Dealing with Meeting Hijackings

You've done whatever you could in advance, but it didn't prevent an attempted hijacking of the meeting, because it appears that a meeting participant might be trying to steer the meeting away from the agenda. What can you do? Here are some guidelines for the meeting chair or facilitator who is responding to hijacking behavior. In what follows, we'll use the names Horace or Harriet to refer to the hijacker.

Adhere to established procedure

However outrageous or insulting Horace's behavior becomes, be calm and respectful. Do nothing that would seem heavy-handed or offensive, or which can seem to be an abuse of the chair's power. Such tactics can arouse sympathy among other participants or possible future hijackers. Hijackers, especially Horace, can use that sympathy to disrupt the agenda. If established procedures aren't sufficient for controlling hijackers, the time to add such tools is in advance of the hijacking incident.

Allocate time to each agenda item

Adhering to a pre-determined schedule creates a desire in other participants to keep the discussion on topic. This helps chairs when they rule contributions out of order or when they determine that they're unrelated to the current agenda item. With each such ruling against Harriet, her efforts to marshal the sympathy of other participants become less productive.

Recognize that some deviations from the agenda aren't hijacking

Some people don't realize that their contributions are off topic. They're sincerely exuberant. Treating them as if they were hijackers can seem to be gratuitous spitefulness on the part of the chair. Actual hijackers can exploit the chair's mishandling of these incidents to gain sympathy for their disruptive behavior.

Don't recognize other participants in Horace's place

Recognizing someone other than Horace, out of turn, can be a tempting method for depriving him of opportunities to redirect the discussion. But it can also seem to be abuse of the chair's power. Maintain your normal practice for recognizing speakers.

Don't interrupt Harriet's attempts to shift the discussion

Having recognized Some people don't realize
that their contributions
are off topic. They're
sincerely exuberant.Harriet, interrupting her as she tries to hijack the meeting can also appear to be abuse of the chair's power. Comments such as, "Please get to the point," or "That isn't related to the current topic," can seem abrasive. When Harriet has finished, if her comments were explicitly forbidden by the not-agenda, advise the meeting at large of that fact. If it appears that she departed from the agenda in some other way, add her point to the parking lot. If she objects, explain that she was out of order, and let the meeting decide whether or not the agenda needs adjusting. The time taken for such an agenda adjustment discussion must, of course, be taken from reserve, or from other agenda items. After the first such incident, most participants will likely recognize the disruptive behavior as disruptive.

If these approaches don't contain the hijacker, and if the hijacker's agenda threatens the group's mission, recognize that resolving the matter publicly is unlikely to succeed. Adjourn the meeting or call a recess and address the problem privately, enlisting assistance from supervisors if necessary. Such a move might not be an admission of failure. It can be the first step on the path to successful resolution.   First issue in this series   Top    Next Issue

Do you spend your days scurrying from meeting to meeting? Do you ever wonder if all these meetings are really necessary? (They aren't) Or whether there isn't some better way to get this work done? (There is) Read 101 Tips for Effective Meetings to learn how to make meetings much more productive and less stressful — and a lot more rare. Order Now!

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.

This article in its entirety was written by a human being. No machine intelligence was involved in any way.

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 Effective Meetings:

Take Regular Temperature Readings

Team interactions are unimaginably complex. To avoid misunderstandings, offenses, omissions, and mistaken suppositions, teams need open communications. But no one has a full picture of everything that's happening. The Temperature Reading is a tool for surfacing hidden and invisible information, puzzles, appreciations, frustrations, and feelings.

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.

Take Any Seat: II

In meetings, where you sit in the room influences your effectiveness, both in the formal part of the meeting and in the milling-abouts that occur around breaks. You can take any seat, but if you make your choice strategically, you can better maintain your autonomy and power.

Pre-Decision Discussions: Facts

The purpose of some meetings is reaching decisions. Because decision making can be difficult, familiarity with the forms of contributions that can occur in such discussions is helpful. Their connection to facts is critical.

Antipatterns for Time-Constrained Communication: I

Knowing how to recognize just a few patterns that can lead to miscommunication can be helpful in reducing the incidence of problems. Here is Part I of a collection of communication antipatterns that arise in technical communication under time pressure.

See also Effective Meetings and Effective Meetings for more related articles.

Forthcoming issues of Point Lookout

Coming December 11: White Water Rafting as a Metaphor for Group Development

Tuckman's model of small group development, best known as "Forming-Storming-Norming-Performing," applies better to development of some groups than to others. We can use a metaphor to explore how the model applies to Storming in task-oriented work groups. Available here and by RSS on December 11.

And on December 18: Subgrouping and Conway's Law

When task-oriented work groups address complex tasks, they might form subgroups to address subtasks. The structure of the subgroups and the order in which they form depend on the structure of the group's task and the sequencing of the subtasks. Available here and by RSS on December 18.

Coaching services

I offer email and telephone coaching at both corporate and individual rates. Contact Rick for details at rbrenyrWpTxHuyCrjZbUpner@ChacnoFNuSyWlVzCaGfooCanyon.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