Do you have any suggestions on how to limit this? I find meetings often meander from someone’s pet issue to trivial / irrelevant details while the important broader topic withers and dies despite the meeting running 2-3x longer than planned.
In meetings where I have some control, I try to keep people on topic, but it’s quite hard. In meetings where I’m the ‘worker bee’ it’s often hopeless (don’t want to rub the boss the wrong way).
When I’ve been in such meetings I’ve been fairly insistent that we write down whatever it is we’re discussing (e.g. on a blackboard) and point to it periodically. No sense in keeping everything we’re thinking inside our heads. It also helps to appoint a competent moderator explicitly from the start.
A common related situation: unproductive group conversations.
Do you have any suggestions on how to limit this? I find meetings often meander from someone’s pet issue to trivial / irrelevant details while the important broader topic withers and dies despite the meeting running 2-3x longer than planned.
In meetings where I have some control, I try to keep people on topic, but it’s quite hard. In meetings where I’m the ‘worker bee’ it’s often hopeless (don’t want to rub the boss the wrong way).
When I’ve been in such meetings I’ve been fairly insistent that we write down whatever it is we’re discussing (e.g. on a blackboard) and point to it periodically. No sense in keeping everything we’re thinking inside our heads. It also helps to appoint a competent moderator explicitly from the start.