Eight Types of Faculty Meeting Attendees

Adapted from: “8 types of meeting attendees” at Jonathan Grubb:

1. The Talker: Person who thinks talking is the same as contributing. (Admittedly, sometimes that’s me.)

2. The Dean: This person may or may not actually be the Dean. The main strategy is to get everyone talking and working together constructively, then use the political capital just gained to hijack the meeting and implement her or his own agenda at the last minute. If not the Dean, s/he’ll be the Dean eventually.

3. The Sigher: This person will audibly sigh whenever s/he disagrees with something. If pressed, s/he’ll refuse to go into details on why s/he disagrees or what exactly the problem is. Sometimes will erupt with an excited utterance along the lines of “Bullshit!”

4. The Lurker: Sits in the meeting, slightly aloof, and doesn’t participate at all. May offer a single quietly stated opinion near the end of the meeting. Mostly harmless, except for when the quietly stated opinion near what *you thought* was the end of the meeting drags it out for another 15 minutes or more.

5. The Stealth Lurker: You might think this person is a real lurker, but s/he isn’t. S/he’s the one who says nothing for the whole meeting then offers a single quietly stated opinion near the end. Then, no matter what everyone else agreed on, this plan gets implemented. How did it happen? Who knows. This person has some power you don’t understand. Hope that this power is used for good rather than evil.

6. The Meanderer: This one is like the talker, except s/he meanders all over and creates long, drawn out metaphors that nobody understands. In law practice, you could throw this person a real softball question, then just lean back and zone out and accumulate billable time while daydreaming. The Meanderer is the reason I bring reading material to faculty meetings.

7. The Killer: Aims to destroy other people rather than win arguments or get his or her way. This person is annoying but not really dangerous since s/he is easily recognized. The best strategy is to put him or her on an unimportant committee with another killer, and let them argue to the death over meaningless trivia.

8. The Productive, Reasonable Contributor: If you have more than ten of these people together on one faculty, you should think about breaking off and founding your own law school. Then, please tell me where to send a resume.

–Ann Bartow