How do you deal with disruptive colleagues?
Our reader poll today asks: How do you deal with colleagues who are disruptive in meetings?
– I don’t say anything in the meeting but do provide feedback afterward: 49%
– I call them out and confront them directly in the meeting: 35%
– I don’t say anything but I let their managers know about the problem: 12%
– I don’t do anything and figure someone else will fix the problem: 5%
It’s a good thing the vast majority of you are nipping a problem early. Not only do disruptive colleagues get your meeting off track, they can poison your culture. It’s one thing to dissent and problem solve productively in a meeting and another thing entirely to be rude. Direct feedback that is timely is the most powerful tool you have. For the 12% of you passing it on to the person’s manager, I suggest when you do so you ask that manager to give you an update after the feedback has been delivered because in many cases, that manager will not provide the feedback to your colleague since they weren’t in the meeting and they’re likely “busier with other things” (translation: avoiding giving the feedback).
Do you agree with these poll results? Let us know in the comments below!
– Mike Figliuolo at thoughtLEADERS, LLC
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These results were originally a SmartPulse poll in SmartBrief on Leadership which tracks feedback from more than 190,000 business leaders. Get smarter on leadership and sign up for the SmartBrief on Leadership e-newsletter.
The action to take depends upon the level/rank and relationship of the offending party. I personally believe that action items 1 or 2 should be taken whenever possible. However, sometimes it makes sense to just sit on your hands and “zip it up”.
Each situation demands inspection of the facts prior to taking action. Sometimes that deployment is to do “nothing” and let the “worm eat its way out of the apple”.
The real question is whether the disruption is appropriate and useful. I don’t think we can take a blanket approach. I am currently reading Malcolm Gladwell’s lovely book “David & Goliath” and he gives evidence that sometimes disruption is good.
One thing to always get clear before taking action on a disruptive colleague is to make sure you have defined the goal you want to achieve first and keep it in mind. You don’t want your behavior to be worse the the person whose behavior you are confronting.