9 meeting personality types – can you spot yours?
How to facilitate meetings to get the best from every personality type
Productive meetings are a great way of achieving objectives, creating new approaches to solve tricky problems, and stimulating two-way communication. Effective meetings leverage all the brainpower in the room in pursuit of getting work done. However, with so many personality types in one room, it can be a challenge to engage everyone.
Understanding the personality types of team members and how to deal with them is an important part of keeping meetings productive. Here we identify nine personality types and the best way to deal with them. See if you can spot yourself...
The Hippo
Heavy by name and heavy by nature, the Hippo (Highest Paid Person’s Opinion) casts a large shadow in any meeting. Their views can carry more weight, especially with impressionable and junior members, and this can bias outcomes. The best way to deal with the Hippo is to speak with them before the meeting and ask if they can take a step back and invite others to express their views. This will encourage debate, the sharing of ideas and empower meeting participants to contribute.
Outward signs of seniority can promote further power imbalance, stifling opinions and creativity. After all, it’s called power dressing for a reason! Removing obvious status symbols such as designer outfits, luxury branded pens and military decorations can help to create a balanced atmosphere despite title differences and seniority.
The Resigned
Usually, in a trance-like state, this personality type has checked out before the meeting has even started. The Resigned has been in so many unproductive meetings, they have given up trying to change them. The best way to revive their interest is to give them hope that their contribution counts. Be clear on meeting purpose and follow up, ask for their input and if necessary, pair up fellow Resigned personalities to work together in pairs.
The Prisoner
Told to come along to the meeting by someone else, the Prisoner can be a disruptive force. With the sole aim of gaining freedom, the Prisoner will mount a rebellion against incarceration until they are released from captivity. The only way to deal with this personality type is to signpost the way to freedom and encourage them to leave the room.
The Sweat
This character believes that over contributing to meetings will win them brownie points with the HIPPO or Owner. To get the best out of this personality type, channel the Sweat’s energy into a specific task. It will aid facilitation and drive their focus away from seeking praise and to the task at hand.
The Pedant
Dotting the i's and crossing the t's is a way of life for this personality type. Uncomfortable with ambiguity, the Pedant needs to get every detail right, there is no room for error. This personality type is all about the details, and that is completely at odds with ‘big picture’ people. In their quest for getting the details right, the Pedant can lose sight of the objective so play to their strengths by making sure they attend planning meetings. Think right person, right time – and keep the brainstorming/strategy meetings far away from the Pedant’s schedule.
The Visionary
Pedants beware, the Visionary doesn’t do detail! Overflowing with big ideas that stream out, mostly unfiltered, the Visionary provides a deluge of thoughts, concepts, and brainstorms. Be prepared for frequent plot twists as you sift through the torrent of ideas to find the golden nugget. Get the best out of a visionary by being clear on the purpose of the meeting and what must be achieved. Always have the question visible to sharpen the focus of these creative thinkers. Lastly, ensure everyone understands that the Harvesting section will be tasked with finding the diamond idea amongst the rubble.
The Waffler
The term filibuster was invented just for the Waffler, talking until he’s blue in the face. Once they gain the floor, they have no plans to relinquish it anytime soon. Just like the name implies, the Waffler loves to blather on and on, making the same point repeatedly. Setting solid ground rules and rewarding good behaviour is the way forward with the Waffler. You want to encourage them to adhere to the rule of ‘telling, not selling’ but if it all gets too much switch to silent ideation mode if needed.
The Owner
Requests the meeting in the first place – but rarely has a clearly defined purpose, goal, or subject matter that the meeting needs to address. The Owner tends to hold the reins too tightly and struggles to relinquish control, constantly telling the facilitator how to run the meeting. The way to deal with the Owner is to ask powerful questions until the objective is well-defined. It’s vital to clearly outline the role of the Owner and Facilitator in the process. Once parameters have been established you can move forward and agree meeting objectives together.
The Facilitator
Like a chess grandmaster, the Facilitator’s role is to use all the pieces on the board to achieve the outcome set by the Owner. Fortunately, they have benefited from facilitation training with Treehouse!
Facilitating Better Meetings
Facilitating meetings can be stressful and unrewarding unless you know what you are doing. Fortunately, we have an online course to help you learn the skill of facilitation. Facilitating Better Meetings will help you develop the skills to make your meetings more effective, dynamic, and engaging.
Advanced Facilitation
As well as the online course Treehouse has two further levels of facilitation training available:
Facilitating Workshops Foundation – available virtually or face to face
Facilitating Workshops Advanced – available virtually or face to face
Investing in the skills to make your meetings engaging and productive will save your organisation money, enable you to achieve your objectives and make your people happier – who can beat that feeling of being part of a team that is firing on all cylinders, powering through the work and creating great solutions that delight customers?