Have you ever been in a meeting that's going off the rails? A meeting that's a like a slow motion train wreck? You can see it happening, but you don't know how to stop it. Here are some ideas on how to handle common toxic situations in meetings:
- Boring and unproductive meetings - Does your boss hold weekly status meetings for the whole department for projects in which you're not remotely interested are discussed? You're not alone. For the 90% of the time that the other projects are discussed, the other project people are just as bored. If you are a junior person, this is a hard problem to correct, but try to enlist the help of the senior people. Suggest individual project meetings. Or publishing the status data prior to the meeting, so the meeting is only discussion of the results. Or setting up a wiki where the project data can be published and discussed by whomever is interested. One piece of advice, though: don't raise your hand in the meeting and announce how boring it is. Your boss will feel defensive and your days at the company will be numbered. If you want to talk to the boss, do it privately outside the meeting.
- Email, texting and cellphones - When I was at my fav accounting firm, someone announced in the middle of a planning meeting "Cool! I just scored Stones tickets!" I may be in the old fart minority here, but I think texting and email in a meeting is hugely disrespectful to everyone else at the table. When I'm the meeting organizer, or otherwise feel my opinion holds some weight, I ban them. I know it depends on the culture of the company, but I think these distractions can easily double the time it takes to get information and make a decision. And, yes I've heard about multitasking, I just don't want to be one of your tasks. Rant off.
- Showboating - OK, so I told you not to showboat, but what if someone else does it? Showboating isn't just the unkind cut, it's also the person who dominates the discussion, interrupts, and belittles everyone else's ideas. The meeting organizer is supposed to handle this toxic situation, but sometime he or she can't or won't. Try saying something along the lines of "Martha, you know a lot about this subject and your experience is really valuable. I have some questions to ask and observations to make that will help me to understand what we are doing, and I think other people may have some too. Can we focus on those for a while?"
- Feeding frenzy - You'll be in a meeting and some guy will have made an obvious mistake - hopefully it's not you. The others see this opportunity to look smart in front of the boss and everyone jumps in to beat the poor bastard down. Again, the person running the meeting should put and end to this, but if they don't (or if you are the poor bastard) say "I think Joe (or I) understands the issue by now and we have other stuff to deal with. What's the next topic?"
What other kinds of nonsense have you had to put up with in meetings and how did you handle it?
