Games in Meetings, Groups and Teams

Outside of our main catalogue of organisational politics, here is a specialist selection of unhelpful games, strategies, and tactics that get played in groups, meetings, project teams, departments, training rooms, and cross-functional teams. These games are the indirect ways in which people do business, get their needs met, manipulate each other and exert inappropriate influence.

This list was originally intended to be a useful list for facilitators, trainers and group leaders, to raise awareness and understand what might be going on. However, it is also apparent that awareness of these games within the group membership will also encourage more authentic interactions. The more that these games come into awareness within the group, then the less likely it is that the members will use them for fear of being spotted.

We know of one organisation where board members and other key teams are issued with red and yellow cards which they use to "flag up" unhelpful behaviours and tactics which they have previously agreed within their ground rules are not helpful and should form no part of their dealings. This list makes these unhelpful patterns of interaction explicit and helps their process.

The next time you go to a team meeting, keep your ears and eyes open and your antennae switched on and you will see many of these strategies being played out.

Get Naked — This game starts when the most powerful person present has an idea — which everyone immediately knows is terrible — but no one says so. Indeed some might even go out of their way to congratulate the boss on their brilliant insight. It is the modern organisational equivalent of the story of the Emperor's New Clothes.

Get Recognised (Get Toady) — Using a meeting to impress a powerful person who is present in order to get noticed for making a positive contribution, which is uncannily in line with the current politics or leadership vision.

Get Freewheeling — A meeting in which the membership have already reached agreement beforehand and are now simply going through the motions of important business for the sake of keeping up appearances.

Get Out — Frequently finding creative reasons why not to show up, and, when they do, has pre-arranged for an urgent message or phone call from outside which demands they leave the group immediately.

This is just a small selection of a group of over 20 games in this section of our work. For more information, contact us or talk to one of our partners.

Mike Phipps
May 2004