Franke James is Editor/Founder of Office-Politics.com and Inventor of the Office-Politics® Game.

Peter R. Garber has worked as an HR professional for over 25 years and is the author of many business books including: Winning the Rat Race at Work and 100 Ways to Get on the Wrong Side of your Boss.

Dina Beach Lynch, is an Ombudsman, Author and former attorney. An award-winning mediator, Dina served as the Corporate Ombudsman for the 7th largest bank in the US helping over 48,000 employees to resolve workplace issues.

Dr. Rick Brandon is CEO of Brandon Partners. He has consulted and trained tens of thousands at corporations worldwide, including Fortune 500 companies across a variety of industries.

Dr. Marty Seldman is one of America's most experienced executive coaches. His 35-year career includes expertise in executive coaching, group dynamics, cross-cultural studies, clinical psychology, and training.

Arnie Herz, is a lawyer, mediator, speaker, author and consultant nationally recognized for his practical and inspired approach to conflict resolution and client counseling.

Dr. John Burton LL.B. M.B.A. M.Div. Ph.D. is an ethicist, mediator, lawyer and theologian. John is currently located in Prince Rupert, B.C., Canada, working with Canada's aboriginal communities.

Everyone avoids meeting with me, including my manager, my coworkers...

May 2005, Article 4

Dear Office-Politics,

Everyone avoids meeting with me, including my manager, my coworkers. I don't have too many meetings at all, yet, when I feel the need for consensus, for people to pull together to get an answer, I organize a meeting.

The theme I'm getting is: Meetings waste time, the more meetings we can avoid the better.

Even when I feel a point was going to be reached, our Chief Executive didn’t want the 2nd meeting, out of fear the meeting would change the course of his decision (or he didn’t want anyone else to debate is my only guess).

And yet, in a particular incident recently, when I wanted to hold a meeting and it was refused, someone else came along with this same gentlemen and met with a team to resolve this issue. They were the same people I would have pulled together! He said they just met, yet, it was in fact a meeting. When I told him this, the way he puts it, they resolved the issue without a meeting.

So the question is, what gives? Are my meetings less important than his? Is it just terminology? Why is this other person able to meet with people and get work done while I keep running up against people who don't want to have a meeting?


Mr. Meeting

Dear Mr. Meeting,

Sorry we're a bit delayed in getting you a response, but we've been in back-to-back meetings...

Just kidding! Still, this might be the mentality that is fueling your frustration. After all, one explanation of your dilemma might just be the simple fact that people are maxed out on meetings and super busy and that your problem isn't about intrigue or politics. In other words, as Freud said, "Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar." So make sure that what you're describing as a single incident was not, in fact, just a case of the attendees slipping into an impromptu meeting, more innocently than you suspect or fear. Especially given that many companies do have unwritten rules about meetings to plan the work interfering with the time needing to work the plan!

Now, we don't want to be naive, so another set of explanations might indeed involve ulterior motives, hidden agendas, and power maneuvers.

Since we don't know the players, we'd only be guessing, but one piece of advice is to not attribute the same causality to every incident. For instance, the first thing that comes to our mind regarding your hypothesis about your CEO's goals in avoiding a meeting is that you may be accurate. If he's the head honcho, and he wants a given outcome to occur, why would he want to allow further discussion? If he's coming down on one side of a decision, isn't that his right as top leader? Also, if that's his stance and it's contrary to yours, it may well be that others know that your direction is different from his and this might be one reason people are steering clear of meeting with you, for fear that you have a reputation of going against the CEO on certain issues. They may understandably fear for their job security. So our second piece of advice is for you to examine the reputation you might have which could handicap your ability to establish a meeting quorum.

Finally, whatever the reason or dynamics behind people's reticence for attending your formal meetings (which you might want to explore with more trusted allies), there is nothing to prevent you from advocating for your beliefs and selling your ideas during "non-meeting" one-on-one appointments or impromptu conversations during which you still address whatever issues you would otherwise be convening regular meetings to tackle? Our practical book, SURVIVAL OF THE SAVVY: High-Integrity Political Tactics for Career and Company Success, contains an entire chapter called "Ethical Lobbying," which teaches how to ethically promote your recommendations and proposals outside of the boundaries of a scheduled meeting. You might do well to adhere to the adage, "If you can't beat 'em, join 'em" and start partnering with people casually to work whatever issues you need to position with others. That's just being savvy if everyone else is following those unwritten rules.

We hope this is helpful, and if not, we'd be glad to schedule a meeting to discuss it further! Thanks for writing to Office-Politics.

Optimistically,

Rick Brandon, Ph.D. and Marty Seldman, Ph.D., Co-authors
Survival of the Savvy: High-Integrity Political Tactics for Career and Company Success
www.survivalofthesavvy.com