March 2011 article: The Toxic Team Meeting

For most working people, staff meetings are frequent and familiar events. Bland, dry, and usually dull, staff meetings comprise the essential, administrative pain-in-the-butt part of business we all must endure. Most of the time, staff meetings are predictably ordinary and forgettable – a place where employees alternate between daydreaming and trying their utmost to feign some interest. While sometimes worthy of a yawn, staff meetings do not usually create an inordinate amount of stress. In a toxic workplace, however, staff meetings can be positively dreadful, where tension runs high, stress overwhelms, and rarely anything useful gets accomplished.

You know you’re in a toxic staff meeting when:

1)Lack of shared air time: In a productive staff meeting, every employee has an opportunity to share their input and contribute to the discussion. In a toxic workplace, negative team dynamics ensure that only dominant group members have air time and input into decision-making. Overbearing employees monopolize the conversation in a toxic team meeting, resulting in biased decisions and sense of stifled frustration for those who are elbowed to the sidelines.

2)You can cut the tension with a knife: In a positive workplace, there is an atmosphere of tolerance and respect for individual differences. Meetings are generally relaxed because there are no underlying tensions. In a toxic workplace, however, some employees use meeting time to prey on their co- workers. These meetings are usually extremely uncomfortable for attendees, especially for those on the receiving end of attacks. As the hostility escalates and the defensiveness grows, employees’ personal agendas spill into the professional arena, damaging company productivity. While management may be aware of the difficulties between staff members, they may not have the necessary skill to address the problems, leaving subsequent meetings wide open for toxicity to continue.

3)Redundant, repetitive information: Time is precious in today’s fast-paced organization. The need to stream-line communication and present information in a clear, concise manner is crucial to ensure efficiency. To this end, high- performance organizations ensure that meetings are conducive to effective communication. Employees leave meetings feeling motivated, having clearly- defined goals and a sense of purpose and recognition for their work. In contrast, toxic workplace meetings leave employees feeling drained, frustrated, and overwhelmed with irrelevant details. The chief complaint employees have about these meetings? The majority of the agenda is devoted to information distributed earlier through the e-mail network. While some points may require clarification, people know how to read and don’t need the same information regurgitated to them over and over. When employees leave meetings with a collective sense of time wasted, it is a clear sign that drastic changes are needed in the way time is utilized in the company.

These symptoms signal unresolved team conflict, ineffective leadership, and a failure to develop a strategic direction and/or goals for the organization’s meetings. Unless something changes, these staff meetings can continue down the same toxic path – much to the aggravation of those who must attend them.

To improve the meetings in your company, consider the following suggestions:

1)Recommend improvements: Imagine for a minute that you’re in charge of meetings in your organization. Aside from eliminating them from your work week altogether, what changes would you like to see? Maybe you’d prefer to see more time devoted to team building or staff appreciation. Or perhaps you’d like to shorten your company’s meetings and see the time managed better. Either way, it is important to suggest solutions if you dislike something. After all, the situation is unlikely to improve if you don’t request change.

2)Remain objective: Many times, people have a strong sense of “right”

and “wrong” when it comes to their work. We can feel so passionate about our professional opinion that we can become agitated and upset if someone disagrees. But the truth is, it all boils down to differences in individual perception – what one person believes is a priority or considers to be “right” may not meet with agreement from everyone else. It is crucial to remain objective as possible and keep emotions in check during meetings. The more relaxed and self-assured you are, the more power your message carries and the less stressed you’ll feel as a result.

3)Speak your mind: A professional difference of opinion is one thing, a personal attack is another. There is no room for personal attacks in the workplace and everyone has the right to be treated respectfully, even if others disagree with your ideas. Demand to be treated with the professionalism you deserve. If you are feeling attacked, don’t be afraid to speak up and say so.

Remind your colleagues that you are there to do a job, not to be run-down in a meeting.

While meetings may be a fact of life of the workplace, they don’t have to be a torturous affair. By considering the preceding suggestions, you can demonstrate some leadership and take your organization’s meetings to another level. Remember, the key to a successful meeting is to go in feeling confident and to leave with a sense of accomplishment. Know what you want and don’t be afraid to go after it – you never know what positive changes may come as a result.

Stay tuned for next month’s issue: