Challenges and Tips for Having an Open Discussion

The most common process used in meetings for the group to accomplish its goals is open discussion. By default, if the agenda planners cannot think of other processes (like brainstorming, prioritizing, working in small groups, etc.) they have an open discussion. Here are some common problems with having open discussions and some tips for how to deal with them.

Problems:
1. People loose patience and start interrupting each other.
2. New topics come up and the group loses focus.
3. People tend to respond more to what they dislike rather than where they are in agreement.
4. People believe that they have to be aggressive to be heard, so some of them tend to not speak.
5. People wait a long time to speak and are not listening well while they are waiting.
6. People end up repeating what others have already said because they have waited too long to speak and they want to say something.
7. Conversations tend to drag on until every thought is spoken.
8. If the group is large, some people tend to feel that they are not participants and that their thoughts don’t matter.

Tips for dealing with these dynamics:
1. As a facilitator you can ask people to catch your eye before speaking and you then queue people who want to speak, recognizing them in the order that they caught your eye.
2. As new topics come up name them and jot them on a flip chart titled, “Issues to come back to.”
3. As the facilitator, do a lot of summarizing of what the group is focusing on and what they are talking about at the moment.
4. Listen for and list or summarize any common ground that you hear. Group members often don’t emphasize common ground, so you may have to listen for it closely. Also, reframe opposition to ideas as concerns. Concerns can often be addressed to everyone’s satisfaction. Opposition feels intractable.
5. Paraphrase what you hear so that you give those who are not listening well an opportunity to hear a shorter version a second time. Also, use flip charts to capture important ideas and give the group a visual aid.
6. Encourage participants to not repeat what others have said. If someone else captured their thoughts before they had a chance to speak, they can be encouraged to say, “XXXX just spoke my mind.”
7. Be clear as to the purpose of the conversation. Is it to make a decision, or only to get a sense of the group’s thinking? Keep the group focused on the desired outcome. From time to time summarize what you are hearing from the group as a whole. You might even ask for a show of hands or a fist to five fingers to gauge group support for an idea.

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