In a team with a few alpha males and females. Really hard to get a word in as they do all the talking, suck all the limelight too. They are the type of individuals who like to j3rk off to their own voice and opinions. Blabber mouths who want to endlessly talk about themselves or their opinions. I don't want to hear about your kids routine or what you go up to during the weekends Sarah/Vaishali/Ben/Tyrone, just let me talk ffs!! At times, I want to strangle some of them for not letting me weigh in as well. Most of these folks are American /naturalized Americans who just won't shut the f4ck up. How can I be heard? Edit: looks like I should emulate their behavior. This is going to turn the meetings into a sh1tshow initially, but it might be good to lay down a marker /draw a line in the sand. It can't all be one way traffic, when I am forced to hear your verbal diarrhea but I can't get a word/opinion in.
Itās probably not that they like the attention itās just not culturally the same. Iām American and I end up running meetings because teammates in east Asia will say the bare minimum and just kind of do as they are told. Americans are individualistic and we want input on everything and question everything.
Love alpha females
Interrupt them and talk over them. Mimic their behavior to them and watch the meltdowns happen. They donāt like to look at a mirror because they know they are ugly (emotionally speaking). I did this once and the woman complained I was difficult to work with. I told my manager Iām just mirroring her work style back at her and sheās the difficult one. She was moved to another team shortly after. š donāt come at me beeeetch. Iām nice until Iām not. Get a backbone and beat them with it. Fuk these clowns. š¤”
Why can't you just use the raise hand feature?
Because by the time the person stops talking and sniffing their own farts the thing you wanted to originally talk about is now way in the review mirror and your opinion never gets heard. Raise hand is for suckers.
@amazon Spot on. Some of the folks will continue blabbering even with the raised hand
I end up doing all the talking because others usually have one sentence updates. Talk over me if you want to get a word in.
Totally feel you, I used to be one of those loudmouths too. Someone finally pulled me aside and it was a wake-up call. Made a huge difference. Maybe you could do the same for them? Just a thoughtāhelped me big time.
Don't be afraid to "circle back to something you just said" etc.. You also get to decide what gets talked about. Also in some settings it is fine to start talking even before they stop talking if it is a natural ending point of whatever they were saying. This is somewhat "it depends", but sometimes it is expected and a sign you are actively listening and other times you are just helping someone to stop yapping. So yes if someone is like "So we went out camping with the kids and we had a great bbq meal ... " then it can be absolutely fine to cut in and say "oh that sounds like a wonderful time you had, and i just wanted to touch on the conversation we still need to schedule with team X to talk about project Y integration, I'll reach out to Jane today and try to set something up before EOW"
Talk to your manager or tech lead - it's possible you're in the right here and you've got Talkers. It's also possible you're in the wrong here and you can get some coaching on how to handle the situation. I'm not in your meetings, I don't know.
Two things that work well from my experience. 1. Take notes, try to make them structured, and jot down your questions. You can always say "Before we move on... We're proposing ElasticSearch because we need search behavior, but it's not a good fit for the core document store use case. Should we..." I try to keep the first three to five minutes of any meeting really light, sometimes I'll just share a YouTube video with some Chopin playing or something, but if you're halfway through and still not on topic, that's a problem. Take notes on the irrelevant stuff, so that you've documented that concern and can raise it with your manager. You'll also be generating useful documents - sift through your notes and summarize them afterwards, and share with the team. 2. Have someone steer the meeting This is me, it could be you, it could be someone else. The goals for the pilot or w/e are to: - make sure people have a voice - make sure questions have clear answers - summarize long winded thoughts Esp working with junior engineers, I'll see them talk through something because they're figuring it out or can't quite articulate it. They'll take five minutes, and I can take thirty seconds and say "Just to make sure I understand, you're addressing this problem, and proposing this solution. We also thought about this solution, but like the first one better because..." It feels awesome doing that - it shows you were listening, it makes sure everyone understands what was said, and it models effective communication.
Sorry for the wall of text :)
You've got to learn how to just butt in. It can be done in a non-rude manner. It's much easier if you all in the same room.
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Introduce the concept of a ātalking stickā. Look it up.
š yeah. And then get gossiped about by the same awful burnt out high school prom kings and queens.