How do you get the quiet people in a meeting to actually talk?

How do you get the quiet people in a meeting to actually talk?

Stop rewarding the fast talkers.

In most meetings, the loudest and quickest voices set the direction.

Not because they're right.

Because they're first.

The people who think before they speak never get in.

And you lose their thinking entirely.

A few things that help:

• Send the agenda and discussion questions ahead of time: Some people do their best work before the meeting, not during it.

• Ask for a minute of silence before the discussion: Let everyone write first. Then go around.

• Notice who hasn't spoken and make room: Not "Do you have anything to add?" Try "I'd like to hear how this lands for you."

The quiet ones aren't disengaged.

They're often the ones who've been paying the closest attention.

And are thinking deeply about what to say.

Your job is to build a meeting where their kind of thinking can get in the door.