Filed under: notes
I’ve attended a series of work-related meetings recently, and revived my favorite habit of interrupting others. Not others who are behaving themselves, mind you, just those who drone on and on and on and seem oblivious to the fact that we are not present as a group discussion to hear a lecture from one person.
I have to admit that I developed the habit of interrupting others at Harvard Divinity School, which doesn’t speak well for the place, necessarily, but I got tired of listening to the same few people talk in class as if their opinion was more important than anyone else. (None of them read my blog that I can be sure of). I was polite about the interrupting, and it was my hard-earned money paying for the classes, so I really didn’t feel obligated to listen to discussion monopolizers for 90 minutes at a time. Still, I felt guilty.
Another Meeting? on the Career Couch has some advice that made me feel a bit better:
Q. One or two blatherers always end up monopolizing the discussion at meetings, and running everything off the rails. How do you get them to stop?
A. Monopolizers need to be reined in because they rarely have the self-awareness to stop talking themselves, said Glenn Parker, a team-building consultant in Skillman, N.J., and co-author of “Meeting Excellence.”
It’s O.K. to interrupt a monopolizer, Mr. Parker said. But be polite about it, perhaps by validating what the person has said. You might say something like this: “I think you’re making a good point. Let’s see how the rest of the team feels about that.”
Then turn away from the talker, preferably to another part of the room, and ask someone else his or her opinion on the topic.
Similarly, he said, if a monopolizer or anyone else goes off on a tangent, you can say something like: “I may be wrong here, but I thought we were supposed to be dealing with customer complaints. If you all agree, let’s get back to the agenda.”
I’m reminded of Ruth Cohn’s theme oriented interaction approach, with its famous principle “Be your own chairman”, that I learned as a psychology undergrad. The problem is: meetings often already have a chairman, and if he or she does not intervene it looks inappropriate if I appear to take over the chairman’s duties. Because there’s always the possibility that she might have done something a few seconds after my uncalled for intervention.
BTW, I attended a few peace related meetings at the Cambridge Friends house: they used a one minute bell to indicate someone was speaking too long. Worked nicely, and without offending.
That said, the real problem starts when the jabbermouth is your boss or the chairman…
PS: Please visit my new blog which provides a forum to discuss the two candidates for the UUA presidency, and link to it if you find it worthwhile. It features what both candidates are saying on a certain subject in their own words without editorializing, but the comments allow anyone to express their opinions:
Comment by Martin Voelker 07.24.08 @ 9:14 pmhttp://uuapresidentialdebate2009.wordpress.com/
Martin
Yes, it’s always a problem when a meeting always has a chaiman that doesn’t seem to really chair.
Comment by Ms. Theologian 07.25.08 @ 7:09 amOoooo, I so relate to this. I admire you interrupting people. I can’t bring myself to do it, mostly because often I don’t have anything super-pressing to say, but I just CANNOT BELIEVE that they can’t tell how they are DOMINATING the discussion and going on and on and on. I think I will, however, start to talk to professors about it and ask them if THEY can do something about it - I feel like it is a basic professoring skill to say, “Thanks so and so, let’s get some other voices in here.” I am SHOCKED that they let this go on and on. I know, lots of all caps words, but I had a very trying semester of this in the spring… Oh, and the fall… and the spring before that………..
Comment by Elizabeth 07.25.08 @ 8:18 amI haven’t had much luck talking to professors about it. At least at HDS they seemed to think it was the responsibility of the students to police one another. Not especially good leadership, imho.
I never did this as an undergrad, but I think science courses were less discussion-dominated. I actually can’t ever remember a discusion in a science class. But something about literally writing the checks for tuition and balancing work and school made me complete intolerant of people who love their own voice.
Comment by Ms. Theologian 07.25.08 @ 8:24 amLeave a comment
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