The Church of Interruption

https://sambleckley.com/writing/church-of-interruption.html

by scribu • 7 years ago

399 141 7 years ago

rhizome7• 7 years ago

I don't agree that Strong Civility requires speaking only briefly. In fact, it makes me think someone who thinks that is just barely suppressing their interruption. "I'll wait until you finish...for a minute."

No, taking turns speaking is its own reward, just like speeding a conversation along via interruptions is it's own reward.

jacobolus10• 7 years ago

It’s less about speaking briefly per se, and more about assuming that the other person understands what you are saying, and saying no more than necessary to convey the message. Some people will keep elaborating some point until told to stop, whereas others will assume the other person understood without any explicit evidence that is true.

I have found that in practice whether speakers assume their listeners understand them is a separate question from whether they tend to interrupt or not, however.

The most efficient and effective conversations in my experience are 1:1, with two speakers who both explicitly verify that the other person understands their meaning and is using the same definitions of words, and have some kind of efficient protocol for working backwards from a misunderstanding or gap in knowledge as soon as one pops up. There has to be enough trust involved that both interlocutors are willing to quickly and freely admit when they don’t know something or don’t understand an argument.

rhizome7• 7 years ago

It’s less about speaking briefly per se, and more about assuming that the other person understands what you are saying, and saying no more than necessary to convey the message.

That's not what the article proposes:

DOCTRINES OF THE CHURCH OF STRONG CIVILITY

1. Thou shalt not interrupt.

2. Thou shalt speak briefly.

3. Thou shalt use physical cues to indicate your understanding and desire to speak.

That said, what's wrong with listening to someone, asking questions if you require more understanding?

Another way of looking at all this: what makes you think that what you have to say is so important that it can't wait for someone to even finish their sentence?

Swizec• 7 years ago

I had a team mate once who would go on and on and on explaining the same point over and over and elaborating a million different ways and it was extremely frustrating because not once would there ever be a break in his speech to give others the chance to ask questions (so he'd explain what we actually didn't understand) or to reply and move the conversation along. It was quite frustrating.

Many of us resorted to talking over him until he noticed, stopped, and let us reply. Surprisingly impervious to interruption.

drewcoo• 7 years ago

I find it really rude when people are obviously just waiting their turn to say their prepared statement. It means they're not really listening to the other person, thus it's not really a conversation. Should someone keep score when that happens?

trhway2• 7 years ago

So when those people are supposed to express their position? Prepared statement is another way to say that some thinking was put into it vs. just blurting out the first thing that comes into mind. So, the former is rude while the latter is respectful?

cbanek• 7 years ago

I find myself speaking briefly, only because I'm expecting to get interrupted. It happens every time. Some people have said I'm very Zen by how quickly I can get a point across in few words. I tell them "it's the only way." I leave out the part about being constantly interrupted. Being a Zen woman in tech, I figured that went without saying.

If I have something complex, I have to write it out, if only to prove my work/logic. At least text tends to last longer, spread wider, and be more useful than any conversation.

jay_kyburz• 7 years ago

I'm an interrupter, and so are many of my colleagues, but there are a few people in the office who are not, and they don't enjoy our meetings.

rhizome7• 7 years ago

Maybe because it's a fundamentally confrontational way to interact, and that having one's livelihood tied to abilities to climb out of a crab bucket might seem unfair and excessive.

jeremysalwen• 7 years ago

Maybe you shouldn't be projecting moral judgements on cultural differences.

jacobolus10• 7 years ago

One person’s “confrontation” is another person’s “collaboration”.

From the other point of view, never interrupting is a fundamentally standoffish way to interact.

dbcurtis4• 7 years ago

And just hazarding a guess, I suspect women transfer out of the group at the first opportunity.

kranner2• 7 years ago

Is there any reason to think women are less likely to be interrupters than men?

I'm thinking of this in the context of my mother, who is let's say a well-established interrupter.

closeparen4• 7 years ago

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.

