Over at Rands In Response, there’s a very amusing post about the type of people that can be found at just about any meeting within a company.
Here’s one of them:
Curveball Kurt
Slogan: “The sky is pancakesâ€Kurt is easy to identify. You have no clue what he’s talking about.
The first order of business once you’ve identified Kurt is figuring out if he’s Mr. Irrrelevant. This can be tricky since whenever you ask him a question, you see his lips move, he’s clearly speaking English, but you have no idea what he’s trying to say. Hopefully, Translator Tim or Sally Synthesizer is in the room to help out here.
Your absolute worst situation is when your Anchor is a Curveball. It happens more than you’d think. The most likely case is combining groups on vastly different parts of the organization chart. Think of executives brainstorming with engineers. Every executive wants to think they can chum it up with anyone in the organization, but when it comes to their day to day job, they literally speak a different language. This means you’ve got Curveball Kurt on both sides of the table. This is an impossible meeting without some type of Translator and Synthesizer in the room.
Maybe you’ll find yourself or someone you know in the list of meeting-room personalities. If not, read up and look out for them the next time you sit down at a company meeting.
Thanks Will!
