I’ve been witnessing a masterclass in this at work lately. One of the faculty I work with has a habit of jumping in on people when they’re talking. One of our new faculty simple refuses to spot when the other person jumps in—-just simply keeps taking over the interrupter. Doesn’t speak up, doesn’t alter their cadence, simply continues to talk. It’s amazing.
Ask HN: How to deal with constantly getting cut off in work discussions?
61–70 of 311 posts
Re: Ask HN: How to deal with constantly getting cut off in work discussions?
#62Always finish what you have to say even if others start trying to talk over you. If you stop it makes it look like what you have to say is not important. Check out this YouTube video titled: How to stop people from talking over you. https://youtu.be/ikAfrKf5A8I The YouTube channel Charisma on Command have a bunch of great videos on EQ.
" Always finish what you have to say even if others start trying to talk over you. If you stop it makes it look like what you have to say is not important. " And after the two of you have talked over each other for a few seconds, they'll stop and say something like, "I'm sorry, what were you saying?" You may think it's an invitation to explain what you were trying to say. It isn't. And if you're like me, at this poin…
I used to try this with my manager when he would interrupt me. Sometimes we would go on talking over each other for a full 10 ish seconds. That's a really really long time for two people to talk over each other and not stop. So uncomfortable, but I found it so rude for him to talk over me and he did it so frequently that in the end I just refused to stop talking. I'm naturally shy and soft spoken, so it's not that I was going on too long! He never seemed to get the message, so I left. But I burned out at that company and have never been able to care about my job since. Now I hate everything about my job and can barely be bothered to touch the keyboard, that's what it has been like for the last 4 years.
Re: Ask HN: How to deal with constantly getting cut off in work discussions?
#63I’ve been witnessing a masterclass in this at work lately. One of the faculty I work with has a habit of jumping in on people when they’re talking. One of our new faculty simple refuses to spot when the other person jumps in—-just simply keeps taking over the interrupter. Doesn’t speak up, doesn’t alter their cadence, simply continues to talk. It’s amazing.
Yes, this is a very effective technique.
Re: Ask HN: How to deal with constantly getting cut off in work discussions?
#64It's not worth wasting energy. Why care if they all agree to do "X, Y and Z" bad ideas unless you have a bunch of equity in the company?
If you're a programmer actually building the thing - I say adapt whatever they tell you to do so it makes more sense. I often change things to make it more palatable, then when they ask me why it doesn't work exactly as originally designed I explain how I figured out the original version was a bad idea while working on it.
They hired me because I know my field and what works best. If they can't trust me to implement things how I see fit, then why should I trust them to make good leadership decisions?
Re: Ask HN: How to deal with constantly getting cut off in work discussions?
#65Anecdotally, this seems fairly common but perhaps not to the same intensity that you've alluded. The way I helped curb this at my workplace, which may or may not be applicable to you, was by always back-tracking to the person who was cut off. X starts saying something, Y cuts them off. As soon as Y is done speaking, I ask X: "Sorry X, what were you saying?" while ignoring Y. This non-confrontational approach seemed t…
I'm not a fan of the passive-aggressivity of this. I'd rather somebody explicitely say "sorry Y, can you please let X finish?" and talk to Y one-to-one if it's a recurrent issue
Re: Ask HN: How to deal with constantly getting cut off in work discussions?
#66People who ask questions tend not to be cut off as often as speakers who don't. If you get the floor and are still sounding out an idea in front of a group, consider whether contributing is a valuable use of everyone's time. There are of course people who talk forever and interrupt everyone else to make it about them, and it's because they need personal development. It's on the senior-most person there to interrupt t…
I completely disagree. If you're running a meeting, you're accountable for keeping that meeting on the rails. If that means cutting off someone senior and getting the meeting back on track, or asking them to stay focused, or redirecting the conversation to let others speak, then that's what you need to do. Seniority is a matter of job description. My job as a senior engineer involves driving alignment on the design a…
Correct that this is your #1 job.
But it would be even better if you could do that job, AND not make people feel shitty / mad / disrespected in the process.
As someone who struggles with this, getting the "emotional layer" right, on top of the base objective of doing your job, is sort of the next level of competence you might think how to achieve.
It is very difficult to get right.
Re: Ask HN: How to deal with constantly getting cut off in work discussions?
#67People in this biz make all kinds of (bogus) excuses along the lines of "I continue to fail at basic life skills X, Y, and Z, BUT! I'm still super-smart!"
I wouldn't buy that. Someone fumbling the ball on basic politeness is probably fumbling many many others that you don't even know about.
And you have an office full of them! If only I knew where you worked...
Re: Ask HN: How to deal with constantly getting cut off in work discussions?
#68There are two potentials here. One potential is if it's just one or two people being cut off constantly - if so, they might need to practice being engaging speakers and speaking more concisely. Everybody has the one coworker who takes 10 minutes to get to a 30 second point. (Cutting people off is still rude, the above isn't an excuse, it's an explanation.) The alternative is that everyone is fighting to get out their…
The first point here is what came to mind. I try not to cut people off, but some may be droning on, or repeating or slowly pacing around a point even though my brain is 5 steps ahead already. I get bored and impatient and want to move on.
Maybe ask a fast thinker about your style, or try recording yourself and listen back to see if you can be more concise or lively.
Re: Ask HN: How to deal with constantly getting cut off in work discussions?
#69Earlier quoted context omitted.
I do it too....and I hate it........ I'm trying to tackle it by writing it down and waiting for others to finish with some decent success.
I (rarely) do it too. What I realized is in most cases (if not all) it's all about spitting it out whatever is in my mind without any intention to listen to what others are trying to say and without thinking that I can learn so much from others. Writing it down won't get you too far, imho. Because you probably still will be in rush just to read what you noted down and eventually miss the chance to learn from others.…
> What I realized is in most cases (if not all) it's all about spitting it out whatever is in my mind without any intention to listen to what others are trying to say and without thinking that I can learn so much from others.
Sometimes technical thoughts can be literally founded on faulty assumptions and will teach you nothing unless providing another anecdote of a conceptual mistake is instructive.
Listening in bikeshedding conversations is a wise maneuver, though. Save your forceful thoughts for actual problems.
Re: Ask HN: How to deal with constantly getting cut off in work discussions?
#70Always finish what you have to say even if others start trying to talk over you. If you stop it makes it look like what you have to say is not important. Check out this YouTube video titled: How to stop people from talking over you. https://youtu.be/ikAfrKf5A8I The YouTube channel Charisma on Command have a bunch of great videos on EQ.
I've tried that and had the other folks just keep talking too. It's horrible and doesn't work in my experience.