QUESTION:
Help! I’m rather new at group facilitation and don’t know how to keep one person from totally controlling a meeting. He has a speech for every topic. What can I do to get him to let others speak?

Milan Wall
Co-Director

First of all, you should be thinking about creating a space for others to talk, not necessarily silencing one fellow! Try breaking the group into pairs or trios to discuss a topic and then report back to the group. The smaller size will help balance the participation.

Vicki Luther
Co-Director

I’m a real fan of polling the group. That means, formulating a question and asking every person there to respond in just one sentence. If you start this, you have to finish it completely and make sure every voice is heard. People can pass or ask you to come back to them, but nobody gets more than one sentence.

Reggi Carlson
Development Specialist

Try giving each person a few poker chips. Every time you speak you have to “spend” a chip. This will help control the talker in a friendly way, and, at the end, you’ll have a few quiet people with unspent poker chips who get to contribute.

Gordon Goodwin
Board of Directors

The group should be taking more responsibility. Let members take turns as the timekeeper and formulate some group agreements that limit contributions to no more than 2 or 3 minutes. This way, it’s the timekeeper who calls time when it’s someone else’s turn to talk.

Stephanie Luther
Research Associate

I’ve been doing some research on group process and found that this is a very common problem. One cause is the lack of awareness of others–body language and signals. You might try a brainstorming activity to list all the ways we show we’re not listening. Your “high talker” should get the message.