VA&B: how to address unhelpful behaviour in meetings without breaking the relationship

A three-step script for handling the person who's late, the person who talks over everyone, and the person with the hidden agenda.

 

That person who is late.

That person who didn't prepare.

That person who talks over others.

That person who keeps going down rabbit holes.

That person with a hidden agenda.

 

(Hang on, you've been in a meeting with me recently? 😂)

We've all been late to a meeting. We've all run out of time to prepare. We've all interrupted someone. We've all taken a meeting on a not-useful tangent. We've all tried to get something for ourselves out of a conversation, without being upfront about it.

"That person" is me, you, all of us at various times.

When we all do something together, there is a social contract in place. It's not written down but it's the shared understanding of the behaviour that's expected.

Today, I'm going to talk about how to handle it when people repeatedly break the social contract.

 

 

What's the sure-fire way to handle these in the moment?

However tempting it is in the moment, if I can possibly manage it: I don't subtly shame people. I don't use passive aggression. I don't ignore it.

Instead, I talk with high honesty AND high respect for the person, in service of the group and its goals.

And here is my 3-step conversation guide: Validate, Appreciate & Boundary (VA&B), a structure for responding to almost any kind of conflict or issue in a meeting.

 

Validate

Demonstrate you understand their point or behaviour.

Validating is a micro-version of the steelman technique, where we summarise that person's position, crucially to their satisfaction. You are widening your perspective and capturing any available value from their behaviour. You don't have to agree, but you have to show you understand. They can't hear your boundary (coming later) if they are still trying to have themselves understood. We are trying to bring everyone into a shared reality here.

 

Appreciate

Value the highest intention you see.

When you ask yourself what the highest intention of their words or behaviour could be, you are elevating yourself out of the negative story you're telling yourself about their behaviour. We can't know other people's intention but it serves no one to assume the worst possible motive. So we pick the highest intention we can see and assume that one.

V and A allow us to come into relationship again. Now we can hold a boundary.

 

Boundary

Refocus everyone on the content, behaviour, scope or constraints you set out at the beginning, or reinforce a boundary if needed.

(You set boundaries when you invited people to the meeting, right? 😍)

If it's outside what you've already scoped (and hey, we know smart people do wild things in meetings all the time!), ask yourself, "What's a reasonable boundary here?" so you can cleanly define what you are actually asking of them or the group.

 

Bonus

And a bonus step: offer choices or use a How Might We question to problem solve together.

 

 

Here are some examples

As you'll see, tone is everything. The same words can become passive aggressive rapidly based on tone.

 

That person who didn't prepare

Validation: "Let's acknowledge, we are all pulled in multiple directions at once right now."

Appreciation: "You wanted to do the prep but you didn't get time, is that right? You are juggling competing priorities, I see that!"

Boundary: "This meeting is crucial for [this purpose], we need to come ready to…"

Bonus choices: "Shall we commit together to do this work before the meeting each and every time, or does it make more sense to extend the meeting and complete it together in the room?"

 

That person who talks over others

Validation: "You're making the important point that [ABC]."

Appreciation: "I know how keen you are to make sure we understand this and take account of it, because you are concerned about [DEF]."

Boundary: "In this session, we want to hear everyone's perspectives. Your point is absolutely noted. Jake, let's come to you."

 

That person who keeps going down rabbit holes

For example, Tomaz is presenting figures and Hayley keeps digging into minor details with a critical tone.

If I wanted to keep this light and just move things along, I might use this:

Validation: "It's really important that we base our decisions on the most accurate data."

Appreciation: "Thank you Tomaz for preparing these figures and thank you Hayley for drawing out more precision."

Boundary: "What's our next step to achieve [our stated goal for this meeting]?"

 

If I wasn't sure whether the detail was important or irrelevant, and I didn't just want to move things along based on my own judgment, I might use something more like this:

Validation: "Hayley, you are keen to look at the detail behind the figures because you think [ABC]?"

Appreciation: "Thank you Tomaz for preparing these figures and thank you Hayley for drawing out more precision."

Boundary: "We have 30 minutes left to achieve [the stated goal for this session]. What is the best possible use of that time?"

 

That person who is always late

Validation: "Geoff, you arrived after this discussion started." (I'm simply seeking to bring everyone into the same reality here without judgment.)

Appreciation: "We hugely value your contribution in this session and I know you won't have missed the first part lightly."

Boundary: "We need the full 30 minutes to work through this decision, together as a group, so we can make the best choices with all the information."

Bonus choices: "Do we need to move the meeting time, or shall we commit to starting together at 11 next time?"

 

That person with a hidden agenda

Validation: bring the hidden agenda into the open and validate it like this: "I know it's important to you to…" / "It's your job to make sure that…" / "It makes perfect sense that you would want to…"

Appreciation: "Thank you for bringing [that hidden agenda] to the table."

Boundary: "Today, we're focusing on [this agenda]."

Bonus choices: "Do we want to include [that hidden agenda] in our conversation today?"

 

 

Where this works, and where it doesn't

There are no perfect ways to respond and you have to choose your own words and tone. These are words I have used in the past which I hope are helpful to you.

One obvious limitation: VA&B is unlikely to solve more pervasive power or behaviour problems in meetings (and beyond).

But when nice people do not-so-helpful things in meetings, VA&B is a way to position a boundary in a way that builds rather than breaks relationships.

That doesn't mean you'll never get resistance. In my experience, people may not like or even agree with your boundary in the moment, but they will respect you handling it fairly, respectfully and transparently in service of the group.

As always, the work is as much about handling ourselves as about handling the other person...!