DoreenMichele6• 7 years ago

Why would you guess that?

rgoulter• 7 years ago

This also supports that: if person A has the expectation "they'll interrupt/reply once they understand" and B has the expectation "let the speaker finish", this leads to A rambling. (A has no indication that things were understood).

Cthulhu_5• 7 years ago

I think in a lot of situations there needs to be one of the parties that steers the conversation a bit - interrupt themselves or the other party if they're going on a tangent. It takes some time and practice but it will pay off in the end.

dustinls• 7 years ago

This falls apart when you have an interrupter who thinks they know everything, but really doesn't have a clue.

They don't let you explain critical detail about something because 'they got it they got it' and when they inevitably screw up its your fault for not explaining it right.

6gvONxR4sf7o• 7 years ago

Or interrupters who interrupt not to complete your thought, but to say whatever they don't want to wait their turn to say.

Bekwnn• 7 years ago

That seems to fall under "Barkers"

daveFNbuck• 7 years ago

This doesn't fall apart, as they're providing feedback about exactly how they're misunderstanding you.

jacobolus10• 7 years ago

thinks they know everything, but really doesn't have a clue

This is a somewhat separate problem from whether someone is an interrupter or not, though conversational style can have an influence on when miscommunication is likely to happen.

They don't let you explain critical detail about something because 'they got it they got it'

Well-meaning non-interrupters who “think they know everything but really don’t have a clue” can just as easily miss critical details, when the speaker wrongly assumes they understand something but never stops to verify that. At least the interrupter typically makes their ignorance obvious, giving others a chance to prepare some response/workaround.

* * *

In my experience it is entirely possible for both interrupters and non-interrupters to be (or not be) empathetic, perceptive, conscientious, detail-oriented, knowledgeable, humble, presumptuous, judgmental, aggressive, ...

quanticle2• 7 years ago

It seems like it would be a separate problem, but in my experience, the two are linked. The person who is interrupting is interrupting because they're highly confident in their own viewpoint. We like to think that confidence must necessarily be correlated with how true our view is, but that isn't the case. There are some people who are equally confident of all of their views, no matter how much or how little evidence they have for those views. It's those people who interrupt, even though they don't have a clue.

marble-drink• 7 years ago

I have a colleague who regularly interrupts me to say the complete opposite of what I want to say. I'm, of course, in the church of strong civility, so I always continue after the rude interruption. You'll often hear something like:

"We're struggling to meet our deadlines so I think we should---"

"Rewrite the project."

"---Avoid rewrites and do small reactors."

fogetti3• 7 years ago

I like your approach and in general I do the same. But some interrupters just never learn.

So in some cases when the interrupter keeps interrupting I simply ask him/her: "Can I finish my sentence?" In this case whatever the interrupter does it's too late for him, because it becomes obvious that his way of communication is not welcome and he was not even aware of this fact (i.e. he lacks self-awareness), and learning self-awareness in a group setting this way makes wonders.

Also I guess you make small refactors instead of reactors :)

zzmp• 7 years ago

This is beautifully written.

noobiemcfoob7• 7 years ago

The use of dialogue to illustrate the point was great.

fenomas2• 7 years ago

One suspects the author is a big fan of Gödel Escher Bach.

GitRHero• 7 years ago

Wow, what a trip to see this name at the top of HN. The author was a good friend of mine in high school, and one of my favorite people I've ever known. If you're reading this, Sam, I hope you're doing well.

soneca• 7 years ago

Made me curious: was he an interruptor in high school?

vemv• 7 years ago

Pro tip: as you speak, after each message (sentence, couple of sentences) make sure your interlocutor understood that part - verbally or not.

It's not the same as using short sentences - personally I don't expect/allow to be interrupted (my friends know me for that).

