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A number of political moves can be made prior to meeting to attempt to preclude a person's domination of the event. These tactics are meant to keep intact the leader's ability to conduct a productive interchange among members. They are "power plays" in the sense that they are designed to erode the other person's base of support and courage and make it possible to carry out leadership functions. These methods are not necessarily nice, but neither is the disruption of an honest meeting. |
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| Leaders should consider the following eight tactics for preventing disruptions: |
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| 1. Get the dominator's cooperation for this one meeting. Ask the person to agree not to argue from a fixed (and often familiar) position. |
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| 2. Give the person a special task or role in the meeting, such as posting the viewpoints of others. |
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| 3. Work out your differences before the meeting (possibly with a third-party facilitator) to present a united front to all other members. |
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| 4. Structure the meeting to include frequent discussion of the process of the meeting itself. |
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| 5. Take all of the dominator's items off the agenda. |
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| 6. Set the person up to be concerned about what might be the consequences of disruption. For example, "It has come to my attention that a number of people are angry with you, and I am thinking about opening up their discussion in the meeting." |
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| 7. Ask other people to attend the meeting to support you in dealing with the disruptive person's behavior. For example, they cn be asked to refuse to argue with the person, give feeling reactions to the dominating behavior, and confront the dysfunctional behavior directly. |
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| 8. Make the person's behavior a published agendum. |
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| For more activities for managing conflict at work -- drawn from over 30 years of Pfeiffer knowledge and experience -- read Pfeiffer's Classic Activities for Managing Conflict at Work. |
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