Etiquette Tip of the Week: Before You Jump In
1/23/18

By Callista Gould. Bio: Callista Gould is a certified etiquette instructor and founder of the Culture and Manners Institute.

Isn’t it romantic, when a couple, married for years, grows so close, they can finish each other’s sentences? Not so much, for co-workers who jump in and finish their colleagues’ sentences. Interrupting is a bad habit.  It’s terrible when you can’t get an idea out in a meeting, without a person springing in front of you in mid-thought, snatching control of your idea or redirecting it completely.  It’s like pass interference in football, except no one is throwing a yellow flag.

Interrupting stifles communication and cuts off creative flow.  It makes people feel devalued and insecure.  It’s frustrating to feel you are not being heard. Actually, I wouldn’t know.  I am the guilty party here. I am a sentence-finisher and a serial interrupter. Whether working with clients or meeting with friends to exchange ideas, I feel if I don’t get this earth-shaking idea out, it will be lost to the world.  I get excited and I leap in like a cliff diver.

Blame it on my large family. As a child, I remember being invited to friends’ homes, where dinners were tranquil affairs, where one person spoke at a time.  That was not our home. In college, I brought home a boyfriend, an only child. Our family dinner, with rapid fire exchangeand multiple people extroverting, scared him stupid.

The cure for interrupters? Exercise patience and focus on listening.  The best managers I knoware relaxed in meetings, listening intently, taking ideas in and giving them careful consideration, before uttering a word. Sometimes an interruption is warranted. When one in a meeting draws everyone off topic or talks non-stop, it’s the meeting host’s responsibility to interject and get the meeting back on track.

How does one defend against an interrupter?  Simply interrupt. “Hold that thought, while I finish mine.”