Event Content Development Sessions - Who Does the Talking?

I never really thought about this before until I came across some research from the Kellogg School of Management their research
indicates that in a typical six-person meeting, two people do more than 60 percent of the talking.

This is a fact that is sometimes not seen as an issue – just ask yourself now what two people during your event development meetings speak the most, I bet you can name at least one person.
From my experience it’s usually the more senior members or designated event champions who do 60% of talking. Of course it’s great that these people contribute and allocate their time but this can prevent other members of the group from contributing their ideas and opinions during the content development stage. This is a critical stage in event development and if it’s in anyway jeopardised by poor planning or one-sided opinions then it is doomed for failure.

So how can we overcome dominant contributors taking over event content meetings?

Brain writing – a term coined by Leigh Thompson, J. Jay Gerber Professor of Dispute Resolutions and Organizations (Kellogg’s School of Management). Simply, hand out pens and cards and get everyone writing—brain writing. She used this at a Sales & Marketing off-site and it got everyone contributing ideas without dominant personalities getting in the way.

Non Verbal Contributions – similar to brain writing but this is done pre-meeting. Send out a poll/survey to your event content development team. Get this noticed by sending it out via Mobile using Mobit – a mobile platform we currently use. This Mobit sample collects key pre-planning information. You don’t want to spend hours discussing the selection of a venue or day of the week, why not just send out a simple poll to get this topic moving before your meeting.

Small Group Discussions – Give tasks/discussion topics to pairs and then ask for feedback from each or some pairs. Another option is to talk to individuals pre-event, this can be time consuming but the wealth of information you get is the big pay back.
Another tip is to take a stop watch with you to your next event content development session and time who is it that does the most talking – this isn’t a name and shame exercise. It’s for your own personal knowledge so you can really understand who the dominant contributors are and if it is an issue.