Churches and other Christian organizations are very dependent on the work of committees—much to the chagrin of harried pastors and administrators! Although working with committees sometimes makes us feel like we’re Jacob wrestling with the angel, committee work can be both satisfying and productive—but only if we have some insight into what makes committees tick. Understanding how people tend to work together on committees is half the battle in getting them to be productive.

Test your committee IQ with the following true or false questions.

(Answer each question with true or false)

1. Most committees tend to lean heavily towards consensus decision making.
2. Committee leaders generally make liberal use of participative management techniques.
3. Committee members tend to take information they receive during deliberations as accurate.
4. Committee goals and plans are usually clearly identified and sharply defined.
5. Committees are more likely to focus on process and means (rules, procedures, agendas, etc.) than on mission and ends (goals, contributions, etc.)
6. Committees generally display a good sense of timing in making decisions and implementing plans.
7. Most committee members are gun shy about asking questions or taking actions that might slow the committee down.
8. The formal leader of the committee usually has more influence over the thoughts and feelings of members than do informal leaders on the committee.
9. Most committee members are quick to assume that others in the group are well-informed about the committee’s work and sympathetic to its mission.
10. The terms group and team are basically synonymous.

Committees have a strong tendency—practically a built-in gyroscope—to operate by consensus based on the shared perceptions, experiences, and biases of the members. Even so, committee leaders are commonly reluctant to utilize participative management techniques (brainstorming, delegation, agenda-sharing, etc) in committee deliberations because these tend to slow down the group’s momentum and complicate consensus-formation.

Committee members often end up with a less-than-accurate perception of reality during deliberations because then tend to accept comments made by members at face value. In reality, committee-generated information is often incomplete, subjective, and sloppily researched.

Committee deliberations are apt to proceed efficiently and with apparent progress because they focus more on short-term means (parliamentary procedure, recording minutes, keeping rules and precedent) than on long-run ends (purpose, mission, contributions made). This can lull members into a false sense of security and accomplishment: "We met, therefore, we’re a success."

This tendency to confuse bureaucratic busyness with effectiveness is further aggravated by the reality that the goals and operating plans of most committees are stated in such a fuzzy way that true committee success, over time, can’t be meaningfully measured.

Aggressive committee leaders love to build momentum by barreling through the agenda, pressing for votes, convening subcommittees, and ending meetings no more than a minute overtime. Despite the many advantages of keeping things rolling, these steamroller tactics can backfire can backfire. Members may feel reluctant to speak out for fear of bogging things down; they will probably feel railroaded; important details may be glossed over. Fast work isn’t necessarily a virtue with committees.

Committees are apt to display poor timing in their activities, sometimes moving prematurely (before conditions in the organization are fertile for progress), other times procrastinating. This stems from the tendency of committees to work in isolation of the organization and to emphasize means over ends.

Another important reality about group dynamics concerns the pivotal role of informal leaders—people who are influential because of their popularity, competence, or seniority. Committee members are often subconsciously swayed by informal leaders because decisions influenced by them generally turn out to be popular ones.

Committees have a number of built-in unproductive tendencies that must be counteracted. The process is akin to driving a car: careful steering and regulating speed to get where you want to go. Let’s explore 10 pragmatic strategies for managing committees productively:

1. To counteract the consensus-at-any-cost syndrome, committee leaders must make a conscious effort to solicit feedback from individual members, perhaps on an informal basis away from the group.
2. Goals and purpose statements must be nailed down before the committee begins its work. These should be carefully operationalized: specific, measurable, and systematically communicated.
3. Committee leaders must do their homework before and after meetings to insure that information exchanged is reliable and accurate. Questions must be asked, assumptions challenged, and research completed.
4. Committee leaders should create ways for members to sound off during meetings, such as calling on them by name, probing for feelings, encouraging debate, and not rushing into voting.
5. Leaders will pay attention not only to the how and why of committee activities, but also to the when. A sixth sense of good timing can be developed by staying in close touch with daily operating realities ("man-agement by walking a-round").
6. Smart committee leaders will go out of their way to develop rapport with informal leaders in order to cultivate their behind-the-scenes support.
7. Leaders should keep the committee’s purpose and mission before the group at all times and not assume that "we’re all on the same page." Holding meetings and following "Robert’s Rules of Order" must not be equated with success.
8. The leader will act at times as a governor, or restrainer, on committee proceedings to hold runaway momentum in check and make sure all members are heard from.
9. Leaders can accentuate individual accountability by insisting that committee members who back a proposal pledge their enthusiastic commitment to its implementation. At times, this calls for the leader to gently poke and prod committee members to fully buy into the group’s central mission.
10. Committee leaders must define themselves as producers, not bureaucrats. While bureaucrats preside, producers lead; while bureaucrats follow precedent, producers make precedent; while bureau-crats focus on means, producers focus on ends. Clearly there is a fundamental difference between a committee and a team: committees meet; teams produce!