By ensuring your messages are understood, you also make sure you are having an actual conversation, and not a mutual brain dump (which tends to lead to having a strawman POV of each other's point).

andrewstuart• 7 years ago

I feel like I'm getting worse at communicating as I get older.

My former partner kept telling me I don't listen.

Which resulted in my thinking "What, what does that even mean?".

To this day I am still trying to learn how to listen.

I am also very much aware I am an interrupter. I know how bad this is and even so it is still hard to stop.

I also interrupt when I am excited and enthusiastic and when I like the person I am talking to.

I think the two are connected. One is less inclined to interrupt if one is actually truly listening.

Interrupters aren't having a conversation with you. They are having a conversation with themselves and not listening, just waiting to talk.

noobiemcfoob7• 7 years ago

"You're not listening" depends on the context. In a calm conversation...well I've never heard it in a calm conversation. In a heated conversation, it can be you misunderstand or just as likely they're poorly communicating and growing resentful at not being understood.

On your point on interrupters not listening: a big point of this article is that a skillful interruption moves a conversation along by allowing swift communication of understanding, so time isn't wasted repeating shared knowledge. A poor interrupter, a Barker, is as you describe - just throwing their own mess out there. If your interruptions cause irritation, it is because they aren't properly tuned or else you're dealing with someone from the Church of Strong Civility.

jacobolus10• 7 years ago

“You’re not listening” often means something like “I am feeling some strong emotion (anger, frustration, sadness, ...) but you are not validating my feelings, and that lack of validation itself feels like rejection.”

Even something as simple as echoing back someone’s statements, or saying “it seems like you are feeling angry because ...” can make a large difference. Once you have shown that you understand and can name or describe the person’s feelings it is often much easier to discuss possible solutions to practical problems. But if you jump straight to offering practical advice, that is often unwelcome.

(Of course, it might sometimes literally mean “you’re not listening”, which probably needs a different remedy.)

Let me recommend the book How to Talk So Kids Will Listen & Listen So Kids Will Talk even if you never talk to kids.

DoreenMichele6• 7 years ago

My former partner kept telling me I don't listen.

Which resulted in my thinking "What, what does that even mean?".

There can be just so very many reasons why people fail to communicate. I would be leery of chalking it up to any one thing.

As the article under discussion notes, interrupters sometimes do fine with some people and sometimes have tremendous problems with others. This is probably generally true of just about any communication thing you can name.

thrower123• 7 years ago

Quite often when people accuse each other of not listening, it's that they aren't actually saying what they think they are saying, and then getting pissy because the other party didn't telepathically pick up on what they actually meant.

novok• 7 years ago

Sounds like 2 cultures, and the adaptive person realizes who they are speaking to, and adapts to that culture to have better conversations.

I was raised as a 'civil' person, but learned that in some groups, you get a better result & energy as an interrupter.

Another dynamic is high overt conflict & emotions vs low overt conflict & emotions cultures. High overt will seem like they are arguing passionately about something and they will never see each other again, and 10 minutes later are having tea like it's no big deal, because the emotion level isn't really a big deal to them. The same emotional display in a non-overt culture and you can be fairly certain that the conflict is a a fairly big deal, and 10 minutes later, it won't recover.

jacobush• 7 years ago

Haha, true. And I've had it where we would only dare do this over "safe" topics, like some branching strategy or library implementation detail or whatever. But we would never do the high-overt thing about politics or family life or something "real". :)

nemo1618• 7 years ago

And bad things happen when the high/low wires get crossed. A high-overt arguing with a low-overt often leads to confusion and resentment, because the exchange was no big deal to the high-overt, but a hostile act to the low-overt.

wool_gather3• 7 years ago

Yeah, this can unfortunately happen with almost any communication style mismatch. The best advice anyone can follow is just, start from an assumption of good faith.

