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    You are here Home » meetings

    Meetings: Three Ways to Respond to Ineffective Behavior

    Last updated on Apr 9, 2015 by Dan McCarthy · This post may contain affiliate links

    Guest post from Paul Axtell:

    Any
    time you lead or participate in a meeting, you are going to be confronted with
    situations and behaviors that don’t work. Good people do things that don’t work
    for others, and often times, they don’t even know it.

    Take
    a moment and answer these two questions:

    1. What are two things you do
    in a meeting that probably don’t work for others?  (Interrupting, using technology, having side
    conversations, hijacking the conversation, resisting what someone says, etc.)

    2. Thinking about the people
    who work with you, what feedback would you give to each person if they asked
    you for guidance on how to improve in meetings?

    Recognizing
    these behaviors and addressing them is necessary to maintain the viability of
    the meeting and the group. In my 35 years working as a personal effectiveness
    consultant and corporate trainer, these are the most common questions and complaints
    I’ve heard about meetings:  

    §  How do I handle the person
    who keeps interrupting others?

    §  What about the person who
    goes on and on and on or brings up the same point over and over?

    §  What can we do about the
    person who makes negative comments?

    §  How can we get people to do
    what they say they are going to do?

    As
    a leader, it is your responsibility to provide feedback to your people.  And you need to be a role model for giving
    feedback.  You need to set high standards
    in how you interact with people when they are being a bit difficult. Respond in
    a way that the person you are interacting with will appreciate and so will
    those who are watching the interaction. Respond in a way that matches your
    standards. Avoid doing anything that, upon later reflection, you might wish you
    hadn’t done.

    In
    dealing with behavior that doesn’t work, you have three options in increasing
    order of confrontation:

    Option 1. Let it go and make it work without
    taking it on
    .

    You simply wait for the behavior to stop, then restart as though it didn’t happen.
    This often is the best move because it is the most comfortable for everyone and
    least confronting. The downside, of course, is that the behavior goes
    unchallenged and perhaps unnoticed, and sometimes the quality of the group
    conversation suffers as a result. 

    Option 2. Stop the behavior in the moment and
    ask for what you want.

    This is a bit confronting, but it does lessen the impact of the behavior. It
    also allows you to take a stand for best conversational practices. The trick is
    to do this in a way that doesn’t make someone wrong or upset the group
    conversation. Your intention to be supportive and your tone of voice are
    important.

    Option 3. Speak with the person away from the
    group setting.

    Let the individual know that the behavior
    is distracting, disempowering, and costly to you and the group. This is the
    most confronting of the three options, but it is the mostly likely option for
    producing a long-term change in the behavior.

    Remember, when providing feedback:

    • If your intention is to be supportive,
    you will be.

    • Most people appreciate being told, if
    they feel you are sincere.

    • What’s comfortable in the short term
    isn’t what’s best in the long term.

    I’m
    not advocating saying whatever comes to mind or giving feedback to anyone at
    any time. I am advocating that you be observant and thoughtful about what
    feedback you might give to people to whom you are committed. In particular, you
    want to do something about patterns because they not only disrupt the group,
    but the pattern lessens the group’s respect for the person.  

    If
    you trust yourself, trust the other person, and trust the conversation, it will
    turn out. 

    Paul Axtell has more than 35
    years of experience as a personal effectiveness consultant and corporate
    trainer. He has spent the last 15 years designing and leading programs that
    enhance individual and group performance within large organizations. He is
    also the author of the new book, 
    Meetings Matter: 8 Powerful Strategies for Remarkable
    Conversation
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