What to do about that Ultracrepidarian on your team
(Notes from a Word Nerd)
A person with opinions on subjects beyond their knowledge.
Every team seems to have one: you know, the person who’s always trying to be the second-smartest guy in the room? This person just isn’t comfortable with anyone else as the focus or in the limelight, and no matter what, they’ll turn the conversation around to focus on themselves. “That reminds me of . . . “ and off they’ll launch into their story, derailing the meeting or the work session. If you can’t see everyone rolling their eyes, you know they want to!
How can you deal with this? You’ve got three options: Ignore them, address them directly, or remove them. Only you know whether the disruption is a light-hearted personality quirk or a more serious attempt to disrupt the goal of the meeting or work session on purpose. Sometimes, it’s possible that someone has a blind spot and doesn’t realize the impact they are having on the group process. Other times, they know, it’s purposeful, and you need to be direct about your expectations. We want to encourage a diversity of opinions and ideas, which fosters innovation, and we want to have the kind of trust that can withstand disagreement and debate: that’s a healthy team.
What might this look like? Ignoring them means that, for now, you just accept that they’ll likely make a comment, and redirect. This is fine, especially if it’s not every meeting and every topic. Addressing them is influencing them: “You know, Joe, I appreciate your desire to provide value in the meetings, and I’d like you to be more discerning about when and how you comment. For example . . .” Finally, removing them is for the last resort option. Be very clear about what is and is not acceptable for meeting interactions and contributions. This isn’t about controlling everything, as we do want an exchange of ideas, but rather, if someone’s contributions are just always slowing things down or creating a bottleneck, we need to be specific about moving along.
It’s your job to escort the grandstander off the stage and redirect the team to the tasks at-hand.
