A few months ago, I posted a tip called, “Taming the Unruly” which focused on how to handle a participant that becomes a distraction. Well, guess what? I had the opportunity to heed my own advice recently while conducting a focus group. One of the participants would NOT stop talking and interrupting the other participants.
My attempts at using nonverbal messages (avoiding eye contact and positioning my body away from the participant) did nothing to slow her down. I could tell I was losing the audience and I knew I had to call out the behavior. The final straw was when a member of the audience made a snide comment about her interrupting (somewhat under his breath). At this point, it was past time to intervene. I wasn’t willing to lose the rest of the participants so I did the hard thing and it was uncomfortable!
Since there wasn’t going to be a break in our session, I had to have this difficult conversation in front of everyone (ugh!). I turned toward the woman and politely said, “I need you to share less so that the other participants can share their ideas.” She seemed shocked and unaware of her disruptive behavior. Fortunately, she did comply with my request.
I share this simply to remind you that the audience relies on you to provide the best experience possible. Sometimes that means taming the unruly in front of an audience.