3 common mistakes made by rookie minute-takers
By Stephanie Oley

Taking meeting minutes is not a popular job. That’s because they involve organising disparate and even meandering conversations into a logical summary, sometimes when you don’t even understand the subject matter that well yourself.

Minute-taking is often assigned to people new to an organisation or role. That’s a shame, because taking minutes is a privilege and a major responsibility.

When you record your organisation’s minutes, you are essentially witnessing business decisions unfold live before your eyes.

Corporate history is dotted with tales of major decisions inaccurately recorded by organisations. Areas that can later come under debate range from contract negotiations to asset allocation and regulatory compliance, often during stressful periods for the organisation.

Some of these matters can even become the subject of legal scrutiny, often many years on, and resulting in hefty fines, bans and other repercussions. Conversely, having clearly written, correctly recorded minutes has helped companies to prevent lengthy and costly litigations.

Taking minutes requires a fair degree of subject-matter expertise. That includes an understanding of the subject-matter and its sub-topics, whether we’re talking finance or foodstuff. It also means you know all the acronyms, abbreviations and people involved.

Here are the three most common mistakes to avoid if you’re new to the task:

1. Confusing minutes with notes

Minutes are more than just notes – they are a short report of the meeting, and a legal record of what transpired there. So much so, they can’t even be amended once approved by the meeting chair.

Minutes are not a transcript of every matter debated and workshopped. In other words, don’t be tempted to record the meeting and convert that transcript to text. You will end up with 15 pages of largely unusable gibberish. The real task for a minute-keeper is to listen between all the chatter, and identify key developments in each agenda item.

Write the minutes aimed at a well-informed colleague who normally attends but couldn’t make this meeting. Will they be able to follow the rationale behind decisions made? Can they see who is responsible for each one, and how this will be progressed at the next meeting?

If so, you have the right level of detail.

2. Lacking confidence to manage conversations

Initially, it might seem that everyone knows what they’re doing in a fast-moving meeting discussion. But not all meetings have a logical flow, and not all speakers make their points clearly. Digressions, disagreements, side conversations and muttered responses are also rife. This makes things doubly hard for minute-takers.

Remember, it’s OK to take control here. Don’t be afraid to stop the meeting to seek clarifications, ask for mini summaries, or simply bring the conversation back on track. A good meeting chair will support you in this, and you can agree in advance how they might step in to do so.

3. Not editing the same day

Can you remember what you did after work five days ago? Neither do we. The same applies to a myriad of conversations had and decisions made in between.

We can’t emphasise enough how important it is to edit your draft minutes immediately after the meeting, or at least on the same day. The brain’s short-term memory can hold only a limited amount of information before this is displaced with newer information. It’s a bit like the staging area of a warehouse – items are constantly received and dispatched.

Block out time in your calendar after the meeting so you have time to edit. That same day, circulate separate excerpts of these edited minute excerpts to the respective leads for each agenda item. Why so soon? Because your colleagues are human too, and will also forget details the longer you let time slide by.

Learning how to take minutes effectively for your organisation takes time, but with a little expert guidance and practice runs, you’ll become infinitely more confident.