Stone-Throwers at Meetings: I

Meetings are painful enough when everyone tries to reach the same objective, or almost the same objective. And they're tolerable even when some participants disagree about the objective, or how to get to the objective, provided the disagreement is an honest disagreement and everyone wants a constructive outcome. But what happens when there's a stone-thrower in the crowd? By "stone-thrower" I mean someone who doesn't care much about the objective everyone else cares about, or who has an entirely different objective in mind, and who works to prevent the meeting from making progress towards the objective everyone else is trying to reach.

If you've met a stone-thrower in a meeting that you chair, this article and the next are for you. But even if you aren't chairing the meeting that a stone-thrower is disrupting, you can help. Begin by understanding what your chair is trying to do to manage the disruptor. In the next issue, I'll provide more insights for non-chairs, but for now let's examine the chair's options.

There is one possibility we must set aside for another time. If the chair has been abusing the power of office, or has otherwise been acting dishonorably, it's possible that those who object to the chair's behavior have chosen obstruction as a remedy. Whether or not this is wise, and whether there might be alternatives, and how the chair can respond, are questions for another time. In this essay, I'm assuming that the chair has been acting honorably, and that the stone throwing has no legitimate purpose.

An example will clarify the issue. A favorite tactic of stone-throwers is what I call "Existential OCD of the Meetings Kind." Existential OCD (EOCD) is an actual human affliction [McGrath 2018]. It's a theme of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder that manifests as an excessive preoccupation with philosophical questions like "What's the meaning of Life?" or "Why are we here?" Existential OCD of the Meetings Kind (EOMK) is analogous to EOCD. EOMK is a preoccupation with questions like "Is this meeting really necessary?" Or "Can't the people most directly affected by these issues just handle them one-on-one, in email, or on line?"

A significant Stone-throwers at meetings
use tactics that are virtually
cost-free to them, while forcing
their targets to expend
precious resources in responsedistinction between EOCD and EOMK is that EOMK is most often a pose. Rarely is questioning the necessity or utility of the meeting 100% sincere; most likely, it's at least partially a stone-throwing tactic. The proximate goals of the stone-thrower are obstruction and deflection, so as to prevent the group from achieving its objectives, or, at least, to slow its progress. For examples of stone throwing at the professional level, tune in to televised hearings of controversial questions as they're investigated in committees of your national legislature. Observe the tactics of representatives who hold a minority view. If those who hold the majority view abuse the power of the majority, the minority has little choice but to resort to obstruction — to throw stones.

Longer-range goals — motives, actually — of stone-throwers vary. They can include:

• Embarrassing the chair
• Demonstrating the incompetence of the chair
• Preventing the meeting from reaching an agenda item that discomfits or exposes as incompetent the stone-thrower or a patron or ally of the stone-thrower
• Preventing the meeting from reaching an agenda item that will lead to workload for the stone thrower, or a patron or ally of the stone-thrower

How can the meeting chair respond effectively to EOMK? Engagement by the chair at the level of the stone-thrower's literal questions is inadvisable, because the question is most likely insincere. The stone-thrower who employs the EOMK pose doesn't intend to make the organization more efficient by reducing the burden of unnecessary meetings. If that were the goal, the questioner would have sought a resolution by employing a less aggressive and less confrontational approach. For example, someone sincerely concerned with meeting effectiveness might seek a private conversation with the meeting chair, and then might suggest exploring ideas for paring down agendas by addressing some items through channels other than meetings.

Meeting chairs who recognize the stone-throwers' true intentions can avoid useless, irrelevant, wasteful discussions in meetings by responding succinctly to the stone-thrower's question with what I call a Two-Part Sealed Response. The first part is the responsive content, which answers the stone-thrower's question in a compact form. The second part is the "seal," which explicitly and irrevocably closes the topic. For example:

Morgan (a stone-thrower): Is this meeting really necessary?

Alton (the meeting chair): I'll answer you briefly for right now, Morgan, and if you want to pursue this, please contact me after the meeting. My brief answer is "Yes, it's necessary, because we need to ensure that we've addressed all sides of these important issues." Now, everyone, we'll continue with Agenda Item #1, so please refer in the document to page 6.

If Morgan interrupts, Alton stands firm, saying, "Morgan, I've responded to your question, and now we're moving on. Contact me after the meeting. Document page 6 everyone."

Usually, the Two-Part Sealed Response is effective. Usually. But if the stone-thrower persists or escalates, things can get ugly fast. And that's where we'll pick this up next time.  Next 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!

Footnotes

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 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.

Social Distancing for Pandemic Flu

It's time we all began to take seriously the warning about a possible influenza pandemic. Whether or not your organization has a plan, you can do much to reduce your own chances of infection, and the chances of mass infection, by adopting a set of practices known as social distancing.

Action Item Avoidance

In some teams, members feel so overloaded that they try to avoid any additional tasks. Here are some of the most popular patterns of action item avoidance.

Favor Symmetric Virtual Meetings

Virtual meetings are notorious for generating more frustration than useful output. One cause of the difficulties is asymmetry in the way we connect to virtual meetings.

The New Virtual Meeting: Digressions

The bane of meetings everywhere, even before the COVID-19 pandemic, has been digressions. But there are reasons to expect the incidence of digressions in meetings to increase now. What reasons could there be, and what can we do about digressions?

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

Forthcoming issues of Point Lookout

Coming September 30: Seven More Planning Pitfalls: II

Planning teams, like all teams, are susceptible to several patterns of interaction that can lead to counter-productive results. Three of these most relevant to planners are False Consensus, Groupthink, and Shared Information Bias. Available here and by RSS on September 30.

And on October 7: Seven More Planning Pitfalls: III

Planning teams, like all teams, are vulnerable to several patterns of interaction that can lead to counter-productive results. Two of these relevant to planners are a cognitive bias called the IKEA Effect, and a systemic bias against realistic estimates of cost and schedule. Available here and by RSS on October 7.

Coaching services

I offer email and telephone coaching at both corporate and individual rates. Contact Rick for details at rbrenmhXARWRMUvVyOdHlner@ChacxgDmtwOKrxnripPCoCanyon.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 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, 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, Monthly Webinar, sponsored by Technobility Webinar Series. PMI members can earn 1.0 Category 'A' PDU by viewing this program. View this program now.