I am currently the chair of our small town tree board (everyone else flat out refused). And I have just realized that I need to learn a new skill: tactfully cutting people off and/or getting them to stop talking.
The last meeting had a record level of contention over two beautiful old trees that need to come down- sad, but it happens. And there was a Cranky Old Guy there to complain about it at length. He was about 80; I couldn't bring myself to break in and tell him to wrap it up/ shut up/ get a grip.
How do you gratefully get others to stop talking, when you're in charge?
I have only been in charge of tiny humans, but I've found they responded better when it's a rule or timer cutting them off, rather than a person. "Comments are limited to 3 minutes per person, please plan your statements carefully."
ReplyDeleteWe might need A Rule. I had just let the previous speaker talk more than 5 minutes- a nice person, former member of the tree board- so I was concerned this dude would feel rightly aggrieved and we ARE a public meeting. Ugh.
DeleteAgreed with using a timer. Two minutes max per comment. That depersonalises it and makes it “fair”. If you want to be generous you could also allow written comments to be submitted to the committee in a specified time frame, but it sounds like that probably wouldn’t help in this situation.
ReplyDeleteJust to make this particular situation more fraught, there was a REPORTER in attendance for probably the first time ever! And two minutes wouldn't be enough for many of our visitors who bring legit business and projects instead of comment. Maybe we need to distinguish between the two.
DeleteDistinguishing between business and projects vs comments (with a short time limit) makes a lot of sense!
ReplyDeleteIn the absence of an official time limit, I suppose my go-to would be a "Oh I'm terribly sorry to interrupt, I've just noticed that we're just about out of time for (whatever) and we'll need to move to the next item THANKYOUSOMUCH" sort of thing. Not probably the sort of graciousness you were looking for. I was even less gracious cutting short meetings run by PMs who didn't know what the hell they were doing.