I have often considered business meetings, whether in person or on a telephone conference call, akin to a staged one act play. It would be tempting to liken it to an Edward Albee script given the strange bits of acting out, inappropriate exhortations and long silences that inevitably occur. However, one thing is constant--the personalities that populate this small stage. You can categorize them by name:
The Multi-Taskers
These are those people whose life and business are so urgent, so critical, so completely time sensitive that they must plug their laptop into the network the moment they arrive at a meeting and who continue to read their e-mail and respond to their e-mail and gaze at their computer the entire meeting, occasionally offering an odd detached comment so they appear to be participating in the meeting. Of course they are actually reading Perez Hilton's blog instead.
The Crackberry Addict
A variation of the Multi-Tasker, the Addict whips their BlackBerry out every five minutes during business meetings 1) to see if anyone has bothered to call them; 2) to scroll through their messages to see if anyone has bothered to e-mail them. 3) to look generally efficient.
The Old Boys
These are new colleagues, often those who come to you via an acquisition, who feel the need to assert their experience and occasional superiority. They tend to speak to you as if you have no knowledge of business but with the assumption that you possess the business ethics of a ENRON executive. They often resort to telling you musty old histories of how the business operated a half century ago. You know, when men ran it.
The Long Talkers
These are the people who can't get to the point. They feel a compelling need to digress, embellish, illustrate and paint pretty futures while skirting the actual point at hand. Long Talkers are actually very clever people and their long talk is intended to lead to a movement of the conversation which will ultimately benefit their end.
The Determined Cynics
Cynics dislike anything new, innovative or that which will foster collaboration and change. Like the donkey Eeyore in the Winnie The Pooh books, the Cynic's hallmark (besides his monotone delivery) is the catchphrase: "It'll never work." Not if the Cynic is in charge!
The Meeting Illustrators
Caveat: I actually appreciate it if I'm in a meeting and someone chooses to go to a white board and diagram a business structure. I believe we are all spatially inclined to a degree and this kind of conclusion mapping is helpful. The Meeting Illustrators are different. These are people who get up and grab an industrial Sharpie and start jotting down something not useful to the discussion at all. They tend to draw smiley faces and useless axis charts and stick people representing management.
The Divas
Divas are often salespeople. The Divas are dramatic and loud and self important. They blurt out a discourse without thinking; they pinpoint a point to disagree on just to be querulous and grand...which usually gets them bitchslapped down.
The Digressers(see "Long Talkers" above)
The Conspiracy Theorists
These are those unfortunate individuals that see sinister motives in every business change, usually at the hands of the Axis of Evil (senior management and the Parent Company). This trait is sometimes a secondary characteristic of The Determined Cynics.
The Muters
Those people who mute the speaker phone during a conference call in order to dispute the dialogue taking place on the call. I think we're all guilty of this (but without any real malice) so let's reserve this for those who do it chronically and maliciously.
The Nodders
You know who you are. I don't nap during your meetings so don't sleep during mine. And please don't snore.
Have I left anyone out of this Machiavellian scenario?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
3 comments:
Boy do I understand this:
"The Divas
Divas are often salespeople. The Divas are dramatic and loud and self important. They blurt out a discourse without thinking; they pinpoint a point to disagree on just to be querulous and grand...which usually gets them bitchslapped down."
I work in engineering at a telecom
company. I have to take the crap
they sell and make it work. They are such idiots. Can't wait to quit working next year.
What about The Doomed Masses? The poor wretches who actually have to execute the desires of the diva or the long talker without offending the cynic or the old boy and patiently listening to the conspiracy theorist. They're the ones in the back, grimly taking notes and trying to sort out what, if anything, is actually going to happen and how many years of their life it's going to shave off. They usually work in accounting.
I like to think of myself as the Cut-To-The-Chaser. (Not that kind of chaser!) When the Long Talkers and the Digressers and the Old Boys start going way off tangent, I don't mind reeling the meeting back in.
Unless, of course, I have been asked to some meeting that really doesn't affect me. Then I am The Doodler - pretending to be alert and taking notes, whilst actually sketching my garden or making my shopping list.
Post a Comment