If you haven’t had one in a conference call—or any speaking engagement—consider yourself lucky. Hecklers or “Stump the Chump” types are disruptive, hostile, and very counter-productive. They can make us lose our train of thought, get emotional, say the wrong thing, or even destroy a presentation. They’re out there, and we need to be prepared for
handling hecklers.
Help is here in a blog post I found from SpeakFearlessly.net. They list out eight ways to deal with disruptive people that help you remain in control, and even come out looking better. Here are my favorite “mental judo” moves:
Keep warm and friendly – A caveat to this is to stay “calm, cool, and collected.” No matter what they say, you let it wash over you. This keeps you from losing control and getting emotional, and it gets the rest of the participants on your side.
Make them the “expert” – Judo FLIP! Use their momentum against them by stepping out of their way. Compliment them on their breadth of knowledge, and ask that they “fill us all in.” Their ignorance will soon become apparent—if they rise to the challenge at all. Who knows, they might even have something good to add.
Find Agreement – At some point it becomes less about the subject, and more with who is right. By deflecting and distracting with a “safer” point that you both agree on, you assuage their combativeness, and can proceed.
Though it’s not in the list, we have two very powerful tools at our fingertips with each and every conference call: lecture mode and mute buttons. Lecture mode ensures that only we can speak, and that we control who gets to talk and when. But even if we can’t do global control, we can spot the dissenter on our conference call control dashboard and mute them at any time—or even kick them.
Yes, this might be rude, and maybe it is a last resort, but instead of worrying about a bad apple, let’s consider the feelings and time of all the other participants. They are just as important—maybe even more so—than one heckler.
Have you dealt with hecklers before? Tell us about it, and what you did to disarm them.
