What do you do if participants in a facilitation session are constantly interrupting each other?

When leading a facilitation session where participants are interrupting each other, it’s essential to lay down firm yet respectful ground rules, ensuring a golden standard of conduct. Start by setting the tone early—clearly articulate that each participant will have their chance to shine, much like silver reflecting light. Introduce a speaking token or a timed speaking order to ensure everyone’s voice is heard without overlap. These strategies aren’t just procedural; they embody the principles of respect and consideration, transforming chaotic discussions into productive, gold-standard collaborations.

Set strong rules, no exceptions! Manage the room, lead like a boss. Respect, huge for success. Cut the chaos, streamline talks. It’s about winning teamwork!

We always set ground rules (norms) but that doesn't always work. If participants are interrupting each other, perhaps a 'talking stick' to enforce one person speaks at a time. Be careful though, some groups need to talk on top of each other - think about an extended family holiday dinner. If they are actually listening, then don't worry.

I always start any session off with ground rules. One of those is 'fairness' where I explain that we can only grow if we learn to embrace different perspectives. I encourage a discussion specifically around this and we always end up talking about the importance of allowing everyone to have a voice.

You could empower the attendees to create their own house rules, or 'success factors', by giving them 2 or 3 minutes to note down the rules of conduct in the session. Then you can go over them and highlight the point of listening to others, respecting their voices and not interrupt. If you've already set expectations and people are starting to forget those rules, it's likely because they are passionate about their point, so just reiterate that when someone else is speaking then they need to respect that person enough to not talk over them.

With some gentle humour I would approach it directly - only if I have created a psychologically safe environment to do so beforehand

Firm and Polite : 1. Establish yourself as an empathetic, ardent listener and polite personality. Eventually, the participants will follow your lead. 2. Encourage rotational speaking; offer chatrooms to break free and discuss; don't snub or allow snobbish talk; be polite yet firm in conduct.

Try different techniques to see what works for the group - softer approach, humour, aids, toys, pen and paper, use of raised hands, etc. Reinforce the good behaviour so people become accustomed to it. Sometimes people are passionate about a topic and want to share, other times it is a bad habit someone has picked up. Like others have shared, address in the moment for best results.

Do as your Say and Say as you Do: 1. The genuineness in your instructions and conduct must be manifested by actions on ground. Remember you are not a teacher but a facilitator, hence do not summarize qualitatively or point aberrations in public. 2. Ensure top-notch exercises which engage and are relatable, hence do your own homework thoroughly before taking the session. 3. Observe trouble makers or loud persons, both categories are generally mixed but may be diagrammatically opposite in domain.

As part of setting the ground rules, encourage mutual respect for those speaking. Everyone should feel empowered to speak their truth. First, you define what it means to be respectful in your organization. Ask yourself, what is our company culture? Are you the type of team that waits for complete silence before beginning to speak? Should you ask for everyone's feedback before moving on to the next topic? Do you set time limits for presenting? Decide as a team how you define respect, providing praise for respectful behavior, and consequences for not adhering to the company culture. If you absolutely must interrupt, apologize first, acknowledge the rude action, and express gratitude for allowing the interruption.

If it's an interruption (e.g. someone unmutes themselves accidentally and there's background noise), I'm usually the first one to drop a message in the chat or mute them during the interruption. Other than that, I encourage people to drop questions in the chat, or raise their hands and wait for the speaker to finish their spiel. I think enforcing basic housekeeping rules as well as respecting someone's time and effort are key. I also ask questions myself from the chat in the interest of time, as people tend to get carried away with further add-ons to their questions and often go off topic. This definitely minimizes to and fro and helps everyone make the most of the session.

Establish conversation protocols (activities) such as - 2min brainwriting, 2min for each to talk about what they wrote down, 10min open conversation. Everybody shares before the actual discussion. This way, the main content is already put to public before the conversation starts and all will have at least a minimum of saying in the conversation.

One of the techniques I use is very sophisticated: an anti-stress ball. The rule is that the only person who can speak is the one holding the ball. So, you need to throw it from one person to the other. The group decides when to throw, how to throw and to who. So, the time to speak for each person becomes clear, tactile and – quite often - fun. Sometimes the ball ends up somewhere it was not supposed to! Yes, as simple as that.

In a room full of people, whether that is in person or virtual, you'll have an array of personality types as well as motivations for being there. As such, use a variety of communication and engagement techniques from plenary discussion to small groups, to pairs, scenarios, games, role modeling and presentations to drive rich conversation and you'll see interruptions go away.

Utilizing audience engagement tools is a gamechanger and can massively improve accessibility. Consider the reasons that a participant may be reluctant to share: perhaps they come from a cultural background where junior staff are expected to defer to their managers. Maybe they are participating in a language that they are not a native speaker of, and would benefit from having a few moments to consider and fine-tune wording. There may also be employees who interpret social cues differently, and are hesitant to share without explicit invitation. Tools like Mentimeter & Slido create an avenue for many different employees to share their perspectives. As an added bonus, the resulting visualizations can support visual learners' understanding!

One way to do this is assigning roles. For example: for someone that dominates conversation, assign them to be a time keeper, making sure each person has time to share their opinion. For someone who is shy, assign them to be "devils advocate" and make questions to provoke and take the discussion to a deeper level.

I like to put up a mirror to the group. "Hey, I've noticed that when people are speaking, others interrupt. is that something you've noticed too?" And then using this as an access point to explore what might be going on and then reviewing the agreements

Put up a graph (provide the analytics) that shows the team's preferences. After you collect your feedback, present the insights of the preferred experiences to the whole team. Communicate the feedback to the team so that decisions can be made to make the necessary changes for improvement. Sometimes we get feedback and forget to take action on it. Don't let the thoughts/views of your team go unaddressed.

Interruptions are common in a live virtual setting such as a Zoom or Teams meeting. Consider asking people to use "raise hand" icons to manage who contributes and when. I like to set a tone that it is not about asking to be involved, but rather, letting the group know when you want to be! It's not meant to be like being at "school" or being "controlled." It is instead coming from a place of energy and respect. An amazing thing that I've seen happen when using this approach is that people fall into what feels like "a natural cadence" of letting one another contribute. It's as if the act of paying attention to when to share, by pressing a raise hand icon, also assists in listening more effectively to one another!

It's also important to recognise that for many neurodivergent individuals, interrupting is something that just happens. It's not intentional, they're not trying to be rude, it's just part of being ND. This can be recognised perhaps as part of creating an inclusive space, set expectations and understanding, and address this in a social contract for the workshop/meeting etc.

Rules set not used, or used fairly is no rules So set the rules, use them when necessary, and manage the outcomes fitting the theme of the session.

If all else fails, use the tried and true 'talking stick'. Only the person holding the talking stick is allowed to speak. If you're doing a virtual session, many platforms such as MS Teams have a raise hand function, so advise that they can raise their hand anytime they have a thought or question, but they can only speak when you ask them to.

From my extensive facilitation experience, all I can say that there's no one solution that works for all ... A lot will depend on Who's interrupting (same few people or everyone), how they are interrupting (just butt in/ ask permission to interrupt) and Why (habit, eagerness to share, disrespect to others' views etc) My suggestion would be a) bring to the group's awareness this behaviour that you observed and ask the group how hey feel about it b) spell out its impact on the facilitation process or participants and c) arrive at a consensus on how they want to work with these interruptions.