I've seen it most bafflingly in a tech help forum I used to frequent: folks coming for help would get really miffed at requests for clarification/expansion from the people who were trying to help. Probably some of those requests should have been worded better -- less terse, a little more "friendly"? -- but I never really understood the starting point of "anything other than an answer to my post is rude" that seemed to come up over and over.

quickthrower22• 7 years ago

Some people keep talking for a long time unless interrupted. They might even go in an infinite loop, reconfirming what they already said! For such people, while normally meek I force myself to interrupt!

Cthulhu_5• 7 years ago

Yup, and it's absolutely fine to do so - however, you also need them to understand what they're doing themselves, give them some advice on how to communicate more effectively. As another commenter pointed out, some people talk a lot because they're nervous, because they are afraid if they stop talking they won't get another say in a matter. They need coaching, reassurance, etc as well.

quickthrower22• 7 years ago

Absolutely. I should also mention I don’t get angry with them, I appreciate they have a different style of communication.

whatshisface• 7 years ago

That's good because the cultural norm of automatically repeating comes from the expectation that the other person will interrupt once they have something to say.

Actually, repeaters might have it right - not even once in memory has someone who failed to understand me said "I don't get it," after I finished talking, everyone just nods and says "mm-hmm." It would not be irrational to assume the listener didn't get it until being presented with evidence otherwise.

wool_gather3• 7 years ago

I think, paradoxically, that this is actually a failure mode of "the meek" -- rambling when nervous, basically. Or at least of a person who is missing cues from their interlocutor about the status of the conversation.

mirimir2• 7 years ago

I'm an interrupter, by nature. And I also have a tendency to talk when I'm nervous. As TFA says, I'm fine with other interrupters. We have great conversations. We start finishing each others thoughts. But otherwise, not so great.

Probably the best insight that I got from group therapy was being told that I needed to learn when to shut up. So I've learned to be adaptive. And when I'm nervous, I've learned to draw people out.

phs318u• 7 years ago

the best insight that I got from group therapy was being told that I needed to learn when to shut up.

A respected manager that I really looked up to once gave me very similar advice. “When you have the answer, know the solution, can understand the problem, can see other’s mistakes? Just shut up.”

Fifteen years later, I have...improved somewhat.

WhompingWindows• 7 years ago

Do you ever stop thinking about what you're about to say and instead focus on how your audience is reacting to what you just said? I find watching peoples' faces and any cues that reveal their emotion helps me gauge whether or not I'm having a "not so great" conversation, which allows me to be less interrupt-y and more of a listener.

mirimir2• 7 years ago

Yes, I do that constantly. I tried direct sales for a while, and one of my long-term jobs involved public speaking. So I've had some training.

Also, and maybe this will seem strange, I often feel like I'm just pretending to be a "normal person".

niyaven• 7 years ago

I believe that there is also cultural factor.

Some are famous for interrupting often (in France for instance), whilst for others it is the opposite. It can also be related to the language, e.g. in German or Japanese the verb is at the end of the sentence. Because of that, one need at least to wait for the person to finish the sentence to understand it.

That being said, you surely find German interrupters, and French adepts of the Strong Civility, but maybe in different proportions.

knzhou• 7 years ago

Beyond just interrupting or not, there are norms in conservational turn taking that vary between languages, cultures, and individuals, which are well studied by linguists.

One example is the use of pauses. To me, in casual conversation, pausing for half a second cedes the floor, and pausing for two seconds means we're done with a topic. But I had a friend who would always pause for two seconds before saying anything at all. Neither of us interrupted, but there were still constant collisions.

forgingahead• 7 years ago

Sounds like every bloody "interviewer" in the West now -- interrupting people whilst they're speaking, loudly assuming the worst possible characterisation of what was said (or flatly misrepresenting what was said), and going off on a tangent to promote their own agenda/viewpoint to anyone unfortunate enough trying to follow along.

joosters• 7 years ago

The article talks about interrupters, but I think it confuses two types of them: People who interrupt to say their piece, and people who interrupt to complete the other person’s sentence.

