That Nagging Pain

How to Keep Him or Her From Ruining Your Meeting

The question below comes from a meeting facilitator that has his hands full with a meeting participant. I've encountered several "Nagging Pains" over the years and the ten strategies that follow have worked for me over and over again. The next time a member of your work team thinks they have all the answers, carries on side conversations, monopolizes the meeting time or are just plain disruptive, give these ideas a try!

Problem: My greatest fear deals with the person in a meeting who has "all the answers and can do facilitating better". This person continues side conversations, doesn't follow the group's ground rules, and disrupts the flow of discussion. The behavior is very inconsiderate, and the rest of the group says "that's just the way he is". Even taking the person 'aside at breaks' has not helped. HOW DO YOU DEAL WITH FOLKS LIKE THAT?

Susan's response: Wow, there are several issues here, so we'll break them down...

First, for the person who has "all the answers:"

Use visual cues to limit the time to talk. These cues can be everyday items such as poker chips, playing cards, talking stick, etc. Each one is worth a certain amount of talking time that's agreed to in the meeting guidelines. Here is just one example of this strategy at work. At the beginning of the meeting, each participant is given 5 poker chips. Each chip is worth 1 minute of talk time. If participants have something to say, they use a chip and talk for one minute...talk for two minutes, then you've used two chips. When your chips are gone, you're done talking!
Pushing "all the answers" on a group is aggressive- here are assertive actions to take to deal with this behavior:
* Ask person to back up/justify statements
* Ask others for their agreement/disagreement
* Ask respondents to stick to facts/documented evidence
* Interrupt the person with, "thank you for contributing- let's throw the issue over to (name someone) and hear what he thinks."

Second, for the person who continues side conversations and disrupts the flow:

Take care of this in the ground rules and decide as a group how to hold each other accountable. In most of my groups, we use foam balls. We not only allow but encourage participants to throw foam balls at the "offender" when a guideline is broken. In this way, the whole group is responsible for accountability for working well together.
If the distractions persist, stop. Say something like, "There's a challenge here. We agreed to guidelines of no interrupting and no side conversations, but we're not holding to it. Is it the content or is it one of us? What do we need to do to get back on track with focus and respectful behavior?"
If the person simply won't change, this is my ace- "There's a decision that you need to make about your contribution. Is your best contribution to remain with us or is your best contribution to leave?" Or if you need a gentler tone, you can say, "We have xyz objectives to meet in the next 2 hours - do you see yourself staying in order to help us achieve these or would it be best to excuse yourself?" The decision for participation rests with the participant. And yes, I've used this with bosses!

Third, the rest of group says, "that's the way he always is." Try this:

Say, "is that what you want for today? Or, do you want it to be different? What changes can each of you make to change the dynamic?"
OR "If that's the way he always is, then we need to adjust the objectives/goals of our time together. His behavior takes away from our time for achieving results- what is best to change? The desired outcomes or his behavior?" And then we go from there. (BTW, the response to date has been to change behavior!)

**Do you have a specific situation you would like Susan to address? Click here to E-mail your question to Susan! (All submissions are confidential.)

By Susan B. Wilson, President, Executive Strategies