When it comes time for a meeting, co-workers can be deadly. Discussions get hijacked. Bad ideas fall like blunt objects. Long-winded colleagues consume all available oxygen, killing good ideas by asphyxiation.
Co-workers wander off topic, send texts, disrupt decision-making or behave in other dysfunctional ways. Even the best leaders can resort to desperate measures to keep the discussion on track: chocolate rewards, Elmo dolls and ice-cold rooms.
Multitasking at meetings is such a given that unless a leader sets a 'no devices' rule or schedules 'tech breaks,' nearly everyone texts or sneaks a peek at email during meetings. And yet, that is nothing compared with real sabotage.
Naysayers are the ones who 'whatever you bring up, it will never work,' says Dana Brownlee, founder of Professionalism Matters, a corporate-training company in Atlanta. One of her strategies is to take serial naysayers to lunch before meetings to let them vent and try to reach agreement. Once the meeting begins, she sets ground rules, requiring anyone who complains also to offer a solution.
Another problem personality is the silent plotter, Ms. Brownlee says. 'They may be the quiet person sitting in back, but as soon as the meeting is over, they're over there by the Coke machine, planning your demise,' she says. She makes a point of calling on plotters during meetings to try to draw out their feedback.
And for the toughest offenders, ramblers, Ms. Brownlee sometimes puts an Elmo doll in the center of the meeting table and tells participants, 'Anytime anybody in the session thinks we're getting off track, pick up the Elmo doll.' This allows co-workers to express frustration without interrupting, she says.
Brenna Smith still talks about her big meeting victory. She was making a slide presentation to her new boss and 10 colleagues several years ago when, mid-sentence, a co-worker stood up and walked toward the front of the room, arguing that her ideas wouldn't work.
To show that she could hold her ground, Ms. Smith says, she returned fire. 'I think you're making a really good point,' she told the interrupter, 'but I want to finish what I'm saying first so we can talk about my ideas, and then we can talk about yours if we have time.'
The room fell silent. The co-worker retreated to his seat. He never got time to make his case and her proposal was adopted, says Ms. Smith, founder and chief executive of SheNow.org, a website for women.
People who ramble can be equally disruptive. Samir Penkar, a Minneapolis project-management consultant, was running daily meetings among 20 employees at an insurance company last year when two participants kept taking the conversation off-track. So, he started bringing in chocolates. Whenever either 'started their rambling, I handed them a chocolate,' he says.
He repeated the tactic six times over two weeks until the employees learned to stick to the agenda.
To keep a meeting moving, leaders sometimes set aside time early in the discussion for naysayers to voice objections and challenges, and then direct the group to shift gears and focus on making a decision, says Patti Johnson, chief executive of PeopleResults, a Dallas-based career and workplace consulting firm.
In a meeting she attended several years ago, co-workers were close to reaching consensus on a new project, Ms. Johnson says. Then, a senior manager blew it all up.
'She asked a question that was almost impossible to answer,' Ms. Johnson says. 'It threw the speaker off balance.' Several of the manager's 15 frustrated co-workers asked, 'Why are you bringing this up at this point? Shouldn't you have raised this earlier?' she says. But the naysayer's objection was enough to stall the project-- an outcome that seemed to please her.
With advances in technology and an emphasis on efficiency, the office should be running more smoothly than ever. Meetings are supposed to be a time of creative problem-solving, where the best ideas emerge. Yet even some of the best managers can't seem to run them.
Office workers spend four hours a week in meetings on average-- and they regard more than half of that time as wasted, according to a British study of 1,000 employees released last week by Opinion Matters, a London market-research company, for Epson, a maker of office printers and projectors, and the Centre for Economics and Business Research, an economic consulting firm.
'Too many meetings' was the No. 1 time-waster at the office, cited by 47% of 3,164 workers in a separate study by career site Salary.com this year on workplace time drains. That is up from 42% in 2008, when meetings tied for third place with 'waiting for a co-worker to finish something you need.' (No. 1 was 'fixing someone else's work' and No. 2 was 'dealing with office politics.')
