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How to deal with disruptive people at meetings

1. Quotable quote

William Pfeiffer and John Jones, The 1990 Annual Handbook for Group Facilitators, University Associates Inc, San Diego, Cal., 1980.

"Disruptive behaviour in meetings is almost always a symptom of some defect in the organisational system that the meeting is designed to support. Leaders need to consider that every meeting is, in reality, an organ-isation development session, and they should facilitate it in ways that isolate problems for remedial action."

2. Smile & ponder

The boss scheduled the weekly staff meeting for 4.30 on Fridays. When one of the employees finally got up the nerve to ask why, she explained: ‘I’ll tell you why - I’ve learned that’s the only time when none of you seem to want to argue with me.’

3. Don't forget

If your staff are not adequately involved during a meeting in productive problem-solving and concensus-seeking, they are more likely to view the event as boring, unimportant, irrelevant, and manager-dominated - a situation which will cause some to be disinterested or disruptive. …