How To Turn A Blame Fest Into A Productive Meeting?

 

This week in the Project Shrink question box:

"Dear Project Shrink. When a meeting is biased towards an individual, complaining about the performance of a person, and not the real issues, how do I correct if I am the last in the meeting line up?"

Let me first congratulate you on the fact that you are reluctant to focus on personal attacks (or maybe the individual is you?). Two rules in projects concerning social interaction:

1) in group communication it should never be a personal attack;
2) if you have issues with an individual, you'll discuss it in private between the two of you.

In my initial answer to this question, I wanted to make distinction in the reasons why Complain Parties occur. But in the end it doesn't make a difference if it's about creating a common enemy for some black hat team building. Or about creating a scapegoat to hide your own failures. Or just because he looks so much more awesome in jeans than you. Or about skills.

No difference.

If you really are last in line, before officially the "floor" is handed over to you (which seems like a problem of its own to me), you'll have to cut in. In general I don't suggest you start yelling: "Stop this Pitty Fest. Focus on the real issues!"

I would ask kindly for clarification.  

"I understand you have some issues with Bob. But could you please explain the underlying problems involved so I get a sense of how I might help solve your problem?"

1. Acknowledge that you hear his problem with Bob.
2. Move the focus to the "real" issues.
3. Offer assistance to help.

And if this doesn't help?

Well. What do you think?