Ad-agency executive Bill Shelton acknowledges that he and others in his profession 'have a way of drawing out meetings, grandstanding and trying to command attention. Part of your job is to sell your work, which you do in a meeting,' he says. To keep meetings from dragging on, his boss at a former employer positioned the conference table in his office right under the air-conditioning vents. 'About an hour before the meeting, he would crank down the thermostat to about 50 degrees,' then tell employees as they arrived to 'leave your sweater at the door,' says Mr. Shelton, now president of Left Field Creative, a St. Louis ad agency
'We had the most efficient, productive meetings in history, because everyone got down to business. We simply wanted to get out of the 'walk-in freezer.' '
Get More Done
Advice from executives, meeting planners and trainers on productive meetings:
•Set a clear agenda.
•Impose a 'no devices' rule or schedule periodic tech breaks for email, texts and phone calls.
•Redirect people back to the agenda when they ramble or digress.
•Draw out quiet people by asking them in advance for a specific contribution.
•Do a 'round robin,' when appropriate, to allow everyone to contribute.
•Ask early for objections to keep them from derailing discussions later.
•Limit the length of slide presentations.
•Interrupt people who talk too long or talk to each other.
•Set an ending time for the meeting and stick to it.
Sue Shellenbarger
如何對付“會議殺手”相約會議殺手
當談到會議的時候，同事可以是致命的。討論得到劫持。像鈍器壞主意。長篇大論的同事消耗所有可用的氧氣，造成窒息的好點子。同工偏離主題，發送短信，擾亂決策或其他不正常的方式行為。即使是最好的領導人可以採取孤注一擲的措施，以保持軌道上的討論：巧克力獎勵，埃爾莫娃娃和冰冷的客房。在會議上的多任務是一個給定的一個領導者，除非設置了一個“沒有任何設備的規則或時間表高科技休息“幾乎每個人都文本或在會議期間偷偷偷看電子郵件。然而，沒有什麼比真正的破壞。反對者是誰不管你帶來了，它永遠不會工作，“達納·布朗利說，創辦的專業事項，企業培訓公司在亞特蘭大。她的策略之一是，採取串行反對者午餐前會議，讓他們發洩，並試圖達成協議。會議開始後，她將地面規則，要求任何人誰抱怨，也提供了一個解決方案。個性的另一個問題是沉默的繪圖儀，，布朗利女士說。“他們可能是安靜的人坐在後面，但一旦會議結束，他們那邊的可樂機，規劃你死了，”她說。她點繪圖儀在會議期間呼籲，要盡量抽出他們的反饋。最棘手的罪犯，漫步者，布朗利女士有時把Elmo娃娃在會議桌的中心，並告訴與會者，“任何人在任何時候會議認為，我們正在偏離軌道，拿起Elmo娃娃。這讓同事表示不滿，而不會中斷，她說。，布倫娜·史密斯還談到她的大會議勝利。她做幻燈片演示她的新老闆和10名同事，幾年前的時候，中間句子，同事站了起來，走向前面的房間，認為她的想法是行不通的。為了證明她可以保持自己的立場，史密斯女士說，她還擊。“我認為你正在做一個真正的好點，”她告訴滅弧室，“但我要完成我在說什麼第一次，所以我們可以說說我的想法，然後我們可以談談你的，如果我們有時間。 “ 房間裡陷入了沉默。同事退到自己的座位上。他沒有休息的時間，以使他的情況下，她的建議被採納，創始人兼首席執行官的SheNow.org，一個網站為婦女史密斯女士說，人們絮絮叨叨的人，同樣可以是破壞性的。明尼阿波利斯市的項目管理顧問，Samir Penkar的運行日常會議當中20名員工去年在一家保險公司當兩個參與者不停地談話偏離軌道。於是，他開始把巧克力。無論何時，無論“開始了他們的散漫，我上交了他們的巧克力，”他說，他反复的戰術六次了兩個多星期，直到員工學會堅持的議程。為了保持會議，領導人有時會預留時間，早在反對者的聲音反對和挑戰的討論，然後直接組換檔和重點作出決定，首席執行官PeopleResults的帕蒂·約翰遜說，總部位於達拉斯的職業和工作場所諮詢公司，在會議中，她參加了幾年前同事是一個新的項目達成共識，約翰遜女士說。然後，高級經理自爆了這一切。“她問了一個問題，回答幾乎是不可能的，”約翰遜女士說。“扔關閉揚聲器平衡。一些經理人的15個失意的同事問，“你為什麼要提出這個在這一點呢？你不應該提出這個？“ 她說。但反對者的反對足以搪塞項目-結果似乎討好她。隨著技術和注重效率的進步，辦公室應比以往任何時候都更加順暢運行。會議應該是一次創造性的問題解決，最好的想法出現。然而，即使是一些最好的經理似乎不是來運行它們。上班族在會議上的平均花費4個小時，一個星期-他們把一半以上，浪費時間，根據英國一項對1000名員工最後發布本週的意見，倫敦的市場研究公司，一個辦公室打印機和投影機廠商，愛普生，以及經濟和商業研究中心經濟諮詢公司。