
Senator Susan Collins of Maine. In September, 2004, Sen. Collins introduced a bill called the National Intelligence Reform Act of 2004. It was understandably controversial, and many of the objections to it were of the form here called "road blocking." Sen. Collins attempted to deal with these objections in multiple ways, including a press release you can read for yourself. The challenges of dealing with road blocking in a public arena are much more difficult than what we find in meetings, but the content of effective responses is no different. Read her approach for some valuable guidance. Photo courtesy United States Senate.
Most of us hate meetings. Even telephone meetings. Common complaints: endless, irrelevant chatter; boring; nothing to do with me; ego wars; could have been done in email; and on and on. Luckily, many of the irritants are avoidable distractions, if we know what to avoid. Here are some guidelines for identifying avoidable distractions. In this Part I, I'll focus on toxic conflict.
In the descriptions below, I'll occasionally use names for the people doing the distracting: Dennis or Denise.
- Diversion
- When the discussion turns in a direction that could be uncomfortable to Dennis, he might raise a ruckus, display anger, inject irrelevant points, or otherwise distract the group. People then lose the original thread, which prevents the discussion from entering Dennis's discomfort zone.
- Road blocking
- When the discussion seems to be converging on a conclusion that Denise dislikes, she'll often raise issues that are irresolvable at this meeting. She wants to buy time for private lobbying, or to allow alternatives to gather strength. Examples of road blocking: "We need more information," "We should check whether this would be OK with them," or "We should investigate this (cheaper, faster, whatever) alternative for compatibility with Marigold."
- Attacking the method
- When Dennis opposes the indicated conclusion of the discussion, instead of criticizing the conclusion, he might criticize the method used to reach the conclusion. Questioning reasoning, assumptions, or data can be legitimate, but he might also attack the process: it was too hurried, it was unfair, the right people weren't involved, and so on.
- Target in absentia
- Here the group falls into discussing the human frailties, deficiencies, or motives of anyone not present. Although this might provide some relief to participants, it's politically dangerous and environmentally toxic.
- Defending against one's own perceptions
- Suppose someone describes a historical situation or sequence of events, as a way of informing the group of a potentially risk-generating situation. Denise, perceiving this comment as criticism of her proposal or prior contribution, defends against her own perception.
- Self-exculpation
- Toxic conflict can be much reduced
if we bar the tactics of
toxic conflict from meetings - Anticipating potential future blame, at this meeting or in some as yet undetermined venue, Dennis offers information not relevant to the immediate issue, except insofar as it might be self-exculpatory, or possibly deflective onto another party. This tactic is often called "CYA."
- Indirect mud slinging
- Slinging mud indirectly, Denise contributes something she believes will degrade the group's opinion of another of its members, without mentioning the target by name. She can therefore claim that her comment wasn't personal. And since understanding the insult requires background information, newer members of the group rarely recognize that anyone has been insulted.
If we avoided these items in our meetings, our meetings would be much shorter. But other distractions would remain. We'll describe them next time. Next in this series Top
Next Issue
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Related articles
More articles on Personal, Team, and Organizational Effectiveness:
How We Avoid Making Decisions
- When an important item remains on our To-Do list for a long time, it's possible that we've found ways
to avoid facing it. Some of the ways we do this are so clever that we may be unaware of them. Here's
a collection of techniques we use to avoid engaging difficult problems.
How to Make Meetings Worth Attending
- Many of us spend seemingly endless hours in meetings that seem dull, ineffective, or even counterproductive.
Here are some insights to keep in mind that might help make meetings more worthwhile — and maybe
even fun.
We Are All People
- When a team works to solve a problem, it is the people of that team who do the work. Remembering that
we're all people — and all different people — is an important key to success.
Finding Work in Tough Times: Marketing
- We aren't accustomed to thinking of finding work in tough times as a marketing problem, but it helps.
Here are some suggestions for applying marketing principles to finding work in tough times.
Flexible Queue Management
- In meetings of 5-30 participants, managing the queue of contributors can be challenging. A strict first-in-first-out
order can cause confusion and waste time if important contributions are delayed. Some meetings need
more flexible queue management.
See also Personal, Team, and Organizational Effectiveness, Effective Meetings and Conflict Management for more related articles.
Forthcoming issues of Point Lookout
Coming March 29: Time Slot Recycling: The Risks
- When we can't begin a meeting because some people haven't arrived, we sometimes cancel the meeting and hold a different one, with the people who are in attendance. It might seem like a good way to avoid wasting time, but there are risks. Available here and by RSS on March 29.
And on April 5: The Fallacy of Division
- Errors of reasoning are pervasive in everyday thought in most organizations. One of the more common errors is called the Fallacy of Division, in which we assume that attributes of a class apply to all members of that class. It leads to ridiculous results. Available here and by RSS on April 5.
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