Hi there, people who are planning meetings. Here’s a thing you need to know.
When you say, “Take 1 minute to introduce yourself, answering the following questions,” and you give a long prompt that requires reflection and sharing, you are implicitly asking for people to speak for longer than one minute.
This happens 1) because no one knows how long a minute is, and 2) they want to do what was asked. They look at your prompt and think, “I need to answer the questions. I bet that should take about a minute.”
There are a couple of ways to address this, depending on what outcome you’re trying to achieve. If you really want to hear everyone speak to the whole prompt, let go of the time limit. Instead set the activity up with the expectation that everyone will listen until the introductions are over.
If you want quicker introductions, be explicit about the agenda. “We’re going to have more time to get to know each other later, but to get started, I would like for you to introduce yourself using the part of the prompt that really resonates with you, and keep it short, no more than a minute.” Then be prepared to model that introduction so people understand what you’re looking for.
