ABSTRACT
This chapter offers examples of the various kinds of formal meeting, and in some cases detailing the issues dealt with at such meetings. It argues that there are three main kinds of scheduled recurrent meeting—production meetings, departmental meetings and worker representative meetings. In the discussion and exemplification of these formal meetings two other aims are pursued: pointing to differences between senior and junior managers, and noting things that distinguish British from German managers. The higher the rank in management the more outward-looking are the typical concerns, is a precept illustrated by the exchange. The ad hoc discussion is more particularly the prerogative of the junior manager, or the manager in a small company, and such ad hoc discussions represent a higher proportion of working time for German managers than for their English colleagues.
