Managing dominant people

Here’s six simple tips to help you manage people with too much to say…

These tips will help you deal with:

• The most senior person who everyone defers to
• The repeat issue person
• The ‘my agenda is the only agenda’ person

1. This is going to sound very basic- if you’re working with the group in a circle, place the dominating person in a position where you can make eye contact and be able to quickly direct a question to them

2. Set ground-rules at the beginning. Include rules such as “everyone participates, no-one dominates”; “be an active listener”; “listen as an ally”. Discuss what these will actually mean within the session prior to commencing. Help the group to adopt these and to take responsibility for applying them.

3. If you’re in a meeting environment, at the beginning hold a brief discussion in twos or threes about what people expect from the meeting followed by general feedback from that discussion. This allows people to get things off their chest, and chat to someone else, hear their own voice, clarify their thoughts, recognise that everyone is there with a reason or an agenda or a set of expectations. It also helps to focus the meeting in the direction that it needs to head. Giving people this chance allows some who would be disruptive later to have their say early on.

4. It is often best to FIRST say what the meeting will achieve, and THEN ask people what their expectations are. This helps to streamline their thinking around expectations. They may want to challenge what the meeting is about, or amplify some areas of the planned meeting at the beginning

5. Validation: A useful approach to validation is to say “you clearly have some experience in this area, can you give us a specific example of where this has worked for you?” Validate the response. “Thank you, now I’d like to bring others into this discussion” by asking the group “Now that we’ve heard from “Peter” what do others think of what “Peter” has said or “what other experience have you had that may add to our discussion?” Then spread the discussion using a variety of facilitation techniques.

6. Use pairs or small group discussion. Give tasks/discussion topics to pairs (“turn to the person next to you and discuss this issue for two minutes”) and then ask for feedback from each or some pairs. Do the same with groups of 3-4.

PS – if you’d like some ongoing tips on facilitation, get hold of our weekly facilitation tips. Each one has practical and simple to apply solutions for you.