When Power Attends the Meeting

Jeff couldn't believe what he wasn't hearing. "One more time," he said, "does anyone know how Michelle's doing on the variance report?" She'd circulated a draft yesterday, but Jeff hadn't looked at it yet. The silence puzzled him — surely someone had read the report by now.

Aha, he thought. Maybe Michelle was reporting bad news, and nobody wanted to speak up, because Nan, Jeff's boss, was sitting in on the meeting. "OK, let's move on. Maybe Michelle will show up later," he said, knowing that she probably wouldn't.

Most meetings have an owner who chairs the meeting, devises the agenda, invites attendees and so on. When the owner's boss "sits in," everything changes, especially if visits are rare. The meeting can become awkward, tense, and ineffective. Permanent harm can result.

Rarely is visiting a
subordinate's meeting
a good idea.
The risk of
disruption is high.Rarely is visiting a subordinate's meeting a good idea. The risk of disruption is high, due to a form of the Hawthorne effect. And if attendees misinterpret the meaning of the visit, it can even disrupt relationships among them.

Here are just some of the risks when power attends the meeting:

The chair freezes

In fear of being overruled or corrected, the chair can become tentative, avoiding issues that would normally be pursued or resolved. This is what happened to Jeff.

Everyone else freezes

If the visitor rarely attends, attendees might assume the worst — that the chair is in some kind of trouble. Unsure about their own status, they restrict their comments to safe topics. Truth goes underground.

The visitor hijacks the meeting

Almost anything the visitor says can give everyone pause, but some visitors actually try to manipulate decisions, or worse, they seize control of the meeting.

The visitor takes notes

Since no one in the room can make out what the visitor is writing down, people tend to imagine the worst.

The visitor leaves the meeting early

In the absence of real evidence, when the visitor leaves early, many wonder whether someone said something that caused anger or disgust.

Ambition takes over

Some ambitious attendees might try to impress the visitor, possibly at the expense of the chair or of other attendees.

Trouble for all to see

Attendees imagine, or believe they see, evidence of tension between the visitor and the chair, which afterwards complicates their own relationships with the chair.

Unless your purpose is to shower the chair with honor, find a different approach to accomplish your goal. If it's information you seek, ask for a briefing. If the meeting owner's performance is at issue, have a consultant observe the meeting and work with the meeting owner on any issues that surface.

If you doubt these risks, do this imaginary experiment. Imagine your boss sitting in on one of your meetings — a juicy one, perhaps, where you're investigating a troubled project. How do you think it would go?  Top    Next Issue

Is every other day a tense, anxious, angry misery as you watch people around you, who couldn't even think their way through a game of Jacks, win at workplace politics and steal the credit and glory for just about everyone's best work including yours? Read 303 Secrets of Workplace Politics, filled with tips and techniques for succeeding in workplace politics. More info

Your comments are welcome

About Point Lookout

Thank you for reading this article. I hope you enjoyed it and found it useful, and that you'll consider recommending it to a friend.

Point Lookout is a free weekly email newsletter. Browse the archive of past issues. Subscribe for free.

Support Point Lookout by joining the Friends of Point Lookout, as an individual or as an organization.

Do you face a complex interpersonal situation? Send it in, anonymously if you like, and I'll give you my two cents.

Related articles

More articles on Workplace Politics:

Pumpers

In workplace politics, some people always seem to be seeking information about others, but they give very little in return. They're pumpers. What can you do to deal with pumpers?

A Critique of Criticism: II

To make things better, we criticize, but we often miss the mark. We inflict pain without meaning to, and some of that pain comes back to us. How can we get better outcomes, while reducing the risks of inflicting pain?

Not Really Part of the Team: II

When some team members hang back, declining to show initiative, we tend to overlook the possibility that their behavior is a response to something happening within or around the team. Too often we hold responsible the person who's hanging back. What other explanations are possible?

Workplace Anti-Patterns

We find patterns of counter-effective behavior — anti-patterns — in every part of life, including the workplace. Why? What are their features?

Gratuitous Complexity as a Type III Error

Some of the technological assets we build — whether hardware, software, or procedures — are gratuitously complex. That's an error, but an error of a special kind: it can be the correct solution to the wrong problem.

See also Workplace Politics, Effective Meetings and Managing Your Boss for more related articles.

Forthcoming issues of Point Lookout

Coming January 27: Cost Concerns: Comparisons

When we assess the costs of different options for solving a problem, we must take care not to commit a variety of errors in approach. These errors can lead to flawed decisions. One activity at risk for error is comparing the costs of two options. Available here and by RSS on January 27.

And on February 3: Cost Concerns: Bias

When we consider the costs of problem solutions too early in the problem-solving process, the results of comparing alternatives might be unreliable. Deferring cost concerns until we fully understand the problem can yield more options and better decisions. Available here and by RSS on February 3.

Coaching services

I offer email and telephone coaching at both corporate and individual rates. Contact Rick for details at rbrenhZLYrRMtUnyjppRsner@ChacotqZAFalhYTBMgJWoCanyon.com or (650) 787-6475, or toll-free in the continental US at (866) 378-5470.

Get the ebook!

Past issues of Point Lookout are available in six ebooks:

• Get 2001-2 in Geese Don't Land on Twigs (PDF, )
• Get 2003-4 in Why Dogs Wag (PDF, )
• Get 2005-6 in Loopy Things We Do (PDF, )
• Get 2007-8 in Things We Believe That Maybe Aren't So True (PDF, )
• Get 2009-10 in The Questions Not Asked (PDF, )
• Get all of the first twelve years (2001-2012) in The Collected Issues of Point Lookout (PDF, )

Are you a writer, editor or publisher on deadline? Are you looking for an article that will get people talking and get compliments flying your way? You can have 500-1000 words in your inbox in one hour. License any article from this Web site. More info

Public seminars

The Power Affect: How We Express Our Personal Power

Many people who possess real organizational power have a characteristic demeanor. It's the way they project their presence. I call this the power affect. Some people — call them power pretenders — adopt the power affect well before they attain significant organizational power. Unfortunately for their colleagues, and for their organizations, power pretenders can attain organizational power out of proportion to their merit or abilities. Understanding the power affect is therefore important for anyone who aims to attain power, or anyone who works with power pretenders. Read more about this program.

• A recording of a program presented June 29, 2017, Monthly Webinar, sponsored by Technobility Webinar Series. PMI members can earn 1.0 Category 'A' PDU by viewing this program. View this program now.
   
• A recording of a program presented June 29, 2017, Monthly Webinar, sponsored by Technobility Webinar Series. PMI members can earn 1.0 Category 'A' PDU by viewing this program. View this program now.
   

Bullet Points: Mastery or Madness?

Decision-makers in modern organizations commonly demand briefings in the form of bullet points or a series of series of bullet points. But this form of presentation has limited value for complex decisions. We need something more. We actually need to think. Briefers who combine the bullet-point format with a variety of persuasion techniques can mislead decision-makers, guiding them into making poor decisions. Read more about this program.

• A recording of a program presented June 24, 2020, Monthly Webinar, sponsored by Technobility Webinar Series. PMI members can earn 1.0 Category 'A' PDU by viewing this program. View this program now.
   
• A recording of a program presented June 24, 2020, Monthly Webinar, sponsored by Technobility Webinar Series. PMI members can earn 1.0 Category 'A' PDU by viewing this program. View this program now.