New York Lawyer
January 30, 2003

Q:
One of my partners dominates in meetings and shuts everybody else down. Most others are afraid to speak up because this guy is so sharp and sounds so confident that he winds up taking over. Not only does he dominate (a lot of the time everyone else is sitting there in silence), but he's always finding fault with people's ideas, such that people are not only cowed about making suggestions but have come to believe that new ways of doing things are just plain wrong or bad.

I'm the managing partner and nominally I run the meetings but we've always prided ourselves on being informal and not getting too bureaucratic about how we run things, so our meetings aren't terribly structured. Any opinions or suggestions?

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A:

This kind of situation calls out for strong meeting management, often not the strong point of professional firms. While informality, which sounds so appealing, is great so long as it works, unfortunately when it doesn't there's no structure or format to fall back on to guide a group out of its problems. And a person who dominates not only can be irritating, he or she also limits the input you get. Your partner's approach validates a "smart talk" atmosphere, in which shooting down ideas is favored over trying to figure out a way to make new approaches work. This keeps in place a conservative, risk-averse philosophy, to stick with the tried and true rather than experimenting and blazing new paths. Also, this dynamic shifts accountability and influence away from the group as a whole and rests it more on the shoulders of just a few individuals, who create or at exaggerate the problem by taking over meetings, but who also can feel resentful that others don't participate as much.

So the first step might be to think broadly about your meeting procedures, and to institute more formal processes, such as a strict agenda that's approved in advance, a group discussion to agree upon "rules" as guidelines for debate, etc. It's important to vet new ideas, of course, but you can have a guideline that first people should try to figure out the positives, rather than immediately jumping on the negatives.

New, more proactive meeting procedures in of themselves can lessen the impact of the dominator. There are other approaches as well that you can utilize to take him down a peg or two. Talk with the person privately, if that's possible, or deputize someone else to do so. You probably will have to appeal to his ego, because (while you don't say so) I suspect that the person is a big revenue generator, which validates his power. Explain that his input is valuable and would be heightened if he made some modifications to his style: "Your views are so persuasive and well-articulated that other people might be wary about speaking up for fear of not sounding as impressive." Link his participation to the good of the firm: "We have to keep up with new ideas and trends otherwise we'll suffer in the marketplace. You can be the leader for new ideas that will propel our firm from strength to strength."

Within the meeting, if he dominates too much, try a variety of tactics. If possible, go stand next to him when he gets too talkative. Or deliberately sit next to him during the meeting. For some reason this makes people self-conscious and they get quieter. You can call on others and insist they talk (even tell them in advance that you need more of their input in meetings, because you value their thoughts and believe you haven't heard enough from others). More directly, if the overbearing partner is stating and re-stating his thoughts, sum up his viewpoint and say, "Excellent point, now let's hear from others."

You are right to be concerned about this issue. Superior leadership of a firm requires the participation of all partners. It is the responsibility of the person running meetings to make sure that no one person takes up all the air time. You have an obligation to be a proactive and muscular meeting leader. It's not okay to just let this situation float along, or to let informal processes take over. Others undoubtedly are secretly wishing that this guy would shut up, or at least tone it down, and that you would do something about it. So use some of the thoughts above and think creatively about confronting this situation.

Sincerely,
Holly English
Principal Consultant, Values at Work