The danger zone
Sessions can become chaotic and negative pretty quickly, and normally it’s due to one of the above personality patterns. Once a session has been thoroughly disturbed and participants stop contributing to the overall goal, it’s very difficult to get it back on track and to get all the participants engaged again. Luckily, there is a period of time—the danger zone—when troublemakers have just begun to cause problems and there’s still an opportunity to intervene. When a session appears to be entering the danger zone, call a break if it makes sense. While participants are grabbing a fresh cup of coffee, hitting the bathrooms, or just chitchatting with one another, pull the participant causing the issues aside and have a frank conversation with her. You must think of the group over the individual, so turning problematic participants back into productive ones takes high priority.