Anger Management at Board meetings

"Me thinks he doth protest too much"--such a telling saying from Shakespeare. apparently many other boards have had added troubles in these unsure economic times. In this article they speak to the increasing rudeness seen at many board meetings BUT what is nice about the full article is that this author offers solutions! Take a minute to read how he suggests handling the unruly member at the board meetings.

Anger Management: "A former president who recently had been voted off the board began pacing angrily between the board table and the assembled unit owners. He got so upset he was literally frothing, Hirsch de Haan says, so she responded by “circling the wagons.”

“I gathered all the board members around the table, and we talked very quietly,” she explains. The man continued to rant and rave. After a few minutes, one of the unit owners piped up and said, “Hey buddy, would you sit down and shut up? We want to hear what’s going on.” The former board member responded by leaving, slamming the door on his way out. “The audience burst into spontaneous applause,”"

and

But above all, says Hirsch de Haan, board members must not allow themselves to be drawn into an angry confrontation—no matter how tempting. If you refuse to react to someone's bad behavior, it’s much easier to defuse a tense situation. “If somebody’s yelling and you speak quietly, it tends to calm them down,” she says.

Whatever you do, make sure business carries on as usual. “What you don’t want to do is adjourn the meeting,” says Hirsch de Haan. By doing so, “you have rewarded their bad behavior. They’ve won—and they'll do it again. Plus, you don't get your business done, and that's what you're there for to begin with.”