Rat-holing...

From wikipedia:

“Rat-holing is a term used to describe a conversation or process that has deviated from its original productive purpose into a generally unproductive but long and winding detour that eventually comes to a dead end.” 

“The original discussion purpose may be to agree on a course of action. However, if one or more people rat-hole into a specific point of the discussion then the discussion stalls with no actionable outcome.”

Back from a trip to Belgrade, I was catching up with my reading last night, and saw a reference to rat-holing on 43folders. I’m sure that like me, you recognize this behaviour as a regular occurrence in meetings that lack a coherent and engaging goal.

When people aren’t engaged around a shared purpose – in a meeting, a project, or a programme – they lose their way and find their own purposes, they rat-hole to issues they care about.

Rat-holing is a warning signal, look out for it!

— Jason Bates

Tags:  ratholing, 43folders, meetings, purpose