Meeting Hyena

The jokester uses their charisma to actively derail the meeting.

The Meeting Hyena is a meeting animal that has a motive to keep the meeting upbeat and fun. Although this intention means well, it can often be disruptive to the meeting itself. The Hyena isn’t afraid to speak up or make a joke. But these jokes can be uncalled for. If the Hyena has made an attempt at making jokes in the past and got a positive response from attendees, without a doubt this is the positive feedback they are seeking to justify continuing their behavior.

Establishing Our Expectations

It’s important to understand that the Hyena, in most cases, means no harm. Their intention is to bring positivity to the meeting. There are a couple ways we can address this meeting animal in a sensitive manner, as we aren’t trying to oust them from our meeting, but instead make the meeting faster and more focused.

Laying out the ground rules for the meeting at the very start is a great tool. This is called the Pre-Frame. What the Pre-Frame does for our meeting is lays out the rules for what the meeting leader and attendees are to expect from the meeting.

An example of this might be:

“Welcome, time is sensitive today, so I will ask for the groups permission to redirect any off topic conversation.”

What this does at the very start of your meeting is bring the focus to time being an issue. Therefore, we need to be as efficient as possible. Asking for the groups permission also makes everybody aware that you (the meeting leader) will enforce the rule of staying on topic.

Other Tools To Keep The Meeting Hyena In Check

Although making everybody aware of time is a good start, it might not be the only method you’ll have to use to keep the group focused. As we mentioned in the example, we ask our attendees for permission to redirect any off topic discussion. Let’s say the Hyena is up to their old tricks again. Maybe they make a joke that gets the attention of the other attendees and causes a disruption. If action isn’t taken at the time of the disruption it could further exacerbate meeting disruptions because the Hyena saw no correction.

Gentle Redirection

There are a few methods of redirect we can use in this situation. We have the soft-redirect, the hard-redirect, and the segue.

The soft-redirect is just as it sounds. It’s a method that takes the “softer” approach to redirecting a rowdy meeting animal. An example might be something like the following:

“I appreciate your input, but for the sake of time we should get back on the topic at hand.”

When you say words like “appreciate” and “we” (the group) you are recognizing the input of the meeting animal and mentioning the issue of time as you did in the Pre-Frame. After you address the derailment and why it’s important to stay on track, suggest where to go from there.

Firm Redirection

The hard-redirect is very similar to the soft-redirect. The difference being it’s a more direct and not-so-sweet approach to redirecting. An example might be something like the following:

”Ok, we are getting off topic here because this discussion isn’t directly related to our objectives for this meeting. In the interest of time, let’s move forward.”

This gets right to the point. The meeting leader will see that the meeting is getting derailed and will interrupt the discussion, bring the issue to groups attention, address the importance of staying on track for the sake of time, and then will decide where to go from there.

Swift Redirection

The segue is a good method to relate with what the meeting animal has brought up and then swiftly lead the group to the agenda items needed to complete the meeting objectives. An example of this might be:

“That is a good point you make and is a great segue into our next agenda item.”

It’s quick and clean. Swooping in to take back the hijacked conversation and setting the group on course once again.

 

Did these tactics help tame your Meeting Hyena? Do you have stories of a Meeting Hyena in your meetings? If so, how was it handled at the time and was it effective?