Literacy Coach Confidential:
My Colleague Talks Too Much!
I lead professional development workshops and study groups at my school, and we have a new faculty member who is such a talker -- she's pleasant and bright, but so dominant I've begun to dread our faculty meetings. Attendance is down this year at study groups (they are voluntary, not required), and I know the lack of balance in conversations is a big part of it. Do you have any tactful suggestions of ways to get her to listen more and talk less?
"You talk too much!" Oh, how we are tempted to blurt those words once in awhile with our loquacious colleagues. But that isn't really an option, is it? We asked the contributors at Choice Literacy to share their best advice for dealing with colleagues who talk and talk and talk.
"In some ways, the problem isn't that different from a child in a classroom on a behavior plan. You have to keep changing and tweaking the plan to find what works, and it often involves many attempts before you find something that works," says Joan Moser (of "The Sisters"). "I've been in groups where we've tried establishing norms (didn't work), a timekeeper (nope), whip around the table (slowed to a crawl and stopped at you know who). It's contrived, but what worked best for us in one group was to do the pennies protocol -- each staff member gets five pennies for use in a 30 minute meeting, laid on the table in front of them. When someone's pennies are gone, she puts her 'two cents' worth' down on paper in her teaching journal. The group recordkeeper then posts the 'two cents' worth from everyone who ran out of pennies in the meeting minutes, if the group member requests that they be posted. This way, there is equity in sharing, and those who have lots to share have another avenue for putting their ideas before the group."
Jennifer Allen isn't a big fan of protocols for meetings, but used one successfully in a study group to curb a talker. " 'Last Word' is used after reading a short professional text. One person starts the conversation, and you then go around the table building off each person's comments. The person who starts gets to finish with the last word. Nine times out of ten your 'talker' is going to volunteer to go first, ensuring they get the last word. But at least everyone in the group has a chance to take the floor if they choose."
Aimee Buckner has a few successful strategies for dealing with attention hogs. "It always depends on the group composition and gauging the dynamics. Some of the things I've tried that have worked include:
- Asking each member of the group to take turns leading the discussion each week.
- Asking each member to write one sentence that really struck them in the week's reading. Then at the meeting, have someone read their card and talk about their thoughts regarding it for two minutes. Then each member gets one minute to add on to the thinking. It's a bit contrived, but it helps focus the conversation and keeps everyone involved equally.
- About midway through the discussion, at a good stopping point, taking a reflection break by asking group members to write about their thinking right now based on the discussion and reading so far. Then when restarting the conversation after a few minutes, ask someone else to share - not necessarily with what they wrote but just what they'd like to contribute. This breaks up the 'roll' one person may be on and gives people time to regroup their thoughts and begin again.
- As a facilitator, I talk with group members between meetings. I find out what they're thinking and/or doing in their classroom. When it's time to come back as a group, I may ask certain teachers to share what they've been working on to start things off. This allows me to bring in other points of view and pulling quieter teachers into the discussion."
Shari Frost finds what many of the big talkers need most is recognition: "For those people who talk too much at study groups, I try to acknowledge their eagerness to share what they have learned while encouraging them to give others an opportunity to share what they have learned. (e.g. 'Sally, I can see that you have spent a lot of time thinking of what you've read. I appreciate you sharing your thinking with us. Let's see what Jane thinks.') Sometimes, we have to resort to something really formal like "The Seven Norms of Collaborative Work," in order to work through what's appropriate.
Jennifer Jones finds sidetalk is as much a problem at meetings as domination during whole-group discussions:
"I start professional development reminding attendees how annoying it is when you attend something and there are people carrying on side-bar conversations the whole time and once all of the heads start nodding in agreement of how annoying that is, I simply say, 'Let's not engage in that today.' I tell attendees that if they have burning questions to jot it down and wait until an appropriate question and answer opportunity. I always acknowledge how exciting it is to be at a meeting or professional development and hear something so cool that you just can't help but talk to your neighbor, but just ask them to please try and keep it to a minimum as to not pull everyone out of focus and off task.
I also try and remind teachers that we have limited time, just like when they are doing their mini-lessons, and that they know better than anyone, that you can't answer every question. When I was in New York at the Teacher College last summer I experienced this first hand. All of this new learning, and during the large group sessions people had burning questions, and the questions were not answered. The reasoning for this was to not pull the whole group off task. The facilitators told us that more often than not responding to audience questions only got the group off task and diluted the teaching point, and that was hard to get used to, but in the end makes a ton of sense.
Lastly, I am part of a team of people in one of my schools and we meet on a monthly basis and we established meeting protocols and one of them is to not engage in side-bar conversations. If it is for the good of the group then share with the entire group. If it isn't then resist the temptation."
Finally, in the future it might be best to try to nip the problem in the bud before it even begins. Suzy Kaback finds honesty upfront is best: "I just came across a great passage in Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert about what constant talking and interrupting suggests:
I'm never going to be a wallflower, but that doesn't mean I can't take a serious look at my talking habits and alter some aspects for the better--working within my personality. Yes, I like talking, but perhaps I don't have to curse so much, and perhaps I don't always have to go for the cheap laugh, and maybe I don't need to talk about myself quite so constantly. Or here's a radical concept--maybe I can stop interrupting others when they are speaking. Because no matter how creatively I try to look at my habit of interrupting, I can't find another way to see it than this: "I believe that what I am saying is more important than what you are saying." And I can't find another way to see that than: "I believe that I am more important than you." And that must end. (pages 192-193, Eat, Pray, Love)
I bring up the issue at our first meeting, and we talk about the importance of having time to hear from everyone. I'm all about transparency these days."
The truth is every one of us has situations where we talk too much. Thinking through why we sometimes dominate conversations (nervousness, insecurity, or just true enthusiasm about the topic) may help us understand our colleagues who are so chatty they are driving us a little batty, too.
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