Dealing with people who waffle in meetings?

[strugglingwriter]

I'm having a bit of a problem at work in knowing how to deal with people who talk endlessly in meetings.

I work at a fairly senior level, and there are others, not direct colleagues, but at an equal level who have a tendency to use any opportunity to give a 5 minute talk on whatever the issue is in a way that says nothing that everyone doesnt already know, and adds nothing in terms of explaining what that persons view is or otherwise moving forward. Any questions to clarify this are met with a further mini-speech with similar lack of meaningful content.

Has anyone else experienced this? I'm struggling to find a tactful way to deal with it - it is irritating, wastes time, and doesnt progress anything. Being blunt wouldn't be appropriate, but if anyone had advice about subtly/gently encouraging people to move on it would be much appreciated.

Thanks

Plan your meeting - have an agenda with who is going to talk mainly on it. Arrange someone to chair the meeting so they can shut down the waffles. It may seem simplistic but it works- you just have to get into the habit of being a bit more "formal" about the meeting . Equally works on conference calls.

It does work as I spent years working for the badger king of bullshit and it helped manage him.

Thanks for the reply gigondas.

There is always a chair and agenda. Sometimes its me (In some ways the problem is worse when I'm not chairing, because then I feel that the chair has more responsibility to clamp own on time wasting), sometimes other people, but the problem that I have is in stopping the waffling. Its usually related to the topic in hand, so people cant be accused of going off topic.

I'm actually fairly robust when I chair meetings, good at keeping to time etc, but I cant seem to find a polite/gracious way of dealing with this issue when it is also vitally important that I keep good working relationships with them.

Difficult - but a power game by them probably. Are you chair of meeting? Is there one?

One option is to get someone to do a one-page report first (written) and then if someone wants to go on about stuff that has been investigated say 'I asked x to do a report so we wouldn't need to talk this over - that was the last stage, today we are here to decide/move the discussion forward/plan etc.

I have worked in very difficult circumstances were no decisions were made time after time - in the end the strategy that worked was.. 1. Paperwork and summary before, presented by person who did the report 2. direct questions about further actions needed or decision made (if further action is used as stall, say 'with what we know now we would do x- if you can get info to me tomorrow and that will effect the decision lets canvas yes/no by email.) 3. the head of the meeting and an action-oriented other agree to write minutes. These are action/decision orientated and allows a 'duties' list to be circulated along with the minutes.

Another option is to break the group discussions down to small teams =' greg and sally you decide three staffing options, mike and bill distill marketing to two strategies for comms and streamlining process.. etc and report next time.

When they report if they waffle say 'show me' and 'Ok if you haven't finished we'll carry it over - so Mike, Bill what did you come up with on Mktg?'. IF nobody comes up with anything say guys our time is too valuable for these meetings not to be productive..

etc etc until they are trained!

Minutes are really cruicial to how a meeting is managed and viewed - look at Tools for Success and see if this helps.

Senior people are bloody annoying!

I think that you are right WorriedBetty and it might be a power game. I just find it odd that anyone would use being boring as a power tactic, but maybe they do. It would fit with the personalities of the people who do it, IYSWIM.
I like the idea of setting tasks outside the meeting. Thats something that I have used successfully in another context, but hadn't thought of applying it here.
What is 'Tools for sucess'? -I had a quick look on amazon but I see 2 books with that title.

this

I recognise this from my old job. Mainly from the senior people. They did it to boost their profile. It was very interesting watching it. One lady in particular was almost rehearsed in it. She always spoke after the people she wanted to dominate to make it look like she had the upper hand or the last word. I have no idea how to stop this. That particular lady is now practically the CEO. I think some companies and individuals are just like this tbh.

I attended a series of classes by someone who was excellent at moving on bores - he had a set of phrases that he would say after a couple of snetences in order to politely get the meeting going again. I think they were things like "And that leads us on to..." and "And on that topic..." He said them with what always looked with genuine enthusiasm for what had just been said, IYSWIM, as though their tedious boring point had indeed led on to the next topic.

Or you could talk to them all individually and ask them what they feel you ought to do about everyone else wasting their precious time by wittering on - make them come up with the solution to their own problem.

Try and sit next to the most difficult person.
Take on more of a bull in a china shop robust stance in conjunction with the phrases above...they could be effective.

'OK, let's take that offline and look to the next item on the agenda' often works for me, that sort of wording anyway. And write it down, to demonstrate you're taking it seriously.

Be brisk, remind people of the time every now and again, and where you are in terms of the content that must be covered.

Introduce the meeting, state clearly the objectives right at the beginning (people rarely read the agenda beforehand.)

Focus in your own mind what you need to get out of the meeting and, in your head, stay focussed on that. Threaten offer to set up further meetings to go into more depth on the topic the person is discussing, and follow through with it. If what they had to say had worth then it's time well spent, if it's not of any worth, it'll soon become obvious in the follow up session, and will undermine their credibility, they'll not do it again.

we have someone like this in my work unfortunatly both meeting groups I have to attend with him, one he is chair of, the other he isn't but it is his specialty, unfortunatly these meeting drag, the people that should be there delegate (If I could I would)
I tend to use the fact I am the only woman in the meeting (30 plus male on one meeting) who can use humour and bluntness with humour to shut him up, as I am a equlivilent and I know his subject backwards, the only other females are the lady taking the minutes and one of his reports, he has a tendency to call me pet/darling in a meeting, I have privately called him up on it after the first meeting I ever went to , he chose to make it public, by telling his staff, my Admin told me the gossip that I was being talked about..
upshot is I am new to the organisation and I am turning out to be a hero in the minor sence , the men in the meeting are as fed up as I am, but they don't know the subject like I do, they think it is hysterical I pulled him up on the pet/darling thing and then let everyone know...and I know and so do the men in the organisation, he was hoping to make me out as a prudish old maid and dicredit me...
I know this because this because after this, the convo he had with my admin before xmas, he asked all about how her littles where looking forward to christmas, eventually she said Missings children are younger than mine, he said I kid you not! Oh I thought you career women didn't have children...WTF! my answer was... haven't you heard? we can have it all now..I thought I would have to resus my admin she was laughing so hard,
I haven't answered your question but you need to find out why this person is such a tit and mine is because he tries to be an alpha male, and controling last meeting was only 2 1/2 hours, people are realising I can challenge him..which explains the year of ignoring my asks for meeting invites after the first meeting I went to when I started.

Thanks for all that brilliant advice. Lots of things for me to try. Your comments are interesting missingmum - where I work the two worst offenders for this are women. I think that it is ultimately harmful to their credibility as it does create an impression that they are just liking the sound of their own voice, and lacking the professional confidence to state an opinion succinctly.
The trouble is that it does seem to be succesful up to a certain point, some people don't seem able to detect that there isnt any content to what has been said, so as a tactic I can see why they do it.

One top tip we used at work was to have meetings standing up - people are less likely to accept wafflers if they just want to be able to sit down again
We don't do minutes now we have a record of decisions with the person who needs to action it named so you can follow it up
All meetings have previous RODs and agenda out prior to the meeting and unless something is on the agenda then it can only go at the end in AOB - any other business
I work with witterers - mainly older men and for them it is a power thing, they feel they have to have the last word Thankfully I am moving jobs shortly back to a more action focused approach