How to (Politely) Interrupt in a Meeting: Tips for Staying on Time
In nearly every training I lead, I get the question, “How do I cut someone off when they won’t stop talking?”
We've all been there, trapped in endless discussions about office supplies or the color of the break room carpet, desperately searching for an exit strategy.
When long-winded speakers run over in presentations or report-outs, other groups have to shorten their sections, and important information may be glossed over or skipped.
Before we get into our guide on how to gracefully cut someone off in a meeting, let’s talk about the reasons why it’s happening.
Why It's Happening
People
Lack of Awareness 💁: Those who are extraverted tend to talk things out to process new information. Taking a long time to speak may be a habit for this person, and they’ve never been given feedback on it. Perhaps they got brownie points in grade school for always having something to say. In any case, many of us are simply not aware that we are still talking.
Nerves 😰: It’s your turn to report out in a meeting, and you’re handed a microphone and told to summarize the group’s work. Your adrenaline has spiked, and you feel all eyes on you, immediately forgetting that you were only supposed to offer one or two takeaways. Before you know it, you’ve walked through the entire chart. Nerves can be another reason that some participants just keep talking.
Need for Validation and Control ⏳: Someone intentionally trying to usurp meeting time to meet their own needs might be doing what’s called “grandstanding” or, if you’re a member of Congress, “filibustering.”
Process
Too Much Time in “Plenary” 🗣️: A “plenary” is any time all participants are together discussing a topic. In the plenary, only one person can speak at a time, making it easy for one person to take over, especially if they are full of ideas.
Lack of a Clear Agenda 📋: If participants aren’t given a clear agenda with designated times for topics or goals for the meeting, they may think it’s okay to steer the conversation in any direction they want. Without a clear agenda, anyone can take control of the meeting if they talk long enough.
No Meeting Agreements 🤝: If the group has not established a clear agreement to share the time, there is nothing that tells participants that taking a long time to share a thought is actually inappropriate. Plus, there’s no way to correct this behavior if they are technically not doing anything wrong.
What to Do
Release What You Can’t Control
You can’t control people. You may want to, but it’s just not possible. The worst way to handle a long-winded speaker is to tell them to “shut up” or make a joke at their expense, potentially embarrassing someone who’s already nervous and uncomfortable. And if the person you just embarrassed is someone in a senior position, this little move might get you canned. Instead, focus on what you can control using the tips below.
Have a Clear Agenda
Meeting planners and facilitators control the structure of the meeting—who’s in the room, how the time is used, how clear the goals are, and how participants are grouped. Often, a tweak to one of the meeting structures can help discourage, if not eliminate, the risk of the long-winded speakers.
If you have a say in meeting planning, advocate for a clear agenda with designated times for each item. You can also ask participants how much time they want for each topic, which gives you permission to hold them to this time if they start to go over and ensures that participants know “how long is too long.”
For tips on planning a clear agenda, check out This Meeting Sucks S1E4 on outlining an agenda.
Ask Permission to Keep the Group On Time
Before any meeting I facilitate, I always say something like, “As your facilitator, I’d like to ask your permission to keep you on time. This means you might hear me… (list your favorite approaches from below). My intent is not to be rude but to ensure that you all get the most out of the meeting today. How does that sound?”
Establish Meeting Agreements Up Front
Remember in grade school when you learned to raise your hand to speak? Classrooms have rules, and meetings have agreements. Instead of a teacher telling you what they are, meeting participants agree on which agreements they need in order for their meetings to be successful.
Here are a few meeting agreements you can put in place if you have a few long-winded speakers:
Rabbit Holes 🐰: Toss a stuffed rabbit in the air anytime you feel that someone has gone down a rabbit hole. Remember not to throw the rabbits at each other. For online meetings, use a rabbit “emoji” in the chat.
Drinking Horn 🫗: The Vikings, upon returning from a voyage, would share a drink in a horn and enough had to be left for the last person to have a sip. If we only have a few minutes for discussion, keep your comments brief in order to leave enough time for everyone to speak.
GEPO (Good Enough Press On) ⏩: Anyone can say “GEPO” if they sense we need to move on from a topic. At that point, the group can decide if the discussion should be put in a parking lot or continued in lieu of a different item on the agenda.
For more meeting agreements you can use with your team, download our free Meeting Agreement Matching resource.
Structure Activities Intentionally
By structuring the flow or method of your meeting purposefully, you can stop over-talking before starts. Try these activities or group structures:
Silent Reflection 🤫: Extraverts talk to think, and introverts think to talk. In either instance, giving people time to silently think and write down their thoughts enables extroverts to consolidate their ideas and introverts time to get them out, meaning less chance that more talkative members in the group will take up too much airtime.
Breakouts 👥: Breakouts are great for deep conversations and "parallel processing." In other words, using small groups enables more people to talk/work simultaneously, which enables a higher meeting output and more chance of maximizing the minds in the rooms. Plus, if someone “goes long” in a breakout, it has less impact on the meeting overall.
Prioritize in Plenary 🙌: Plenary time frames breakouts. You need this time to "harvest" (i.e. collect) and consolidate the information from the small groups. To keep the time tight, ask presenters to share only their top takeaways.
1-2-4-ALL 🧱: The activity “1, 2, 4 ALL” from Liberating Structures is one of our go-to methods for brainstorming. First, participants work alone, then in pairs, and then in groups of four (or more) before having a report out with the full group.
Use Signals
There are many ways to signal to someone that it’s time to wrap up their thoughts, sometimes without saying a word. When leading an in-person meeting, you may gradually walk closer to the long-winded speaker or use a hand signal like “prayer hands,” 🙏 which generally means “thank you.” This helps them become more aware that they are still talking or shows them that they are being thanked for their thought and should wrap it up.
A more direct and obvious method is written cues, such as cue cards with “1 MIN LEFT” or “OVER TIME” written on them. For online meetings, you can use private chat to politely let speakers know when their time is up.
If these methods aren’t enough and you need to speak up, you can use these segways to help them wrap up or put a pin in it:
Parking Lot 🚗: “It sounds like we may be a little off our agenda. Is this a topic that we should have in the parking lot?”
Provide Options 👍: “It sounds like this topic is pretty important, would you like to stay on this thread instead of ______?”
Final Thought / Last Thought 🛑: “In the interest of time, let’s have this be our final thought on this topic today.”
Bottom Line 🎬: “I’m not sure if I’m following your thoughts, could you provide the ‘bottom line’ of your idea?”
Offer Feedback One-on-One
In instances where the person taking up time is in a senior position, there may be little you can do to signal this person to wrap it up, especially if you do not yet have a trusting relationship with them. These situations are best handled outside of the meeting as one-on-one feedback. If you feel like this person would be open to hearing from you, consider scheduling time with them and offering them the feedback below. If you don’t think it’s best coming from you, consider who might be the right voice for the delivery.
“Hi [NAME]. In our meetings, I appreciate that you share your thoughts as that’s very important for the success of our project. I’m concerned that we don’t have enough time to hear from others who may want to speak. Would you feel okay with summarizing your thoughts in a concise way and maybe following with a question? This may help prompt others to speak up. What do you think?”
The worst they can say is no, but at least you tried. Chances are, this person will appreciate your courage in offering them constructive feedback that they normally may not have the gift of receiving.
As much as you may like to, you can’t control other people. So rather than telling them “shut up” or embarrassing them, use the tools at your disposal to prevent someone from dominating the conversation before it starts.
For more ways to help your meetings work—even when you aren’t the one leading your meeting—check out This Meeting Sucks Season 3: A Participant’s Guide to Un-sucking Meetings.
