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It's a similar issue in presidential debates. Someone needs to have the authority that something is off topic or off the rails or whatever, but they have to bal

It's a similar issue in presidential debates. Someone needs to have the authority that something is off topic or off the rails or whatever, but they have to balance that against things that need to be said. And the choice has political implications, big or small politics. The whole point of structure in these types of dialogues is to reveal the nuggets worth talking about, not cover them up in favor of following the rules.

gwbas1c 7y ago
[Politics] That was why I liked the CNN debates in July. (Democratic presidential primary candidates in the US.) The moderators kept the debate on topic and politely (as best as they could) cut off the candidates when they went off topic. The next day, a lot of the political coverage complained that the moderators got in the way too much! Sigh.
snarf21 7y ago
It is definitely a skill that the meeting runner needs to have. You don't need to keep it completely choked off but you do need the ability to call a spade, a spade. When someone is just repeating someone else to kiss up, then they can move the conversation along. We have someone who always brings up some story about some company he worked at 20 years ago and blah, blah, blah. But it isn't a "We solved this at company X by doing Y, should we try that here?", it is more like a 15 minute chest pounding of "Back when I ran the largest logistics company providing dental products to all the Fortune 500 and the government, I was in charge of 5K employees. When we faced challenge X,...... blah blah blah". This is where someone needs to step in. Again, most people don't want to be the jerk and so everyone sits there listening to this person talk about himself and wasting everyone's time.