The way people interact in meetings tells a lot about them and what they value. I see four basic styles: raucous, tag-on, structured, and reflective. Here are some ideas on how these four might or might not work for you.

Raucous

This is the TV ‘verbal assault’ model where everyone talks at the same time. Apparently there is an audience for this (but not me) and it seems that the idea is for a winner to emerge… I guess based on who talks the loudest and longest. No listening going on at all.

Tag-on

I see this with groups who have worked together for a while. Within a few words of the end of one person’s comments another person jumps in to make their point. Unlike Raucous, these people are not talking over each other (except for those five or so words of overlap) but often there is a implied interruption: the old speaker stopping mid-thought and deferring to the new speaker.

This style is enhanced by the layout of the room. People at the center of the main table – those having best eye contact – are most likely to tag-on. People in a second tier of seats such as along the wall in a conference room usually don’t participate as much - or might not break into the conversation at all.

With tag-on people can listen since only one person is talking at a time. Progress is slowed since the next person talking has not reflected on the comments of the person that they tag-on to. This conversation is full of energy but not super effective since there is a lot of time wasted making comments that haven’t reflected what has just been said – not to mention incomplete participation.

Structured

This is the facilitated conversation. It most often happens when the named or de facto meeting leader says ‘wait a minute’ and leads a circling of the room where everyone gets a moment to talk or employs some other chaos-killing approach such as voting, point-of-order, or other tactics to get back to a productive conversation.

Reflective

This is the quietest method – and that alone makes some people nutty. The classic example consultants use for style this is the Native American meetings in the movie ‘Dancing with Wolves.’ The model is that everyone waits for several seconds to consider what the previous speaker has said before continuing the conversation.

As I have watched this model in action it’s interesting that it often brings a group to conclusions in a shorter time than any of the others. Biggest objection is that it seems slow, and not ‘brainstorming enough’. It’s not the crazy fun that people want.

But wait – do you want shorter meetings or are you at the meeting for fun?

What’s Next?

Most meetings I see cycle between tag-on and structured. They use tag-on until someone sees that not everyone is in the discussion and then they move temporarily to structured.

Try this - experiment with all these styles in your meetings. These styles are not just unavoidable outcomes of how people collide – teams can actually decide which one to use for any meeting. While reflective is great approach for intellectually complex topics, even an occasional raucous meeting can set the stage for real work.

Last updated on April 24, 2009 by Den