Bad Meetings - Who Invited the Vampires?

by Peg Kelley

Published on this site: August 30th, 2006 - See more articles from this month

It's Monday, beginning of the workweek and the start of the meeting schedule. Meetings - the bane of corporate existence, but seemingly a necessary evil.

Your third meeting of the day is progressing as expected when you become distantly aware the energy of the meeting is fading – as if the actual life-force is being drained.

As your own energy wanes, along with your interest, you belatedly realize you're the victim of the dreaded-

Meeting Vampire (vampyrus occursus).

So Who Invited the Vampires?

According to legend, it is impossible for a vampire to enter your house unless you have invited it in, and yet they have invaded the sanctity of your work place. At some point in the distant past, your company invited a vampire to enter its house, and the question that now looms before you and the rest of Corporate America as well is how to effectively deal with them.

Start with your own meetings. Maybe you meet with a team or a project group. Typically, energy is high when the meeting starts. Then something happens and boredom or tension sets in. That something could very well be one or more Meeting Vampires who have come to feed on your energy, and do so by taking the discussion off-topic, confusing people on why they are there and what work they will take away at meeting's end. And, of course, they drain your energy by prompting one person to talk…and talk…and talk.

Also according to legend, there are a few special tools used to deal with the usual vampire threat. While decapitation and exposure to direct sunlight will do, the preferred method of most vampire slayers through the ages has always been a good old-fashioned wooden stake through the heart. Of course, any sharp and pointy wooden object can be used - a pencil, a table leg, a pool cue - but there's just no substitute for a well-whittled stake to rid yourself of that undead pest.

Of course, those are for the regular vampires of legend. In the Corporate world, we're limited to less lethal forms of intervention. However, Corporate Vampires (no, I'm not referring to the lawyers) come in a variety of types, which differ from the norm and require a completely separate set of tools and tactics to drive them away. Heading them off before their bite is fatal is key. How you do this depends upon the type of vampire.

Identification

Before we can drive them away, we have to identify what kind of vampire has afflicted your meeting. Research into the appearances of Meeting Vampires in the workplace has led to the discovery and subsequent identification of three specific species.

1. Vampyrus irrelevancium:
   
   This vampire causes the group to stray off-topicor get caught in a repetitive conversation.
   
   
2. Vampyrus confusio:
   
   This species of Meeting Vampires is actually a hive or nesting that creates an atmosphere of confusion where participants don't know what topic is being worked on, if a decision was made, what the decision was, or what the next steps are. The hapless victims are easy prey for these predators who then suck the life out of them and their meetings.
   
   
3. Vampyrus talkusmaximus:
   
   This vampire forces one person (or sneakily - one topic) to dominate the meeting, momentum is lost and other participants drop out verbally and mentally. The longer this goes on, the harder it is to get the group re-engaged. Often, the other truly important agenda items are left to wait for another meeting.
   

Peg Kelley, MBA, has been a professional facilitator and meeting vampire slayer for over 30 years. Her published booklet and twice-a-month e-newsletter on running better meetings are available at her website: www.meetingswithmuscle.com.