Both are annoying, but people who complete others’ sentences are IMO worse: it’s a way of showing that you don’t care what the other person thinks, especially when the interrupter guesses wrong and the speaker has to out-talk them in order to get their actual words in.

Cthulhu_5• 7 years ago

That's definitely a distinction to make. The person completing the sentence will feel - or emit the feeling - that they get what you mean already but the speaker is being too slow. In a case like that it's important for the speaker to be assertive and raise their hand, mention the other person's behaviour and finish the sentence themselves. Like a sharp callout of the other person's behaviour, a meta-statement about what is happening. Just pointing it out is already enough for a lot of people. That will cost some extra energy though, because you're not just talking about subject x, but you're also mindful of your own and others' behaviour in a conversation.

jamesblonde• 7 years ago

I am an interrupter living in a land of strong civility. Self-awareness will bring you a bit of the way to fitting in, but I am always known as an interrupter. Tbh, i haven't changed entirely, because we have a startup, and my opinion is that strong civility is not always the most effective communication pattern when stuff needs to get done now. Strong civility works great where you have longer term plans and people who stick to them and resources. Startups don't have much of that.

sgentle• 7 years ago

I've noticed a pretty heinous conversational pattern develop out of interruption sometimes.

In theory, the best way to conduct a church-of-interruption exchange of ideas is big-endian: you begin by summarising your idea and only then flesh out the details. That way if your conclusion is understood you find out as quickly as possible.

Unfortunately, if your conversational partner tends to interrupt incorrectly or in bad faith, the better strategy is little-endian: you craft your idea in such a way that it can't be understood until you've finished talking, and is thus uninterruptible. In extreme cases, you can even make the sentence not parse until the final word.

Big-endian: "I don't like sand. It's coarse, rough, irritating and it gets everywhere."

Little-endian: "You know what's coarse, rough, irritating and gets everywhere? Sand. I don't like it."

Little-endian (parser pipeline stall edition): "What I don't like, because it's coarse, rough, irritating, and gets everywhere, is sand."

Osiris• 7 years ago

That's an interesting approach.

For me, the issue with that, is that I'm more of a "stream of consciousness" conversationalist, where I say things as they come to mind and rarely have time to parse them in the way you suggest.

Maybe it's a matter of practice.

jacquesm• 7 years ago

I find this most irritating. It is much more polite to the listener if you do your homework first and then start talking. It vastly increases the chances of being able to capture and hold and audience's attention.

quanticle2• 7 years ago

I find stream of consciousness rambling to be extremely irritating. Normally, I'm very much against interrupting, but I have been known to butt in to stream of consciousness speech, saying, "Okay, and what's your point?"

Cthulhu_5• 7 years ago

It is; I think a lot of people go for stream of consciousness speaking because they're afraid if they pause someone else will take over the conversation. But the reality is that people's attention span just drops down after a sentence or two, especially if it's stream of consciousness - they have to spend more and more energy to follow your thoughts. Which is absolutely fine in some situations, but it's not the most efficient.

Your message comes across a lot more clearly if you get your thoughts in order before starting to speak. This is difficult at first, because if you're not practiced the conversation will have moved on before you've got your thoughts in line, but it is a skill you can practice. Take one of your stream of consciousness statements, maybe write it down, and repeat it a dozen times, each time making it shorter and more to the point - assertive, definitive, without feeling like you have to expand on your every point. Assume that if something is unclear, the other party will ask. But also try and limit the amount of concepts in one sentence so you don't overwhelm the other party with new stuff. (assuming you're talking technology or something of course).

mbar84• 7 years ago

So jokes are Little-endian I guess.

the_pwner224• 7 years ago

So I guess that means one thing that is little-endian is a joke.

FTFY :)

TuringTest• 7 years ago

It makes sense. They say humour is based on creating expectations and solving them suddenly.

nguoi• 7 years ago

Good jokes are.

