I don’t think that there needs to be an even distribution of speaking time. Some people may feel more comfortable observing more and speaking less. Others might be happy that their short questions are prompting good thought out answers, even if they aren’t getting the speaking time of giving the answer. And sometimes the monologuer really is holding everyone’s attention.
That said, you should also look out for the opposite problem, where one or a few group members have something to say, but aren’t able to interject, despite a good distribution of talking time amongst most of the group.
An alternate strategy that is sometimes appropiate is to break into small groups, if some members are interested and others are not.
There are black swan events (the monologuing member of the audience really is that interesting), but we shouldn’t plan as if they are common.
I agree with you that the distribution of talking need not be precisely equal. But is the OP really saying something so strict? If one person is really dominating the available time to talk, that’s fairly strong evidence that there is something dysfunctional in the discussion process.
I agree that monologuing is a potential problem, but I disagree that virtuous monologuing with an interested audiance is so rare that it should be called a “black swan event”. Differentiating between good and bad monologuing is important, and OP did describe some good ways of doing so.
But is the OP really saying something so strict?
I think you may have an exaggerated sense of my level of disagreement with the OP.
It depends a lot on the social context. But I’ve rarely seen a moderated discussion where it was highly functional for a member of the audience to speak for 60% (or even 40%) of the discussion time.
Great feedback, guys. I added 2 paragraphs to clarify. (One below the bullet list of how to identify a monopolizer, the other below the italicized paragraph of what to say after the event.) Let me know what you think.
And I have another post in the works focused on getting quiet people to join in the conversation.
I don’t think that there needs to be an even distribution of speaking time. Some people may feel more comfortable observing more and speaking less. Others might be happy that their short questions are prompting good thought out answers, even if they aren’t getting the speaking time of giving the answer. And sometimes the monologuer really is holding everyone’s attention.
That said, you should also look out for the opposite problem, where one or a few group members have something to say, but aren’t able to interject, despite a good distribution of talking time amongst most of the group.
An alternate strategy that is sometimes appropiate is to break into small groups, if some members are interested and others are not.
There are black swan events (the monologuing member of the audience really is that interesting), but we shouldn’t plan as if they are common.
I agree with you that the distribution of talking need not be precisely equal. But is the OP really saying something so strict? If one person is really dominating the available time to talk, that’s fairly strong evidence that there is something dysfunctional in the discussion process.
I agree that monologuing is a potential problem, but I disagree that virtuous monologuing with an interested audiance is so rare that it should be called a “black swan event”. Differentiating between good and bad monologuing is important, and OP did describe some good ways of doing so.
I think you may have an exaggerated sense of my level of disagreement with the OP.
It depends a lot on the social context. But I’ve rarely seen a moderated discussion where it was highly functional for a member of the audience to speak for 60% (or even 40%) of the discussion time.
Great feedback, guys. I added 2 paragraphs to clarify. (One below the bullet list of how to identify a monopolizer, the other below the italicized paragraph of what to say after the event.) Let me know what you think.
And I have another post in the works focused on getting quiet people to join in the conversation.