Dealing with the Dominator!

In my Yours in Training ezine this month I discussed how to minimise the negative affect of a “dominator”, and thought this topic would also make a great blog post. The dominator can be characterised as someone who drives conversations, is quick to answer questions presented to the group, provides additional information unprompted and speaks over others to get their message across. Now we often need these kinds of self-starters or devil’s advocates to lead the group during our training. However, it mustn’t be at the detriment of the other candidates. One technique to give the rest of the group their voice back and to balance the interaction, is to invite the “dominator” to be a scribe on the board. The dynamic thus changes from being active in discussion to being active in writing and consequently others have an opportunity to make a contribution, without competing with the “dominator”. The time out the front will also support the “dominator’s” need to for attention. At the end of the discussion or brainstorm, you could invite some final responses from the scribe, which gives them their chance to provide input. Whilst, you can’t use this technique all the time, it may allow you to give some respite to your groups from the influence of a dominator!