“太多的會議”1號浪費時間工作場所的時間在辦公室，47％的3,164名工人在一個單獨的研究生涯網站Salary.com今年水渠。這是從42％在2008年，當會議上獲得並列第三的位置，等待同事完成你需要的東西。“ （第1號“固定別人的工作”和2號“，應對辦公室政治”。）廣告代理首席執行官比爾謝爾頓承認，他和其他人在他的職業有一個辦法抽出會議，譁眾取寵，並試圖以命令關注。你工作的一部分是賣你的工作，你在一次會議上，“他說。為了保持會議上拖動定位，他的前雇主的老闆在他的辦公室的會議桌下的空調通風口。在會議前約一小時，他會曲柄至約50度的恆溫器“，然後告訴員工，他們到達'離開你的毛衣在門口，說：”謝爾頓先生現任總裁左場創意，ST路易廣告代理，我們有最有效的，富有成效的會議，在歷史上，因為大家都開始做正事。我們只是想擺脫“步入式冰櫃。•重定向回人的議程完成更多工作從高管的建議，富有成效的會議，會議策劃和培訓：設置一個明確的議程。施加“任何設備的規則或計劃定期高科技休息的電子郵件，文本和電話。當他們絮絮叨叨或離題。抽出安靜的人，要求他們提前一個特定的貢獻。“循環賽，”在適當的時候，讓每個人都能做出貢獻。•向早期的反對，讓他們從脫軌討論後。•限制長度的幻燈片演示。•中斷的人誰說話過長或互相交談。•設置的結束時間的會議，並堅持下去。蘇Shellenbarger的
Co-workers wander off topic, send texts, disrupt decision-making or behave in other dysfunctional ways. Even the best leaders can resort to desperate measures to keep the discussion on track: chocolate rewards, Elmo dolls and ice-cold rooms.
Multitasking at meetings is such a given that unless a leader sets a 'no devices' rule or schedules 'tech breaks,' nearly everyone texts or sneaks a peek at email during meetings. And yet, that is nothing compared with real sabotage.
Naysayers are the ones who 'whatever you bring up, it will never work,' says Dana Brownlee, founder of Professionalism Matters, a corporate-training company in Atlanta. One of her strategies is to take serial naysayers to lunch before meetings to let them vent and try to reach agreement. Once the meeting begins, she sets ground rules, requiring anyone who complains also to offer a solution.
Another problem personality is the silent plotter, Ms. Brownlee says. 'They may be the quiet person sitting in back, but as soon as the meeting is over, they're over there by the Coke machine, planning your demise,' she says. She makes a point of calling on plotters during meetings to try to draw out their feedback.
And for the toughest offenders, ramblers, Ms. Brownlee sometimes puts an Elmo doll in the center of the meeting table and tells participants, 'Anytime anybody in the session thinks we're getting off track, pick up the Elmo doll.' This allows co-workers to express frustration without interrupting, she says.
Brenna Smith still talks about her big meeting victory. She was making a slide presentation to her new boss and 10 colleagues several years ago when, mid-sentence, a co-worker stood up and walked toward the front of the room, arguing that her ideas wouldn't work.
To show that she could hold her ground, Ms. Smith says, she returned fire. 'I think you're making a really good point,' she told the interrupter, 'but I want to finish what I'm saying first so we can talk about my ideas, and then we can talk about yours if we have time.'
The room fell silent. The co-worker retreated to his seat. He never got time to make his case and her proposal was adopted, says Ms. Smith, founder and chief executive of SheNow.org, a website for women.
