A short post for everyone this Friday. I wanted to share something funny that I heard on CBC Radio (Canadian equivalent of NPR) on a show called The Point. They did a piece on meeting personalities that I found all too true!

They talked about two specific meeting personality types – the dominator and the distracter. The dominator comes in and you guessed it, dominates the discussion from start to finish. We’ve all worked with someone like this that you completely dread going into meetings with, their agenda item goes from number three to number one as soon as they walk in the room because they just can’t wait.

The other personality type is equally as annoying – the distracter. The person who shows up late with a long story about why they are late. And then they spend the entire meeting on their Blackberry or with their Blackberry vibrating all over the table. As much as I love my Blackberry, I have to tell you how much I do think Blackberries should be left at your desk, or at least be discrete about it.

If you want to take a listen to the piece to add a laugh to your Friday, you can check it out here. (It’s in part one starting at 15:55).

Laughs aside, I have to wonder why these two personalities continue to be alive and well. We’ve all worked with them at some point or have dealt with one in the past week. As a manager, shouldn’t you be coaching your employees so they aren’t the dominator or the distracter? And as a co-worker, if you have the opportunity to provide feedback in a multi-rater assessment, you should share these concerns in a constructive way.

After all, while meetings are a necessary part of office life, wouldn’t everyone be a bit happier about them if they didn’t have to deal with either of these two people?

What do you think? How do you deal with these two meeting personalities? Share your tips and tricks by commenting below.