WHERE TO SIT IN A MEETING

I read an article this morning about where you should sit in a meeting. Closest to the window? Distracting. Closest to the door? Paranoid. Closest to the person in the power chair? Sycophant. At home in your pyjamas on Skype? Perfect.

The Power Chair. Whose idea was that? In western-style meetings, this is the seat at the end of the table, facing the projector. The Power Chair sits looking down the suit-lined avenue of faces on either side, much like an emperor, resting his (or her) noble chin on a pyramid of fingers.

Well, the article suggested sitting at the other end of one of those rows, closest to the screen and as far away from the emperor (or empress) as the table allows, preferably on the right hand side.

The theory is that the boss's obsequiants will probably sit closest to him, the talkative people who like to hold court will probably want to do so from the middle and the quiet ones who don't really want to be there at all will sit nearest to the escape route... or the food.

Over there in the corner, the idea goes, you can keep quiet for as long as possible while the wolves thrash out their concerns. The jesters perform for the king who nods impassively, until you, like a wise old sage get a moment to inject your quiet, confident brilliance into the proceedings - proceedings which have so far, forgotten that you're even in the room.

I reckon this is why King Arthur had a round table. Well, so the legend says anyway - so that none of the knights assumed precedence over the other - it was a table of men, of brothers, of equals. Oh and one of them was wearing a massive crown, like a power hat. I can imagine Arthur just sort of pointing at it to remind everyone who was boss.

I'm not quite sure I agree with the article. Popping up at the end of the meeting like Merlin with a great pearl of wisdom isn't always a good idea, especially if you keep doing it. People are complex - and meetings, even the ones that are focused around a particular decision or discussion, are always about people and the way we interact with each other. It seems to me that sitting hidden away in the corner without contributing, actually prevents you from doing so. In fact, my own theory is that the longer you stay silent in a meeting, the less likely it is that you'll say anything at all, let alone anything eye-poppingly prescient.

Meetings are complex enough, without getting paranoid about which chair you're sitting in. If you've got something to say, you should probably just come out and say it, rather than holding it back until you can launch it like an exocet missile. It's great to listen and analyse, it's great to figure out what's really going on in the subtext and it's even great to think carefully about what you're about to say. It's probably not great though, to sit quietly hidden by the squabbling knights and the jesters, out of sight of the chin-stroking emperor and invisible to the powers-that-be.

Unless you're on Skype in your pyjamas of course.