Taming the Alpha Dog

For people who tend to dominate meetings: How to identify yourself as an Alpha Dog, and tips to change.
For meeting moderators with Alpha Dogs participating: Tips to running successful meetings, ensuring that everyone gets to say what they would like to. How do you handle phone meetings? IRC meetings?
What is it's an Alpha Dog moderating the meeting? How can you encourage someone who wants to speak to be a good moderator?
You know an Alpha Dog, who is unaware of his condition: How can you tell him, and help him reform his ways?

Add notes here!

RAW NOTES:

Session Leader: Dave Neary, dneary@free.fr

Table 4, 3pm

Note taker: Jane Wells, jane@wordpress.org

Attendees:

Dave Neary

Michael Durney OpenMKS

nxcamp Richard Meinsen CDG Berlin

Tierry Carrez

Lance Albertson OSU OSL

Ross Turk inctank

Dawn Foster - Intel

Jane Wells

Amy Scaravada

Rich Claussen

Langdon White

Stefano Maffull - Openstack

Dan Allen - Red Hat

Leslie Hawthorne - Red Hat

Amy Samarna

Ben

Sarah White - Fedora

Jacob Redding

PaulI -M

Stephanie Taylor

Raise hand to speak

Know when you are dominating

cultural bias in school to raise hand

What can you do in a meeting to stop someone from dominating

Amy: Abolish handraising

Jane: shut up!

Raise hand stays

facilitator calls on raised hands, but if someone is dominating...

Amy uses peer pressure in group to decide if need to stop

Steffano: slow down conversation if online so others can jump in

Jane: nacin trac tickets throttle yourself

Jane: if someone won't let go of the couch, what do you do?

Leslie: Is this what you're saying? Great! next?

Stefano: tweet this :)

Blonde Jane: What if it's just a chat that's gone way off base?

Dave: Natural alpha takes mantle of leader, s/he takes 1/2 the airtime

Langdon: taught it helps to just shut up when you want to talk, 9/10 times it will build better vibe around table

Amy: stack the list/handraises to keep track of who will speak next (like conference calls)

[page 2]

Jacob: How do you stack online? Like in comments? Huge longwinded arguments etc?

Leslie: contact directly - praise passion, ask to chill out to help discussion broaden

Ross: Talk radio: turn off the mic, not friendly but works

Stefano: direct their enegry to something else they can do

BUT->AND->can you do something

Michael: Bozo in forums (Jane confirms)

Langdon: group calls, pre-meeting, goal, point person to tell people to move on etc. if not sticking to team goal

Dawn: 1 on 1 coaching when epople don't realize that they're being too long winded & no one is reading it

Dave: keep looking around

Ross: want to be vacilitators? Nope

Leslie: taking notes means taking control of the conversation in the end

- meetings - use red card, yellow card, etc

ground rules - how much time each person gets

Richard: see yourself as a leader or an organizer, coordination

Ross: my job is not to lead but to identify & grow other leaders

Dawn: problem if I'm too frequently posting b/c I shouldn't be the loudest voice

Jane: having lots of knowledge & being asked a lot of stuff? ask a lot of questions yourself to invite others to share instead of just being the answer person

Dan Allen: What can they tell me, rather than me just giving them info on mailing list, feel lazy b/c not participating sometimes, fight feeling of letting people down

Dave: should we call ourselves community *manager*? what is right level of activity on our part? leading by example is important, but if you'r eleading and you need followers - otherwise just a man taking a walk

Stefano: How do you train yourself? leading, nurturing, etc.

Russ: Make mistakes

Lance: observe others

Dave: How are you self-aware - do you know when mistakes made

[page 3]

Leslie: hashmarks when I talk. If page too covered, I need to shut up

Dave: telling someone to slow down might make them leave

blue hair: make them understand, don't manipulate

Russ: Sometimes I don't feel other people stepping up like I want to, so go alpha

Dawn: Fine to have convo on how intensive it is (ref: Paula's book) give people a few chances & tell how can do better

Langdon: 'dead air' anxiety is cultural to north eastern US. half second of ?? is space that needs filling. Other places don't have that.

Dave: negotiating tactic - dead air

Thierry: someone pops up @ middle as alpha

Dave: how do you involve people who are quiet? don't want to call out or put on spot

Jane: we ask them if they want to tal, still agree

-: back channel in IRC or etherpad

amy: how does that fit into the real meeting

-: depends on the format, but might get brought up in real channel

Dan: can see what people thinking in the channel

Langdon: jump in to raise the channel issues/comments

Dave: Jane, how doe calling people out

Jane: We try to keep it supportive

Michael: in opopsite - what about elephant in room

Leslie: "I know we don't want to talk about 'awful thing' but it's hampering project, I feel this way"

Ross: use humor

Jacob: Same as Lesli4e, be blunt or funny, don't inore. but when shy people not willing to be in line of fire w/target on chest

Dawn: helps to express frustration - get it out in open & be honest

[page 4]

Langdon Changing channels of communication can help (delayed response vs. IRC etc)

Jane: some comment on blog more than IRC but not that big deal

Jacob: why do people complain after instead of participating at the time of meeting (like D8)

Paul M: back to different channels having different effects

Jacob: Do you force complainers to use official channels

Dawn: depends on motivations. Being passive aggressive = bad, but some people just take time to process their opinion = good because they are really thinking about it.

Leslie: encourage back channelers to join real channel to affect decision & take responsibility that to have impact on decision you have to shut up "don't hide behind introverted label"

Stefano: disruptive people -> attacking decision or decision making process?

Jane?: If immed. after meeting, probably passive aggressive. get them into real meeting. if thoguhtful, post later

Dave: you have to manage confrontational person based on behavior

Michael Dexter: Aspergers or assholes?

Rich Michaels Smaller groups instead of larger groups & more likely for more feedback/participation. backchannels in IRC = safer space

Dawn: We push for decisions too soon, when there are dominators people need more time to think

Langdon: if a thread is going too far afield, bringthem back & set up a new meeting for new thing

Dave: People remember different things from meeting after the fact

Stefano: How o we make devs not hate meetings

[page 5]

Amy: love facilitation because people can be more creative when they know the boundaries

Dave: how to have better meetings?

Jane?: Agenda - what decisions should be made by end

Langdon: too many people/broad/width takes too long to get to the part that applies to you

Dave: how od you avoid meetings with too wide scope

Dan: if agenda, can speak up in advance

Dawn: have purpose of meeting set in advnace. "general communication" is not a purpose

Rich: take page from standups. have a moment for each person quickly

Ross: do email in meeting if purpose not clearly defined

Dave: on phone calls, we do email, etc. if not relevant meeting context

"human retweet" = Leslie hand gestures