How To Deal With Conference Killer In Workplace?

Meetings have always been an important part of workplace life. At large and small meetings, there are always some "killer" lurking in their meetings. They interrupt the discussion topics with a stiff head, throw bad ideas one after another, and at the same time stifle the good ideas that may arise, which make people feel suffocated quickly.

These people used to walk away from meetings, send messages, send text messages, overturn decisions that have been made, or find trouble in other ways.

It is normal to "multipurpose" during meetings. Unless the boss orders, it is forbidden for employees to carry out electronic equipment meetings or to arrange a special "tea break" time to allow everyone to use high-tech products.

Otherwise, almost everyone will send text messages, collect mail or do something else at the conference.

However, it is nothing compared to the real conference killer.

One of the manifestations of "conference killer" is to sing a different tune.

Those who oppose the tune are - no matter what plan you put forward, they always think it will not work.

"Dana Brownlee said.

As a founder of Professionalism Matters training company in Atlanta, Brownlee said that one of her coping strategies was to take people who always liked to play the opposite role before lunch to let them vent at the table, and then reach agreement on the conference table as much as possible.

Once the meeting started, she set the rules: any dissenters were asked to put forward a solution at the same time of questioning.

Another type of "problem figure" at the conference is those who are silent, Ms. Brownlee said.

"They may be quiet people sitting in the back row of the conference room. Once the meeting is over, they will appear in the tea room and try to make trouble for you.

"Ms. Brownlee's strategy is to let these people express their views during the meeting so as to get feedback from them.

For the most troublesome "conference killer" - like a rambling runner, Brownlee sometimes put a doll in the middle of the conference table. She told the attendees, "whenever anyone thinks the meeting is off the track, put the doll in hand.

"This allows participants to express their dissatisfaction without interrupting the progress of the conference.

And "conference killer"

Brenna Smith, the founder and chief executive of SheNow.org, a woman website, has been enjoying the great victory she has made at the conference.

At a meeting a few years ago, she was making a new appointment.

10 colleagues and PPT demonstrations, saying that half of a colleague suddenly rose to the front of the conference room and questioned that her idea was not working at all.

In order to show that she can stick to her own views, Ms. Smith replied, "I think you speak very well, but I want to finish with what I have to say so that we can discuss my plan, and we can discuss it later when there is time.

"After the meeting room was quiet, the colleague returned to his seat.

Until the end of the meeting, the participants did not have time to discuss this colleague's proposal, and MS. Smith's plan was successfully adopted.

Those who like to gossip and get off the track are quite destructive to meetings.

Samir Penkar, a project management consultant in Minneapolis, USA, hosted an annual meeting of 20 employees at an insurance company last year, and two of them always liked to run away from the topic.

So Penkar began to bring chocolates to the meeting. "During the meeting, if anyone started to gossip, I handed him a chocolate bar.

"He said.

In more than two weeks, Mr. Penkar repeated the strategy 6 times until the staff learned to strictly abide by the agenda.

As the chief executive officer of People Results, a career and career consulting firm in Dallas, Patti Johnson said that in order to ensure the smooth progress of the meeting, the moderators sometimes set aside a period of time before the discussion begins, so that the dissenters will raise objections and questions, and then lead the whole team to adjust the mode and concentrate on reaching a consensus.

In a conference attended by Ms. Johnson several years ago, participants almost agreed on a new project. However, a senior manager overthrew it all.

"She asked a question that could hardly be answered.

"Ms. Johnson said," that made the speakers begin to waver.

"15 of the manager's subordinates.

Frustrated, they asked the senior manager, "why do you raise objections at this juncture? Can't you mention it earlier?" but the objections were enough to make the project run aground. That seems to be a satisfactory result for the opposition.

Life wasted by meetings

With the progress of science and technology and the emphasis on efficiency, the operation of office affairs is required to be smoother than before.

The purpose of the meeting is to solve problems by originality, and emerge the best ideas at the same time, but in fact, it is only an ideal.

Even some of the best managers, some of them may not be able to control meetings.

A survey released by Opinion Matters last month showed that the average British workplace cost 4 hours per week for meetings. However, they believe that more than half of the time spent in meetings is wasted.

Opinion Matters is a London based market research firm. The survey was conducted by the Epson Corp and the Centre for Economics and Business Research, the former office printer and projector manufacturer, the latter is an economic consulting firm, with an investigation of 1000 employees.

The "endless meeting" ranks first in the list of "wasting time in the workplace" - this is the result of an independent study conducted by the professional website Salary.com on the cost of working hours this year. 47% of the 3164 employees surveyed agreed with the above view.

In 2008, this proportion was only 42%, and the "endless meeting" and "waiting for colleagues to complete the work you need" were placed on the list third (the first is "fighting for the colleagues' fire", the second is "coping with office politics").

Bill Shelton, the advertising agency manager, admitted that he and some people in the industry "have the means to delay meetings, to curry favor with others, and to control other people's attention.

"Sales promotion is part of our work just as we did at the meeting.

"He said.

In order not to delay the meeting, Shelton said the boss of his former company had a strange strategy: "he placed the conference table under the outlet of the air-conditioner.

An hour before the start of the meeting, he will turn the air-conditioning temperature down to about 10 degrees Celsius, and then tell them when they arrive at the conference room, 'put your coat at the door'.

As a result, we had the most efficient and effective meeting in history, because everyone was concentrating on talking about the problem, just trying to get away from this' freeze room '.

Today, Mr. Shelton has become the president of Left Field Creative, an advertising agency in Saint Louis.

How can we make meetings more effective?

1. a clear agenda should be worked out according to the opinions of senior executives, conference planners and trainers, so that each participant will know what the meeting is for.

2. participants are prohibited from carrying electronic equipment or arranging separate "tea breaks" to allow participants to process e-mail, text messages and telephone calls.

3. when the participants chatted or ran away from the topic, they should be brought back to the topic in time.

4. ask the silent participants ahead of time to get their specific opinions.

5. let the participants take turns to speak at the right time to ensure that everyone can express their opinions.

6. ask for objections ahead of time to ensure that these objections will not affect the discussion later.

7. limit the time of slide presentation.

8. when someone talks too long or whispers with others, he stops in time.

9. set a meeting closing time and strictly observe it.

For more information, please pay attention to the world clothing shoes and hats and Internet cafes.