Question

George did not look forward to going to the staff meetings that his middle-manager boss convened once each week. He did not always feel this way about the meetings; in fact, up until 3 months earlier he rather enjoyed what he believed were productive and congenial gatherings. What made the difference was one change in the membership of this group of six supervisors: the addition of Charlie, who replaced a usually silent supervisor.

Unlike his predecessor, Charlie was anything but usually silent. In fact, it seemed as though Charlie had made it a point to become conversant with every section of their boss’s territory, and he almost always had something critical to say about the other supervisors’ weekly reports.

What bothered George most was Charlie’s approach to getting his issues or criticisms on the table. Charlie seemed to focus exclusively on problems and weaknesses. As if that in itself wasn’t bad enough, what George resented most was Charlie’s way of introducing a problem or concern in a way that ensured maximum embarrassment for whoever’s area he was commenting on. It was Charlie’s practice to openly drop his little bombshells in the staff meeting, where the supervisor whose area was in question first heard of a so-called problem or weakness at the same time the others learned of it.

It seemed to George that Charlie’s practice of blindsiding the others in the group was coldly calculated to make himself look better by making others look worse. And George found it even more frustrating to note that their boss did not seem to recognize what Charlie was doing.

What do you recommend that George do about Charlie’s staff meeting behavior?

Answer 1

To start with George can have pre-meeting discussions so as to establish and set the ground rules for the meeting. This will help George to implement zero tolerance for personal attacks by Charlie during the meetings. Secondly George should take steps to keep the meetings results-oriented and to develop a focus on creating solutions by the group. This agenda will set tone for positive behavior and will not give Charlie an opportunity to blindside other members in the group. It is clear here that Charlie wants to divert all attention to him during the meeting and George can control this by not giving Charlie the opportunity to draw attention. This can easily be done by not responding to his rants. In fact George should ignore Charlie’s rants throughout the meeting. This will eventually send an implicit message to all members of the group that the meeting should be kept professional and hence no personal attacks will be entertained and encouraged during the meeting. Charlie will eventually get this message and will stop his practice of blindsiding others during the meeting. If nothing else works George can be assertive in a direct manner and attack Charlie by saying – “are you trying to embarrass me?” This assertive stand will not only make Charlie realize his wrong behavior but will also make the bosses realize what Charlie was doing.