Alice makes a multipart statement about topics one and two.
Bob replies to topic two and starts to segue to topic three.
Carol has something important to say about topic one.
What is Carol supposed to do? Let the entire chain play out, then transition back to topic one when there's an opening? I know people can be bitter about interruption, but in my experience you get a prompt and decisive smackdown for trying to backtrack, especially when pressed for time. It seems important to get your point in while it's relevant. Interruption of the form, "hey, before we move on, can we talk about X" seems to be the way do that.
How would you handle this situation?
I'm especially interested in this, because interruption and other conversational "traffic control" flow much less naturally on international video conferences, and our remote meetings tend to be stressful and chaotic messes. Short of a formal, parliamentarian moderator, it's not clear how to make these better.
I think I would try to impose some structure and possibly have an actual moderator.
I basically moderate an in person meeting once a month (though my title is chair, not moderator). I'm supposed to keep things on topic, curtail problematic behavior and try to get us out of there on time. I also take written notes.
How you do that depends on a variety of factors, including the personalities involved.
So I would think about recurrent problematic patterns and try to resolve those.
Is the problem that Alice is prone to being long winded and talking about many things?
Is the problem that Bob routinely jumps in to say something about X, then just takes over the conversation, going wherever he so desires?
Etc.
So, some things that might help:
1. A written agenda for the meetings. You discuss topic A. Everyone gets their say. You check if everyone has said their piece before you move on to topic B.
2. You lay some ground rules that address specific problems you've noticed. Don't single anyone out, even if it's primarily one person guilty of doing it. Just write up a policy saying "We will not be doing x. We will do a, b and c."
3. Name a specific person who is supposed to keep the meeting on track. Part of that role includes helping make sure everyone gets to participate in a satisfactory manner.
4. Plan time at the end of the meeting for random comments, people returning to a point from earlier, etc.
This is great. We have written agendas but they're usually, "we will be discussing these three documents in this order" not an itemized list of concerns. The itemized list is dynamic depending on what comes up in the conversation. Do you try to solicit more granularity from participants beforehand to build into the agenda, or how does that work?
People who want topics added to the list can email me beforehand.
We typically go through the agenda and then talk a bit more generally afterwards. As long as it doesn't go too far afield or get too contentious, I'm tolerant of meandering topics for the last part of the meeting.
If it gets contentious and it's not really germaine, I try to say something like "This is getting really deep in the weeds about a thing we have no control over." and redirect conversation back to pertinent topics.
There is a big difference between large group meetings and face-to-face conversations between 2–3 people.
In a large group meeting it might help to have a semi-formal agenda and make sure each item is finished before moving on. Getting everyone to read prepared written documents might also help.
Carol has to let it go. Worst thing to do is interrupt the current flow. She will come across as a "Barker" like she had sat there not listening to what Alice or Bob had to say and was just thinking about what she wanted to say about topic one the whole time.
Best thing to do is wait until the end and circle back with a question that leads into discussing topic one. Doing this you immediately relinquish control of the conversation, and when appropriate say your thoughts.
Otherwise, just let it go. Is it going to kill you to not say it?
I read a good summary once of analysing the thought process:
- Does this need to be said?
- Does this need to be said by me?
- Does this need to be said by me now?
Which are good questions to ask when interrupting the flow of a conversation.
Your view is extremely simplistic and just doesn't reflect the sophistication of any abstract and complex conversation.
Especially if the topic at hand is a new territory with a lot of unknown unknowns. If no-one ever explicitly says that "OK, we covered topic one and now we move on to topic two. Is there anyone who wants to add comments?", then the conversation was not very civil, was not yet over, and whoever organized the meeting was an amateur, and let the worst thing happen: Alice and Bob change topics for no reason, instead of stopping them short.
You're reading a lot into what was a fairly simple scenario with no mention of what the topics were. It came across as being an informal meeting with no agenda, moderator or stated outcomes.
