted to an analysis of communication problems between levels within an organization. Relatively little attention has been given to the patterns and problems of communication between administrators at the highest level of organizations. However, an experiment in administrative communication which proved successful illustrates one approach to this recurrent dilemma. Faced with an organization which was doubling its size every three years, the operation of a campus whose complexity and problems were increasing at an even greater pace, and a limited number of skilled academic administrators, the college needed an immediate answer. A new type of stand-up meeting was an innovation that greatly improved top-level communication patterns.