
Spotting Field Sabotage in Meetings (2011) - signa11
https://whatsthepont.com/2011/06/19/spotting-field-sabotage/
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lolc
The endless rehashing of this list is tiresome. Sure these techniques are
effective, but they exist because the behaviour they co-opt is often useful
and desirable.

Not ragging on this piece in particular. It's just that people referring to
this manual rarely add anything approaching guidance on how to expedite
meetings and facilitate effective decisions. People shouldn't think of
sabotage when something takes longer in a meeting, they should think of how
the issue can be resolved quickly.

Tools I've found to resolve or prevent long discussions:

1\. Ask every attendant their opinion in turn, so that people need not
discover the other's take through discussion but have it explicit up-front.
This is also very effective to break discussions where multiple people are
constantly interrupting each other.

2\. Make it clear when people talk about different things. "So you see
technical issues #1, #2 while you see ethical issue #3?" Discuss the issues
separately.

3\. Keep the current best proposal for resolution visible for everybody, and
change it as soon as anybody suggests amendments. Rarely split proposals into
multiple variants, only if people favour clearly distinct options. Make the
reservations explicit. "So you don't accept this resolution because it goes
against (other decision)?"

And finally:

4\. Accept that people can discover issues and change opinion during the
discussion, this is an important function of a meeting after all. Make it
explicit when it's happening though so everybody takes notice. If somebody
keeps dredging up minor issues or matters already decided or discussed, ask
them why they think it's relevant. Often it's enough to "add this to the
minutes."

~~~
comstock
Interesting, you view the list as an amusing take on things to avoid.

I view it as sport to keep me going at the corrupt, horrifically depressing
companies I’ve had to work at, and have been unable to escape.

~~~
nkrisc
I think this could actually be a manual for promotions at such organizations.

~~~
maxxxxx
It totally is. Another point is to make no contributions during the whole
meeting but at the end be the last one to speak, make sure to summarize what
everybody has said. the meeting is yours and you are automatically the
insightful leader.

~~~
gregmac
I have seen this done by a couple different people. They were not recognized
as insightful, and more often recognized as annoying. They also often don't
summarize properly but it's easier to let them conclude and pretend they were
useful than to debate with them.

The more important thing is the actual meeting notes are accurate. (I also
strongly believe that a meeting without published notes is largely useless and
irrelevant, but that's a while other topic.)

~~~
nkrisc
Of course, that will never work in any sane place. The point I was making is
all these "sabotage" behaviors are actually the sorts of things that get you
promoted at toxic places.

~~~
maxxxxx
I don't think the place has to be that toxic. In most larger companies there
is a lot of political posturing going and these strategies all can be very
useful under certain circumstances. The good players are just not too blatant
about it.

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knolan
> Make “speeches.” Talk as frequently as possible and at great length.
> Illustrate your “points” by long anecdotes and accounts of personal
> experiences. Never hesitate to make a few appropriate “patriotic” comments.
> When possible, refer all matters to

This one struck me. I have two colleagues in particular that come to mind. One
loves to spin anecdotes into metaphors to basically repeat what someone else
has already said, killing meetings. The other loves to use an awful lot of big
words to describe all the things he’s recently read and has latched onto a
‘collaborator’ to ‘work’ on. Of course this completely derails the meeting.

~~~
jimnotgym
Some of this is about the competitive business of being noticed. The people
who quietly solve problems are overlooked. The people who discuss them out
loud are noticed. In some companies this is one of the few ways to get noticed
by the upper echelons

~~~
jdietrich
Some people just really like the sound of their own voice.

~~~
walshemj
time contributions max 4 mins :-)

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hyperman1
Someone I know had an interesting technique used on him. He was on an
important but unpopular project, and was presenting the facts making this
project necessary. Hard to schedule meeting with lots of important people.

So a high-ranking exec says: Your numbers are wrong. He didn't get answer on
why this was stated or what the correct numbers would be. The whole raison
d'aitre for the project disappeared under his feet. They lost a lot of time in
the discussion about numbers, and the meeting was over before it even got
started. A month of time lost before next meeting, and everyone pissed of.

So afterwards another exec pulls him aside and said he was victim of a classic
meeting sabotage trick, that was used on a regular base by that specific high-
ranking exec.

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failrate
I once had a project manager say in a meeting, "It's my job to play devil's
advocate right now." I immediately explained to him that, no, his job was to
coordinate our time and resources. Devil's advocate was for the requirements
engineer.

~~~
ljf
Very true - but I wonder if it that case the requirements engineer was failing
to do that? Or the company was one where they regularly didn't challenge the
engineer to explicitly and publicly take that role?

~~~
failrate
No, the re is great. It's the pm who causes the most bikeshedding.

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rcarmo
The modern equivalent of this are “virtual communities” in the form of
internal forums or distribution lists.

I’ve lost count of the amount of “community building initiatives” I am
enrolled in automatically due to my role or background, and sometimes wonder
what amount of useful work I would actually be able to do if I participated in
half of them.

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jancsika
Seems to me the document itself was probably the saboteur:

1\. Write a document describing natural yet annoying things that happen in
meetings.

2\. Let the document be discovered.

3\. Watch as the enemy wastes time and resources looking for the saboteur
which is hiding in plain sight on that sheet of paper.

That seems more sensible than actual disruptive behavior potentially burning a
spy's identity.

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analog31
I suspect that the people assigned to write this manual decided to have some
fun, and inserted a satire that probably applied to their own work
environment.

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ctvo
Who knew my co-workers were CIA trained.

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anotheryou
channels, delegation in to sub-groups and presentations can be very
necessary...

~~~
valuearb
Those are all signs the meeting was unnecessary.

~~~
dkarl
On the contrary, if a meeting is unnecessary, you can afford to spend the time
on whatever tangents and pet causes the attendees want to bring up, so you
don't need to bother with channels and delegation. If a meeting has been
convened for an important purpose, it has to be protected against people
trying to hijack it for less important things, by deflecting those things to
other channels and other groups. (Of course you can't get sucked into the
morass of authorizing and organizing subgroups _right there_ or it doesn't
help much.)