People who ramble can be equally disruptive. Samir Penkar, a Minneapolis project-management consultant, was running daily meetings among 20 employees at an insurance company last year when two participants kept taking the conversation off-track. So, he started bringing in chocolates. Whenever either 'started their rambling, I handed them a chocolate,' he says.
He repeated the tactic six times over two weeks until the employees learned to stick to the agenda.
To keep a meeting moving, leaders sometimes set aside time early in the discussion for naysayers to voice objections and challenges, and then direct the group to shift gears and focus on making a decision, says Patti Johnson, chief executive of PeopleResults, a Dallas-based career and workplace consulting firm.
In a meeting she attended several years ago, co-workers were close to reaching consensus on a new project, Ms. Johnson says. Then, a senior manager blew it all up.
'She asked a question that was almost impossible to answer,' Ms. Johnson says. 'It threw the speaker off balance.' Several of the manager's 15 frustrated co-workers asked, 'Why are you bringing this up at this point? Shouldn't you have raised this earlier?' she says. But the naysayer's objection was enough to stall the project-- an outcome that seemed to please her.
With advances in technology and an emphasis on efficiency, the office should be running more smoothly than ever. Meetings are supposed to be a time of creative problem-solving, where the best ideas emerge. Yet even some of the best managers can't seem to run them.
Office workers spend four hours a week in meetings on average-- and they regard more than half of that time as wasted, according to a British study of 1,000 employees released last week by Opinion Matters, a London market-research company, for Epson, a maker of office printers and projectors, and the Centre for Economics and Business Research, an economic consulting firm.
'Too many meetings' was the No. 1 time-waster at the office, cited by 47% of 3,164 workers in a separate study by career site Salary.com this year on workplace time drains. That is up from 42% in 2008, when meetings tied for third place with 'waiting for a co-worker to finish something you need.' (No. 1 was 'fixing someone else's work' and No. 2 was 'dealing with office politics.')
Ad-agency executive Bill Shelton acknowledges that he and others in his profession 'have a way of drawing out meetings, grandstanding and trying to command attention. Part of your job is to sell your work, which you do in a meeting,' he says. To keep meetings from dragging on, his boss at a former employer positioned the conference table in his office right under the air-conditioning vents. 'About an hour before the meeting, he would crank down the thermostat to about 50 degrees,' then tell employees as they arrived to 'leave your sweater at the door,' says Mr. Shelton, now president of Left Field Creative, a St. Louis ad agency
'We had the most efficient, productive meetings in history, because everyone got down to business. We simply wanted to get out of the 'walk-in freezer.' '
Get More Done
Advice from executives, meeting planners and trainers on productive meetings:
•Set a clear agenda.
•Impose a 'no devices' rule or schedule periodic tech breaks for email, texts and phone calls.
•Redirect people back to the agenda when they ramble or digress.
•Draw out quiet people by asking them in advance for a specific contribution.
•Do a 'round robin,' when appropriate, to allow everyone to contribute.
•Ask early for objections to keep them from derailing discussions later.
•Limit the length of slide presentations.
•Interrupt people who talk too long or talk to each other.
•Set an ending time for the meeting and stick to it.
