Here’s a question I was sent via LinkedIn:
“My boss joins my weekly meeting, and then takes it over. Sometimes she criticises people, sometimes she just talks too much. What can I do?”
Answer:
You have to be very careful when it’s your boss!
Ideally he or she wouldn’t be there at all. But if they are then you need tactful ways to contain them.
- Maybe set up a strict agenda and suggest you try to keep to the times on there?
Or, maybe, if he/she means well and is approachable, you could talk to them outside the meeting (they can’t be made to lose face during the meeting!), perhaps using the four step assertiveness process of “I understand / I feel / I want / Is that OK?” to explain that you feel that their inputs are great but sometimes affect the flow of the meeting, so is it OK if…
- he/she lets you run it with only minimal interventions,
- or maybe he/she doesn’t need to come every time – or maybe they could just do a session at the beginning and then leave, or come in for just the last part –
- or maybe you can agree with them to have a secret sign to tell them that they need to finish and let you push the meeting on…?
- Or maybe you can start another meeting with a different title at a different time in a different place, and invite everyone except for the boss? And then slowly run down the old meeting, making it more and more occasional.
- You could disguise this still further by dividing the meeting into two, and inviting half the people (but not the boss) to one meeting, and the other half of the people (and not the boss) to the other half….
Good luck!
CC
More info on meetings here
More info on difficult bosses here
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