Defeat Meeting Hijackers
We’ve all sat in meetings that suddenly go off track. One of the participants tosses out an idea or asks a question that has little to do with the topic at hand. Before you know it, the group has diverted off topic and is dealing with the question before them.
Many times the person who took over the meeting did so unintentionally. In other cases, the people know exactly what they are doing. They knew that what they want to discuss is not on the agenda, but don’t care.
In either case meeting hijackers are a real problem. They keep groups from achieving their meeting goals and can be a drag on morale. This is how to deal with them.
The minute the hijacker tries to take control, stop things by acknowledging the comment and suggesting the group review the purpose and agenda to determine if and where the hijacker’s issue fits into the agenda.
Provide the group with a written agenda in advance. If there is a piece of paper that states the order of business, people are far less likely to hijack the meeting. And if they do, it is more likely that others will help you get things back on track.
Finally, ask for input prior to the meeting. In addition, quickly poll the meeting participants at the onset of the meeting to see if any new burning concerns have arisen since planning the agenda. That way you can anticipate what might come up and be ready for it. Better yet, you can amend the agenda to deal with the issues that are most important to people.
This is where the meeting organizer’s time management skill needs to kick in. All the ideas stated here are great. But when you invite 20 people to a 30 minute meeting, your intention, most likely is to inform them. Meeting attendee’s intention is to participate and give feedback. If it is only information distribution, possibly explaining the information with visuals and sound(organizer’s voice), I can think of couple of ways to handle that.