7 Ways To Sabotage Meetings

When you want to get a project done it is imperative that when working with others you understand what elements lead to a high performing team as well as understand the strategies required to make meetings  effective. But what about when you don't like the work being done at your school, organization to which you belong, or in your community, etc.?

Well when that's the case, then it is important to know how to sabotage meetings. Coaching Psychologist Yaron Prywes (@Yaron321) revealed how to do just that as part of a full-day workshop on promising practices and pitfalls to avoid when conducting meetings.

This advice comes from an interesting source... declassified information from a CIA manual on how to sabotage productivity.  If you want to derail a meeting, here are seven strategies you can use:

1. Insist on doing everything through "channels." Never permit short-cuts to be taken in order to expedite decisions.
2. Make "speeches." Talk as frequently as possible and at great length. Illustrate your "points" by long anecdotes and accounts of personal experiences.
3. When possible, refer all matters to committees, for "further study and consideration." Attempt to make the committee as large as possible — never less than five.
4. Bring up irrelevant issues as frequently as possible.
5. Haggle over precise wordings of communications, minutes, resolutions.
6. Refer back to matters decided upon at the last meeting and attempt to re-open the question of the advisability of that decision.
7. Advocate "caution." Be "reasonable" and urge your fellow-conferees to be "reasonable"and avoid haste which might result in embarrassments or difficulties later on.

Now, if you're goal is to keep a meeting on track, you might want to print this slide out as a reminder of what not to do. That way, when any of these strategies begin to take shape, you can point to this reminder of what to avoid.  

Source: CIA’s declassified manual on how to sabotage productivity. Article.

What do you think? Are there strategies here that you've experienced in contributing to a meeting going off track? Anything missing? Anything you disagree with? Please share in the comments.