WTF do you do when someone higher up the food chain won't stfu in every meeting you're in? Usually not an issue, but lately this one bro just won't be quiet and redirects everything back to how he knows something about everything.
This person is hogging 75% of meeting time just blabbing. I need a strategy. They are genuinely nice.
I'd be more worried about the ones that stay quiet. They're sometimes the ones who are stealing money because they don't know anything and are trying to fool everybody or hoping the project fails.
If y'all are on good terms, maybe try a passive comment like, "oh nice, you're an expert on this topic too?" the next time he goes off. He will not be happy about the comment when you make it. But he might stew on it later and realize he ****ed up. On a somewhat related issue, I realized that I was one-upping someone a while back. I realized it while I was in the middle of doing it. I was just trying to tell a similar story as a way to empathize with his struggle, but the way it came off was definitely that I was one-upping his story. And it occurred to me that this probably wasn't the first and only instance of me doing this; I might be one of those mother****ers who one-ups people. That wasn't a great realization. I'm trying to be cognizant of it so that I won't do it anymore.* Maybe if your coworker hasn't yet picked up on his problem, this passive-aggressive comment will be the thing that starts him on that path. *Although arguably I am doing it right now in this very reply!
My moms getting to that age of rambling for hours on the phone without any interjections from me for 20-30 minutes at a time. It's usually about 20 minutes of material being repeated 5x times.
If you give direct credit to the person you're backing up, it shouldn't come across strongly as one upping? I might have the same habit without realizing it, but sometimes good opinions (imo) are drowned out by the motormouth. With remote meetings, i find tech folks tend to talk less unless its really necessary. In any case, i usually play the fool and summarize what everyone has droned about for the half hour if only to maybe not go in circles the next meeting.
It's actually pretty easy, unless relentless talker is a moron. If you are leading the meeting, as soon as he finishes his first rant, regardless if he was on topic, simply say.... "Thanks (his name) for your great input, does anyone else have any questions/comments that they would like to add? (his name again), made some very good points, but it's important that we all participate in order for this meeting to be truly successful so I would like to hear someone else's opinion regarding (topic). If this doesn't work.... simply stare at his forehead for 30seconds during/after his rant! This will make him feel awkward and he/she will automatically start shutting down and stop participating all together!! ....... ....... .......
Meetings in general are overdone and a colossal waste of time for everybody involved. Don't hold a meeting if a phone call will suffice, don't hold a phone call if an email will suffice. I swear if everybody abided by this rule the number of meetings would go down 90%, and everybody would have way more time on their hands to do other things. I feel people call unnecessary meetings strictly to feel like they are earning their keep. That said, it's incredible how much of my day is spent listening to other people ramble, and I have just learned to tune out and mentally plan out other things so I am prepared to do those once the meeting is over. What's funny is those same long-winded goofballs are the ones that try to speed me along in the rare cases I need to explain something to them. I think it comes from a position of insecurity, "if I talk the most and shut down others from talking, it means I am more important than they are."
100% and people feel obligated to fill every second of time that's allotted to the meeting. I don't schedule meetings longer than 25 minutes and I don't do chit chat because I hate meetings and would prefer to actually get my job done.
The only hog conversions I know about are pork belly into bacon and a hogshead of beer being 54 gallons.
