Quandary Mat: My Boss Does All the Talking
Quandary: I run regular meetings for the projects I lead. These meetings include a few of my peers, representatives from other departments, and my boss. My problem is my boss. She talks too much!
She goes on and on, which means other people don’t get to talk, and we can’t make decisions or cover everything we need to. She speaks on topic most of the time, but around and around in circles. Then I have to send long complicated emails or schedule extra meetings, which nobody wants and my boss complains she doesn’t have time for. In a meeting, when I try to interrupt her rambling, I try to be respectful and polite, but she gets offended. In a recent performance review, she brought this up as a lack of respect. I’m going crazy and dreading all my meetings with her. What can I do? Signed, All Talk
Dear All Talk,
I feel for you. And this team. And your boss, too. This is a common issue in meetings. Often there’s one person who does more than their share of talking.
There are three issues you could work on here: Your relationship with your boss; and managing meetings well with good prep and facilitation.
Let’s start with the trickiest part, your relationship with your boss. Think about our first two foundational Culture Builders, Be Humble and Curious, and Create Trust and Safety. With your boss, you can be curious and humble by going to her with the question to solve, instead of a requirement that she change her behavior immediately. By presenting the problem carefully, you establish it as something for you to fix together. You want to get on the same side of the table, instead of the old Me versus You oppositional stance.
You could say, “I want to be good at managing our time in meetings, so we get everything done on the agenda. And I don’t want to cut people off, including you, during our discussion. Can we talk about that?” I would be surprised if she did not want to help you with this. Time management in meetings is a universal issue. Now, just like that, you are side by side figuring out the challenge you share. It’s not you trying to control her, or her feeling slighted.
You could ask, “When we start to run short of time and you or someone else is talking more than everyone else, what is a respectful way to redirect you or bring us back to our goals for the discussion?”
Even if there is no immediate solution, you and your boss have this shared goal in mind for your meetings from here on. Once you have an idea, try it out with the group, or in a meeting between just you two even, and see how it works to support everybody getting their ideas heard and making the decisions you need to make for your work.
A bit about meeting planning and facilitation, without knowing how many of these good habits you already practice:
Send an agenda with a goal for each topic (“decide x,” “approve y,” “brainstorm z,” etc.), at least a day ahead of time, or more if the meeting is unique or particularly important. When they know what to expect, people can find more relevant data or other information to bring to the table. Or decide what they have to say on the topic.
In the meeting, the facilitator refers to these clear goals for the meeting. As the conversation flows, the topics and meeting goals allow you to steer the conversation:
“Thanks for that perspective. Are there other ideas, or are we ready to make our decision?”
“We have just a few minutes left in this meeting. Did everyone get a chance to say their piece before we come up with our top three options to pass along to the rest of the management team?”
With this plan and these expectations set, it is easier to break in and redirect someone. It’s not personal. We are just trying to stay on task and do what we need to do before our time is up. Your role running meetings is an important and powerful one. A basic agreement with your boss about how to facilitate for time should help you both relax and enjoy your meetings more, which in turn will help you both listen better and include all the important perspectives that you need to succeed.
Good luck! Let me know how it goes.