Study of Committees and Conferences
| Author | Professor John Cohen |
| Date | 01 December 1952 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9299.1952.tb02803.x |
| Published date | 01 December 1952 |
Study
of
Committees
and
Conferences
By
PROFESSOR
JOHN
COHEN
Professor
Cohen’s
paper
is
reprinted,
by
permission
of
the Editor, from
‘‘
Occupational
Psychology
”
(April
1952,
VoI.
XXVI,
No.
2),
the3ournal
of
rhe National Institute
of
Industrial
Psychology.
Introduction
:
Internal
and
External
Criteria
HE
study of committees and
T
conferences brings
us
imme-
diately into the heart of a complex
of
human problems, each
of
which is
bound up with the rest. There
are
problems
of
individual and group
thinking, group productivity, leader-
ship, suggestibility, the relation
of
thought and speech, group dynamics,
cultural differences, unconscious
motivation and many others. The
study
of
this
form of behaviour is apt
to lose itself in a maze of detail and
overlook essentials. But a conference
session or committee meeting
is
a
clear-cut event. This distinct event
must be kept clearly in the foreground.
The session or meeting may be only
one
of
a series which forms part
of
the
background.
Also
contributing to the
background are the bodies or interests
represented, the personal relation-
ships and ambitions
of
participants,
and the socio-economic nature
of
the
terms
of
reference.
A
convenient point of departure for
studies of
this
kind is to ask pertinent
questions about
the
group or event
as a whole. Let us begin by posing
the question
:
‘‘
What
is
a committee
or conference for 3
”
This question
may be put in another form, namely
:
“By what criteria are we able to
judge the effectiveness of a com-
mittee or conference
3
”
A
committee or conference is not a
closed system or
an
end in itself.
It
takes place as a means to an end, to
bring about some change in the
world beyond itself. The criteria
of
its
effectiveness must therefore take
account
of
any changes in the outer
world as a result of its occurrence.
What would have happened had there
been
no
committee or conference?
What
changes has the event
of
the
conference brought into the wider
world
of
which
it
is
part?
For
example,
if
it has been
a
conference of
workers and management, have
in-
dustrial relations improved as a
result?
In
what ways,
if
any, have
individual participants or the groups
which they represent been spurred to
greater efforts or urged to different
action? Have they engaged in new
activities in a way which
is
attributable
to the conference? and
so
on.
In
short, the effect
is
to be judged by the
total impact
on
the groups or institu-
tions from which its participants are
drawn. These effects could be
assessed by
“
follow-up
’’
procedures
which should form an integral part
of the study.
This criterion, which assesses the
work of a conference
on
the world
outside,
is
an
external
criterion.
It
must be distinguished from an
internal
criterion, which evaluates a meeting
by determining the effects
on
the
participants themselves. These two
kinds
of
criteria are not entirely
independent. The
effect
of
a
con-
ference
on
the world outside
is
usually inseparable from its effect
on
the participants during the proceed-
ings.
The cohesiveness
of
the parti-
cipants, their emotional receptivity,
the development of their
capacity
to
Zisten
and their feelings of identifica-
tion
with
the conference as a whole
are generally conditions for satisfying
external as well as internal criteria.
Unless these conditions are satisfied
the conference
is
unlikely to be an
361
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