Deconstructing with Della: Well, excuse me!
July 04, 2017 |
| Kanye West interrupts Taylor Swift during her acceptance speech at the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards |
One of our facilitation rules is no interrupting. We ask people to jot down their idea or comment so they can fully concentrate on the person who is speaking. Works well when you are controlling the room and people need to raise their hands to speak. However, interrupting has been hitting the news lately. During the Jeff Sessions interview with the US Senate Committee, Democratic Senator Kamala Harris was interrupted twice. I know this begs a question about misogyny since no one else was interrupted. However, I don't want this blog to be about misogyny or mansplaining, more about that in a future blog. For this one, I want to focus on interrupting as a bad communication practice.
I have known a few constant interrupters over the years. And, some that jump to conclusions about what you were going to say, which is even more maddening. I think we all fall into the trap of cutting off people occasionally but hopefully, we catch ourselves and apologize for butting in.
Great communicators are also great listeners. In the case of the senator, she was frustrated that Mr. Sessions was not answering the question so she was interrupting him. Media can do the same in interviews when someone is obfuscating or taking too long to get to the point. In those types of environments, it can be legitimate to not let the interviewee grandstand, pontificate or ignore the question.
But, for most of us in our daily communication we need to pay attention to this nasty habit. Often when people interrupt, they say something wrong. Think of the UBER board member David Bonderman who made a wise crack interrupting Arianna Huffington about women board members. They were in a meeting with staff about changing the sexist culture.
HUFFINGTON: There’s a lot of data that shows when there’s one woman on the board, it’s much more likely that there will be a second woman on the board.
BONDERMAN: Actually what it shows is it’s much likely to be more talking.
HUFFINGTON: Oh. Come on, David.
Dumb comment. Perhaps if he was thinking before he spoke and not interrupting Ms. Huffington, he would not made that comment. He also ended up resigning from the Board. Again, a misogynistic scenario. I am starting to collect these types of comments for a future post.
But the focus for this blog is interrupting. To deconstruct, interrupters keep up their bad behaviour unless somebody calls them on it. Polite but firm responses are called for here.
Kamala Harris tweeted this statement after being interrupted by John McCain:
"It was a simple question. Can Sessions point to the policy, in writing, that allows him to not answer a whole host of our questions today."
Juxtapose to that, it is important to get to your point so you don't get interrupted. Long winded monologues beg for a breather.
Communications advice for the day - keep it short, be respectful and bite your tongue.
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1 comments
Great stuff! My father in law, Cliff, was a great communicator because he adhered to a simple rule...”God gave us two ears and one month. That should tell you what proportion they should be used!” I try! Another rule learned recently...”When you talk, you teach...when you listen, you learn” Which begs the question...”Just how damn smart do you think you are???”😎
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