I notice some jokes, especially on Facebook etc., where the punchline is far too early and it feels like they're obnoxiously drilling the joke home. It's also the same when you have someone make a reference in a comment thread, then the next person continues the reference with less subtlety.

beckingz• 7 years ago

Only the shaggy dog jokes.

fenomas2• 7 years ago

Of course, in real-world discourse delaying the high-order bits often just means they're never reached.

A: There's a thing I don't like. It's coarse, rough, and it gets...
B: Many coarse and rough things are vitally important though, why for example there's...

graphpapa• 7 years ago

My story telling preference is little-endian and the type of exchange you’ve just described drives me bonkers

memling• 7 years ago

In theory, the best way to conduct a church-of-interruption exchange of ideas is big-endian: you begin by summarising your idea and only then flesh out the details. That way if your conclusion is understood you find out as quickly as possible.

There are probably some linguistic phenomena at work here: subordinate clauses in German, for example, have trailing verbs (present perfect/pluperfect conjugations also have a final verb).

abtinf• 7 years ago

If someone is irrational or malevolent, the only legitimate strategy is to not engage. Attempting to produce an irrefutable argument or use a strategy to bypass their dishonesty is futile and damages your own standing. Stated much more articulately by an author I admire:

"The first issue that I want to discuss is the topic of when to argue and when not--in other words, when to get into a full-fledged back-and-forth discussion, and when to refrain from it. There are many cases...in which it is not appropriate. In such cases, if it is a moral or otherwise significant issue, you could make clear that you disapprove of the person's view, so that you do not leave yourself in the position that your silence or refusal to argue implies agreement. Nevertheless, there are many cases in which, given that disclaimer by you, it simply makes no sense to engage in argument. I would summarize it like this: Assuming you want to argue--and remembering that there is no moral duty to argue--you have to decide: Is it worth it? Is it worth the strain, or do you think you will do anything for your inner clarity, or toward conversion or suggestion of a viewpoint to other people?

"Assuming that you are interested and do want to develop along these lines, I would say, in essence, argue when you believe that your opponent, however confused, is honest. He may disagree violently with you. But the question is, is he open to rational argument or not? If he is dishonest--which means that facts, arguments, and reasoning make no difference to him--then, of course, it is a waste of time. It is a waste of your breath, because you are giving arguments to someone who you believe holds that arguments are irrelevant. Moreover, if you argue with such a person, you are actually sanctioning his pretense. If he wants to engage in argument with you, that means he wants to pretend that he is a man of reason, that he has arguments for his view. If he does that while simultaneously denying reason, he is engaged in real fraud, and your refusal to comply is much more dreadful to him than any amount of refutation by you."

crucialfelix• 7 years ago

I used to really annoy my Japanese ex by interrupting. It seems in Japanese conversation the main point is arrived at, with a satisfying and meaningful ending. I'd just blurt out my next thought.

agitator• 7 years ago

I've noticed in my experience that the Big Endian approach has been less successful for me in work environments. Another wrench in the system is that when you want to get things done, especially at a leadership level, you will come to realize that the whole system in this article goes out the window if people aren't honest when they don't understand something.

I'm often thinking ahead in conversations and in a company hierarchy where people some don't want to admit not knowing or not understanding, I noticed people would nod or agree, but no actions would be taken. I though about this for a while and came to the conclusion that people simply need an explanation, but don't want to admit not understanding. SO what looked like agreement was facade to hide the confusion. It took me a bit, but I learned to move away from making a statement and waiting for questions, to leading into a conclusion so that everyone has more context with which to ask questions, or feel more comfortable asking a question because "hey, I understood most of that, but he/she lost me at that point"

A1phab3t• 7 years ago

Well said. In a business context it often feels like a risk to admit that you don't know something. Because it's a competitive situation and the Prod M Lead isn't about to display ignorance to the Dev Lead who is nodding sagely like they understood all the malarkey that the Chief Architect just spewed out.

