Monday, February 11, 2013

We can all learn from this


A minority of people do a majority of the talking at most work meetings. Here's how you can stop these conversation hogs in their tracks.

By Leigh Thompson


FORTUNE -- The next time you go to a team meeting, surreptitiously get out a sheet of paper and bring a watch. Record who talks and for how long, and at the end of the meeting, add up how many minutes each person had the floor. If your meetings are anything like the hundreds studied by management scientists, you probably noticed that a minority of people did a majority of the talking. The rest of the folks did not get a word in edgewise!

This problem is known as the uneven communication problem. There are a few dominant people in most groups who control and monopolize the discussion. For example, in a typical four-person group, two people do 62% of the talking. In a six-person group, three people do 70% of the talking; and in an eight-person group, three people do 70% of the talking. The topper is that the dominant people do not realize this. In fact, they vehemently argue that the meetings are egalitarian. They lack self-awareness.

The question becomes: Why are the rest of us here? A dysfunctional self-fulfilling prophecy starts to unfold week after week in these meetings: the dominant people begin to feel that the silent people are unprepared or simply don't have any opinions, so they dominate more; similarly, the quiet folks feel that it is futile to try to be heard, so they stop trying. Left unchecked, this creates a self-perpetuating doom loop in the group. Team members may blame one another for the unsatisfactory team meeting. In order to get the most out of collaboration, it is important to neutralize the too-dominant people and encourage the too-submissive people. However, just saying, "Shut up" or "Speak up" does not work. We need a more effective technique.

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