this person is making every meeting look like a fish-market

Question

This guy has joined organization recently. He is my boss's boss. He is nice guy, modest, honest, always takes team's favour. Only problem is he is very talk-i-tive.

Whether you talk to this person on phone 1:1 or in meeting with 4-5 people he would raise his voice and frequently cut you in between.
He doesnt understand the round table concept. If there is a question for you, after few seconds he will cut your turn in between and start talking. You'll show some etiquette and let him continue but he will continue for unbearable amount of time, round 'n' round on same thing.
Whether you are senior to him or not he will cut your turn.

People have started avoiding him now, but since he is among few key people we have to participate in meeting, can't avoid him completely.

There are two solutions:

People should raise louder than him and cut him in between. We have tried but it makes the whole place look like fish market. Also it is kinda rude also.
Let him know that he should give fair chance to speak, but how? We have already given him hint so many times, we can not tell him directly he might take it in other way, may feel bad and the person could lose his job.

Please suggest.

Who's his manager? Surely they should be taking responsibility if its becoming disruptive. — thebluefox, Jul 21 '17 at 10:16
@thebluefox he interrupts them also but to them it doesnt matter because they don't have daily meetings with him, but we do. — paul, Jul 21 '17 at 11:27
To echo what @JoeStrazzere said. And "He is my boss's boss." — Neo, Jul 21 '17 at 11:37
Also related: "How can I ask a senior not to interrupt when someone is talking?" and "How can I gracefully interrupt others and take the opportunity to talk?" — David K, Jul 21 '17 at 12:17

score 1 · Answer 1 · answered Jul 21 '17 at 10:33

One thing is that he's your boss's boss - it shouldn't be your responsibility to fix his behaviour, and it might not go down well if you try to tell him off yourself. So if you can bring it to your boss, or his boss, maybe HR or someone in admin, that may be safer than trying to bring it up to him yourself.

Otherwise, one way to deal with this is to add more formal structure to the meeting - which kind of sucks, but if the naturally arising meeting structure doesn't work, imposing one often does. Maybe have someone (who's good at handling people) 'chair' the meeting. They can put a structure on the meeting that gives everyone who needs to talk a chance to do so, and the guy will understand that the chair needs to keep the meeting running smoothly and shouldn't be offended if they stop him from interrupting as much.

Actually I am looking for a sentence that would have some humour, subtle but sends across the message. — paul, Jul 21 '17 at 11:29

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Jul 21 '17 at 12:37

If, as you say he's both a nice guy and a champion for your team, a very gentle approach should be taken. You never want to make an enemy out of an ally. You also don't want the man to lose face.

The best way to handle it is to either ignore/work around it, or to introduce something like Robert's Rules, or something similar. If he is that socially awkward, he may benefit greatly from structure.

this person is making every meeting look like a fish-market

2 Answers2