And since those two doofuses are pretending they already have a clue, the QA Lead feels even more like THEY should already have one and so on and so forth.

Switch that to a context where you're the Prod M Lead, and you're talking about the roadmap to the Sales team who are all nodding their heads like they totally get it even when they're not and you have a high potential for an unproductive or counterproductive situation.

To me, being willing to admit you don't understand, or even to ask questions as if you don't understand when you do, is a sign of leadership-- it signals that you really care about having everyone on the team clued in and able to apply themselves to the situation at hand.

Heck, it might even be useful to have a "designated doofus" in your meetings who is there specifically to watch for this behavior and ask "stupid" questions to ensure understanding by as many people as possible in that room.

alex_young• 7 years ago

I'm more interested in the Cult of Listening.

First you listen and really try to understand not only the what but why from the person you're having a conversation with.

Then you paraphrase what you heard back to make sure you understand and that they can hear it back and agree.

If you do these two things you'll find that most people are actually pretty reasonable and you can in turn have a reasoned and listened to response and, shockingly, a real conversation.

Cthulhu_5• 7 years ago

That's a really important skill to have really; in software development there's a huge ego culture going on, people having their own opinions and clinging to them. But the path to maturity and / or seniority involves opening up to other people's opinions, truly understanding them instead of just pushing your own through. Active listening (which is what you're describing there) is a huge part of it. You can't argue with someone if you're not willing to listen in the first place.

dpc_pw2• 7 years ago

When talking, I feel like a CPU waiting for DRAM reads all the time. "Gee... why is this going so slow?!" Anything that can speed things up is appreciated. Talk fast, interrupt me, let me interrupt, fill the gaps, ask what you don't understand, point what I got wrong, and lets complete this data transmission as soon as possible.

draugadrotten• 7 years ago

Interrupting when talking is simply the human equivalent of XON/XOFF flow control in RS232. Some humans are not capable of such software flow control and need the human RTS / CTS handshake which is probably body language. And then other humans simply don't have flow control enabled. At all.

dpc_pw2• 7 years ago

I love this metaphor. :)

otikik• 7 years ago

I'm a Meek and one of the strategies I have developed for dealing with more interrupt-based communicators is to rely on an asynchronous, written medium. Be it slack, a shared google drive doc, whatever. "Hey, can we have a meeting to discuss X" will often be answered by "here's my written opinion on X and the different options I see. If you still think we need to meet, here's my availability". If this doesn't remove the meeting completely, it allows you to prepare and state your opinion in advance.

Some people don't like it. It's easier to do when you are remote with a significant time difference.

DoreenMichele6• 7 years ago

I'm prone to interrupting people. It's worse if I'm not feeling heard, if I really feel they are missing a lot of important information and for a few other reasons.

I have found email and other forms of written communication wonderful for effectively sidestepping the worst problems. I can lay everything out that I think matters in an order that communicates effectively. It's much easier to do something like that in writing than in conversation, especially when there are time constraints and you don't know them that well or otherwise don't have the best rapport.

bartread• 7 years ago

This is a valid approach, but it does have a problem: it can lead to long back and forth messaging/email exchanges, including lengthy messages.

I don't, generally, have time to write long messages, nor (often) to read them, so as soon as I see this happening I've started to point out the behaviour and set up a short meeting to resolve whatever the issues are.

atq2119• 7 years ago

Maybe those short meetings loose some of the nuance of the longer written discussion and lead to worse decisions.

I'm reminded of Amazon's supposed culture of well-written memos ahead of meetings.

mannykannot2• 7 years ago

There is no guarantee that a short meeting will resolve something that has already been the subject of a long discussion, though I will grant that long discussions are often the result of at least one party not paying attention to what the other is saying, and only the intervention of a third party can break that deadlock.

