Based on personal experience, I strongly recommend experimenting with face-to-face conversation where participants agree to follow some explicit rules governing content or form, and experimenting with different rules over time. Some ideas that I have tested:
requiring speakers to end their turn explicitly (e.g. “That is all.”); one may not interrupt a speaker until they have signaled ending their turn
speaking in turns, going around the table; participants must speak or declare “I pass”
hand signals indicating the nature of the contribution: question, new information, call for decision
agreed-on verbal shorthands that perform the equivalent of upvotes (the PLoP community’s workshops use “gush” for that purpose)
Such explicit protocols have several useful effects. First, they impose some structure on the conversation, and if that structure is appropriate for the goals of the conversations, it becomes more likely to reach these goals. Second, they promote participation, even from participants who are less socially fluent than others. Third, they encourage everyone to pay more attention to what is being said but also to how it’s being said.
Cognitive overload is always a risk, though, so introduce such ideas one at a time until everyone is familiar with it and is ready to absorb a new one.
Number one (explicit “end of message” signals) is really interesting, because it changes the dynamics of conversation completely: for the listeners, because they are not allowed to interrupt; for the speaker, because they must form complete thoughts more deliberately.
Some people comically ramble for some time and then peter out. Now it falls on some gentle soul to give them a polite reminder. (Suggested: “is that all?”—but really wait until it’s clear that was all.) But when that has happened to you once, you pay more attention to the next time.
If there is a moderator in the conversation, this convention makes things much easier for them, giving them natural occasions to redirect the flow of conversation and to balance “air time” between people who ramble and those who tend to stick to the point.
It may be possible to combine this convention with the OP’s suggestion, e.g. a hand signal with the previously and explicitly agreed meaning of “I think you are rambling, or otherwise not adding much”.
Explicit protocols help a lot. See for instance Software For Your Head.
Based on personal experience, I strongly recommend experimenting with face-to-face conversation where participants agree to follow some explicit rules governing content or form, and experimenting with different rules over time. Some ideas that I have tested:
requiring speakers to end their turn explicitly (e.g. “That is all.”); one may not interrupt a speaker until they have signaled ending their turn
speaking in turns, going around the table; participants must speak or declare “I pass”
hand signals indicating the nature of the contribution: question, new information, call for decision
thematic constraints, such as the six hats or Satir temperature reading
agreed-on verbal shorthands that perform the equivalent of upvotes (the PLoP community’s workshops use “gush” for that purpose)
Such explicit protocols have several useful effects. First, they impose some structure on the conversation, and if that structure is appropriate for the goals of the conversations, it becomes more likely to reach these goals. Second, they promote participation, even from participants who are less socially fluent than others. Third, they encourage everyone to pay more attention to what is being said but also to how it’s being said.
Cognitive overload is always a risk, though, so introduce such ideas one at a time until everyone is familiar with it and is ready to absorb a new one.
If you have to pick one of the above ideas as most useful, which would it be?
Number one (explicit “end of message” signals) is really interesting, because it changes the dynamics of conversation completely: for the listeners, because they are not allowed to interrupt; for the speaker, because they must form complete thoughts more deliberately.
Some people comically ramble for some time and then peter out. Now it falls on some gentle soul to give them a polite reminder. (Suggested: “is that all?”—but really wait until it’s clear that was all.) But when that has happened to you once, you pay more attention to the next time.
If there is a moderator in the conversation, this convention makes things much easier for them, giving them natural occasions to redirect the flow of conversation and to balance “air time” between people who ramble and those who tend to stick to the point.
It may be possible to combine this convention with the OP’s suggestion, e.g. a hand signal with the previously and explicitly agreed meaning of “I think you are rambling, or otherwise not adding much”.