Sue Shellenbarger
如何對付“會議殺手”相約會議殺手
當談到會議的時候，同事可以是致命的。討論得到劫持。像鈍器壞主意。長篇大論的同事消耗所有可用的氧氣，造成窒息的好點子。同工偏離主題，發送短信，擾亂決策或其他不正常的方式行為。即使是最好的領導人可以採取孤注一擲的措施，以保持軌道上的討論：巧克力獎勵，埃爾莫娃娃和冰冷的客房。在會議上的多任務是一個給定的一個領導者，除非設置了一個“沒有任何設備的規則或時間表高科技休息“幾乎每個人都文本或在會議期間偷偷偷看電子郵件。然而，沒有什麼比真正的破壞。反對者是誰不管你帶來了，它永遠不會工作，“達納·布朗利說，創辦的專業事項，企業培訓公司在亞特蘭大。她的策略之一是，採取串行反對者午餐前會議，讓他們發洩，並試圖達成協議。會議開始後，她將地面規則，要求任何人誰抱怨，也提供了一個解決方案。個性的另一個問題是沉默的繪圖儀，，布朗利女士說。“他們可能是安靜的人坐在後面，但一旦會議結束，他們那邊的可樂機，規劃你死了，”她說。她點繪圖儀在會議期間呼籲，要盡量抽出他們的反饋。最棘手的罪犯，漫步者，布朗利女士有時把Elmo娃娃在會議桌的中心，並告訴與會者，“任何人在任何時候會議認為，我們正在偏離軌道，拿起Elmo娃娃。這讓同事表示不滿，而不會中斷，她說。，布倫娜·史密斯還談到她的大會議勝利。她做幻燈片演示她的新老闆和10名同事，幾年前的時候，中間句子，同事站了起來，走向前面的房間，認為她的想法是行不通的。為了證明她可以保持自己的立場，史密斯女士說，她還擊。“我認為你正在做一個真正的好點，”她告訴滅弧室，“但我要完成我在說什麼第一次，所以我們可以說說我的想法，然後我們可以談談你的，如果我們有時間。 “ 房間裡陷入了沉默。同事退到自己的座位上。他沒有休息的時間，以使他的情況下，她的建議被採納，創始人兼首席執行官的SheNow.org，一個網站為婦女史密斯女士說，人們絮絮叨叨的人，同樣可以是破壞性的。明尼阿波利斯市的項目管理顧問，Samir Penkar的運行日常會議當中20名員工去年在一家保險公司當兩個參與者不停地談話偏離軌道。於是，他開始把巧克力。無論何時，無論“開始了他們的散漫，我上交了他們的巧克力，”他說，他反复的戰術六次了兩個多星期，直到員工學會堅持的議程。為了保持會議，領導人有時會預留時間，早在反對者的聲音反對和挑戰的討論，然後直接組換檔和重點作出決定，首席執行官PeopleResults的帕蒂·約翰遜說，總部位於達拉斯的職業和工作場所諮詢公司，在會議中，她參加了幾年前同事是一個新的項目達成共識，約翰遜女士說。然後，高級經理自爆了這一切。“她問了一個問題，回答幾乎是不可能的，”約翰遜女士說。“扔關閉揚聲器平衡。一些經理人的15個失意的同事問，“你為什麼要提出這個在這一點呢？你不應該提出這個？“ 她說。但反對者的反對足以搪塞項目-結果似乎討好她。隨著技術和注重效率的進步，辦公室應比以往任何時候都更加順暢運行。會議應該是一次創造性的問題解決，最好的想法出現。然而，即使是一些最好的經理似乎不是來運行它們。上班族在會議上的平均花費4個小時，一個星期-他們把一半以上，浪費時間，根據英國一項對1000名員工最後發布本週的意見，倫敦的市場研究公司，一個辦公室打印機和投影機廠商，愛普生，以及經濟和商業研究中心經濟諮詢公司。“太多的會議”1號浪費時間工作場所的時間在辦公室，47％的3,164名工人在一個單獨的研究生涯網站Salary.com今年水渠。這是從42％在2008年，當會議上獲得並列第三的位置，等待同事完成你需要的東西。“ （第1號“固定別人的工作”和2號“，應對辦公室政治”。）廣告代理首席執行官比爾謝爾頓承認，他和其他人在他的職業有一個辦法抽出會議，譁眾取寵，並試圖以命令關注。你工作的一部分是賣你的工作，你在一次會議上，“他說。為了保持會議上拖動定位，他的前雇主的老闆在他的辦公室的會議桌下的空調通風口。在會議前約一小時，他會曲柄至約50度的恆溫器“，然後告訴員工，他們到達'離開你的毛衣在門口，說：”謝爾頓先生現任總裁左場創意，ST路易廣告代理，我們有最有效的，富有成效的會議，在歷史上，因為大家都開始做正事。我們只是想擺脫“步入式冰櫃。•重定向回人的議程完成更多工作從高管的建議，富有成效的會議，會議策劃和培訓：設置一個明確的議程。施加“任何設備的規則或計劃定期高科技休息的電子郵件，文本和電話。當他們絮絮叨叨或離題。抽出安靜的人，要求他們提前一個特定的貢獻。“循環賽，”在適當的時候，讓每個人都能做出貢獻。•向早期的反對，讓他們從脫軌討論後。•限制長度的幻燈片演示。•中斷的人誰說話過長或互相交談。•設置的結束時間的會議，並堅持下去。蘇Shellenbarger的
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