About all we can assume from the scenario are the power dynamics. Alice spoke first which says it's either her meeting or she is the ranking person there - not Carol.
If it was a meeting to address the potential critical failure of a system that Carol is the most knowledgeable about, then yes, she should speak up. It could be potentially negligent to not do so, but most meetings are not that.
It means a decision will be made without Carol's information that she'll have to live with, potentially hampering her ability to deliver something she's accountable for. If her manager finds out she knew something important and held onto it out of politeness, that'll come up in the leadership/collaboration section of her next review. If her manager doesn't know that she knew, it'll look like a hard skills problem.
>Best thing to do is wait until the end and circle back with a question that leads into discussing topic one.
Maybe this is a quirk of my meeting culture, but the success rate here is approximately zero.
>Does this need to be said by me?
This is a good one keep in mind, I do sometimes find that the point I've been hanging onto eventually gets said by someone else, and it's really satisfying.
I find when talking with computer people, just saying "if I could move a few layers back up the stack" let's you backtrack to problem 1 if you want. This only works if you have people who understand the idea of the conversation as a stack.
Carol needs to raise her hand when Bob moves to topic 3. A raised hand signal seems to transcend cultures, and it lets the speakers and all listeners know you have something important to say but you're being polite and letting them finish.
And if the speaker/chair ignores you, it makes them look rude.
I'm a female interrupter. I have two adult sons. We have lively conversations.
I try to be less aggressive about it in other social settings. I currently attend public meetings and my tendency to interject definitely stands out.
I work at finding good openings to make my point, reminding myself that I'm not the only one with something intelligent to say, reminding myself that there will be other opportunities to make a point, etc.
Not everything needs to be said right here, right now. That's not even effective communication in many cases.
It's possible family members get interrupted more by female members if that's the only safe outlet some women can find. Sexism is alive and well and significantly impacts communication in myriad ways.
I've definitely witnessed this, but I think these are two separate phenomena of "interruption". The COI refers to a case where I interrupt because I understand and I don't require additional elaboration. The way I've often seen women interrupted is more like the interrupter wasn't really listening to the speaker at all and is just arbitrarily taking control of the conversation.
I'd read your point as splitting hairs. In either case, the interruption has happened because of the belief that the speaker is not contributing new, valuable information to the conversation.
On the contrary, I would say that it makes a large difference whether someone interrupts me because they have understood the idea I was trying to communicate, or because they never cared about that idea in the first place.
The research on the subject goes back 50 years to the 1970s and is essentially considered open and shut.
As a rule of thumb, men will interrupt women 3x as much as women will interrupt men.
You can Google and read dozens of studies over decades all repeatedly confirming it in various cultures, countries, and jobs. It applies to women Supreme Court justices and to women janitors.
FWIW, instead of the confrontational "is there any reason to think", I feel like a more humble phrasing would come across better, especially since you didn't seem to know about the research on the subject. And knowledge of it is pretty widely known, as it comes up and is discussed frequently. A recent example were the Democratic debates where, once again, the same dynamic played out and was discussed in the popular media.
I'm well aware of the phenomenon but it is not the kind of interruption I'm talking about.
To be clear, I'm talking about men-interrupting-men-and-women-because-they-are-interrupters vs women-interrupting-men-and-women-because-they-are-interrupters, and not men-interrupting-women-because-they-are-sexist. The context of the article is the former, clearly.
Also, I don't consider "is there any reason to think" to be confrontational.
I think you are misunderstanding the research. It shows exactly what you are talking about; the link discusses just one recent subset of the phenomenon.
Interrupting in conversation is not inherently “boorish”, or inherently male.
But there’s obviously a big difference between interrupting someone in the middle of a large formal work meeting in front of an assortment of colleagues vs. interrupting someone in the middle of a small collaborative technical discussion in a closely-knit team. The former is often more about demonstrating perceived social superiority rather than guiding a conversation, and such behavior is boorish.
