Although Agenda Despots seek complete control of their meetings' agendas, many organizational cultures value openness and collaborative approaches to meeting management. Many Agenda Despots must therefore feign openness to topics contributed by attendees. Here are seven methods for controlling the agenda without seeming to do so.
- Abuse the not-agenda
- A not-agenda is a list of topics that won't be addressed at the meeting. (See "First Aid for Painful Meetings," Point Lookout for October 24, 2001) Although most meetings don't specify not-agendas, not-agendas can be abused. One method is publishing the not-agenda before soliciting contributions for the agenda, thereby fending off contributions before they're offered.
- Freeze the agenda
- In this approach, Agenda Despots announce a freeze date after which topic contributions can't be considered. By setting this date early enough, or setting it to precede a significant scheduled news-generating event, the Agenda Despot can exclude disfavored topics that depend on late-breaking news.
- Don't solicit agenda contributions
- Some attendees need a little nudge before they dare contribute agenda topics. Some need reminders. By failing to provide nudges or reminders, Agenda Despots attenuate the contributed topic stream, and might even prevent disfavored contributions.
- Abuse the parking lot
- The "parking lot" is a list of topics and issues that arise during the meeting, and which aren't on the agenda. (See "Using the Parking Lot," Point Lookout for September 12, 2007) Parking lot abuse is the systematic ignoring of parked items. They're never addressed. In this way, Agenda Despots can continue to ignore topics that attendees might have contributed for the agenda in advance, and which the Agenda Despot nevertheless excluded from the agenda. If the contributors then raise their excluded topics during the meeting, the Agenda Despot parks them.
- Falsely promise inclusion
- When contributions do arrive, and one of them is unwelcome, the Agenda Despot can claim, "That topic would fit nicely in <name-of-already-included-topic>," which can mollify the contributor. At the meeting, the contributed topic is treated only cursorily, if at all.
- Reject contributions
- Rejecting contributions is always possible,Many of these techniques
are active deceptions but doing so can degrade the Agenda Despot's credibility, especially if he or she has solicited contributions. At times, the price might be worth paying, if the suggested topic is troublesome, and if the Agenda Despot has little credibility left to lose. - Schedule disfavored topics for the end
- When Agenda Despots can't exclude from the agenda a suggested but disfavored topic, they can include it in the agenda, but schedule it near the end of the meeting. When earlier topics overrun their allotted times (if time allotments are published at all), the Agenda Despot, with great (but feigned) regret, can announce that "Regrettably, we must postpone this topic to a later date."
Many of these techniques are active deceptions, because they present the Agenda Despots as being open to contributions when in fact they are not. Using the concept of active deception, see how many additional techniques you can devise. First in this series Top Next Issue
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More articles on Effective Meetings:
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take into account all the difficulties we can anticipate. Lock-step thinking — and limited debate
— expose us to the risk of unanticipated risk.
- Games for Meetings: I
- We spend a lot of time and emotional energy in meetings, much of it engaged in any of dozens of ritualized
games. Here's Part I of a little catalog of some of our favorites, and what we can do about them.
- The Solving Lamp Is Lit
- We waste a lot of time finding solutions before we understand the problem. And sometimes, we start solving
before everyone is even aware of the problem. Here's how to prevent premature solution.
- Costs of the Catch-Me-Up Anti-Pattern: II
- When we interrupt a meeting to recap the action so far for a late-arriving attendee, the cost of the
recap itself is just the beginning. There are some less-obvious costs that can be even greater.
- Workplace Politics and Social Exclusion: I
- In the workplace, social exclusion is the practice of systematically excluding someone from activities
in which they would otherwise be invited to participate. When used in workplace politics, it's ruinous
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See also Effective Meetings and Conflict Management for more related articles.
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