Having one party who only reads the subject line before replying will sabotage any attempt at resolving an issue through email.

lbj2• 7 years ago

I'll be honest, I disengage from interrupters almost immediately. They consistently miss the point in their eager to hear their own shallow thoughts. Its boring.

alecmg• 7 years ago

But at least they show early that they missed the point and let you catch it early and explain better.

Instead of politely listening and after you finish ask what does the first thing (vital to understanding the whole speech) even mean.

fogetti3• 7 years ago

So basically they are forcing the speaker to explain the same thing as they would have continued anyway, plus they even force the same speakers to fix the interrupters' mistakes in their thinking. Why is that good?

noway421• 7 years ago

Most annoying to me, from the top of my head, is when you are trying to find a word to say, and your interlocutor finishes your sentence with a word which is sort of fits in, but not the one you had in mind.

I'm not sure I'm all that against interrupters, and I think I can handle them and can sort of be one myself, but it is surely exhausting.

jyriand• 7 years ago

I often feel the urge to interrupt, just to get thing moving faster, but I don't want to be the smart-ass who is always interrupting with "I know, I know". So often times I pretend that the presented information is new to me and give the other person a chance to shine. It's not always easy and here and there I blurt out "I know", because I feel that they must be thinking that I'm dumb, or because I don't want to give them the pleasure of being the first person who enlightened me about this thing. But there is some upside to playing dumb: after he has finished talking, you can comment about the subject with some unexpected wisdom, as if you just came up with it.

I don't mind if people interrupt me, as long as they stick to the subject at hand. But I hate when someone just cut's me off mid sentence and starts talking about some totally unconnected stuff. I usually see the interruption coming. They nod impatiently and I see that their mouth is already preparing the sentence, waiting for a brief pause in my flow, not hearing a single word I'm saying.

psim1• 7 years ago

“...if I don’t signal my understanding in the same way you do – you’ll just keep talking, imagining I don’t get it.”

I like to hear someone's thought and then digest on it. If my partner in conversation just keeps on re-explaining his or her thoughts, thinking is halted. I have to keep on filtering what is said, even if it's basically the same thing repeated, to make sure I didn't miss something. The end result is that my partner speaks three or four times as much as he or she needs to, and I am left understanding less than if the thought was said to me once with a little time to think afterward.

kerkeslager• 7 years ago

This is a very compassionate take. I generally find that anything sufficiently complex can't be communicated with constant interruption, which limits communicating with interrupters to the point that I don't care to do it. I like to think I can handle myself in social situations where there's an interrupter present, but if someone interrupts me frequently I'll usually not go out of my way to interact with that person.

There are many cases where the attributes I find most intolerable in others are actually the attributes I find most intolerable in myself, and this is one. What it comes down to for me is that as a kid I was praised a lot for my intelligence so I subconsciously see intelligence as my social value, so my tendency is to always be trying to show how intelligent I am as a social proof. Among the many frustrating habits that come out of this is interrupting to show I've understood something quickly. I've gotten a lot better about this over the years, but still catch myself doing it sometimes. So I appreciate the author's compassionate view.

paulsutter• 7 years ago

I’ve noticed this can happen in Slack. I see someone is typing - and because I assume it’s a full duplex channel, I start typing too while I wait for their answer. And they stop typing. When I delete what I began to type, they resume.

PhasmaFelis• 7 years ago

Excited conversations between geeks tend to ramble a lot with a lot of interruptions, and while everyone's having fun, many conversational threads get abandoned as people get drawn into the new topic and forget what they were planning to say.

I invented conversation queues for me and my friends. Whenever someone is inspired to tangent onto a new topic, they interrupt only long enough to point at me and say a word or two, which I write down. The next time there's a lull in conversation, I announce the next topic in the queue and cross it off, and the person who inserted it gets to expound.

It seems to work really well, and the list can get quite long with a few hours over coffee or beer.

imhelpingu• 7 years ago

Or everyone could just stop being a little bitch about everything 24/7.

The Church of Interruption

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