Disruptive behavior needs to be confronted
The topic was fascinating and timely. The speaker was the CEO of a large multinational company with holdings in Montana. His slides showed how the company took care of the land before, during and after the mining operations – a subject every Montanan cares deeply about, balancing natural resource extraction with keeping the state beautiful.
The audience was full of legislators, business leaders, government representatives and citizens. The CEO was an engaging speaker with a receptive audience.
Then why were there a handful of individuals who decided their private conversation was more important? Clueless came to mind, but maybe they did not understand how disruptive and disrespectful the behavior was? That it was difficult to hear the presentation because they were being so noisy? Or did they just not care?
This is only one of the recent occasions on which I have witnessed such behavior. And frankly I am sick of it! When did people become so disrespectful and selfish? At what point in someone’s mind does the need to have a side conversation become more important than the rest of the audience or simply paying attention?
As I considered writing on this subject I decided to take time to watch the disrupters and those around them, and discovered a couple of interesting things:
• Age and gender are no indicators. The disrupters are men, women, young and old.
• Those around them, while obviously annoyed, do not confront the disrupters and ask them to be quiet.
• I originally had the misconception that most of the disrupters were young and female, and I was wrong. I really am not sure why I had such a theory, but after observing in half a dozen settings, I found that anyone can be and often is a disrupter.
Those annoyed will roll their eyes at their neighbors, sharing that look of “why don’t they shut up,” and often glare at the talkers. But not once did I see someone actually tap them on the shoulders or in any other fashion make a direct appeal for a bit of maturity. Are we afraid of the reaction? Afraid of causing a scene? Fearful of being punched in the nose? I am not sure, but we are not confronting them. We just endure and our agitation grows.
Count me in the non-confronters. Oh, I will shoot dirty looks with the best of them, but to actually tap someone on the shoulder and ask them to take the conversation to the hall or shut up, not me! So when I decided to spend my column space on rudeness, I decided I would experiment with confrontation before I sat at my keyboard. As always, I hate to raise a problem without a solution. So I confronted.
The first occasion was a retirement party with a section of formal presentations. The disrupters were there and I actually held my finger to my mouth and did the universally understood “Shsss” action to someone next to me. Nope, I did not get punched in the nose, but I did have to do it twice before the individual understood I did not want to listen to them disrupt. Whew, I survived!
The next opportunity came during the BBB staff retreat at the Spokane Club. We had two awesome facilitators and experienced the best retreat ever, but there were a few individuals who had so much to say to each other that they became disrupters. I saw another staff person confront one of them early in the day, and then I confronted another pair later. The message was, “We will not allow you to disrupt our experience. We are taking control.” Yes, it was a safe and known environment, but we took control and set the standards of behavior. It sure felt good.
If we sit by and let rude, disruptive people affect our experience, how will they ever know they are out of line? They won’t, unfortunately, and they will continue ruining concerts, presentations and other gatherings. Kindly asking them to take it to the hall or wait until a break is easy and not confrontational. Just be firm but kind, and most of them will get the message.