I know sometimes people cut off others very purposefully or in malicious ways, but it sounds like maybe where you're working that's just how it is- so everyone kind of has to play the game to be heard. In that case, try and change the game! A little bit of discomfort now can lead to yourself and probably others being happier down the road.

I grew up in a hispanic family in a majority hispanic community, where my everyday conversation with people was people talking over each other. It was common to start making your point while the other person was still finishing theirs.

The difference is, because everyone did it, we would just keep talking, even if we were cut off, and finish our thought. The other person would hear it, while still talking, and the conversation continues naturally. If you were in a group, you had to go louder than the currently speaking person in order to "grab the baton" and get your word in (something I was often too quiet for).

This was my normal throughout childhood.

It was a culture shock when I went to college and eventually someone called me out for cutting people off all the time. It was then that I realized that now, when I cut someone off, they actually stopped talking.

I still struggle with this, because I reflexively expect people to not let me stop them.

Deborah Tannen, Gender and Discourse. Oxford University Press, 1994

https://www.thoughtco.com/cooperative-overlap-conversation-1...

What I also noticed now that I try to pay attention to it is that I am practically unable to say a word in a German conversation if I try not to interrupt. I seem to be missing the cues that seem to say "you may now speak", and have the feeling I get interrupted all the time. I guess those cues are culture-specific and internalized over time.

That might be relevant to the OP 's question: in a multi-cultural team, one might need to develop a set of cues that are specific to that context. That can only come by discussing the topic one way or another, be it during the meetings, in breaks, at lunch... In my case, telling exactly what I described above, in a "aren't cultural differences interesting" way helped.

Unfortunately I developed a kind of intense mix of the two cultures and I have to work hard not to dominate others in (non Italian) conversations. I try to de-interrupt by reminding someone who stopped taking of what they were talking about and asking them to continue. This also isn't ideal because it's forceful but it helps.

In my experience, interrupters frequently assume something entirely different from what was actually being said, or even cut off the speaker before a "but" and wind up responding to the exact opposite of the intended point. This is needlessly annoying and confusing to almost everyone involved.

they also frequently ask if everything's ok, if you understand, etc. at the slightest pause in talking, which is kind of hilarious sometimes

Completely agree. I'm not Hispanic, but I grew up in the south in a household where talking over each other was the norm. A different culture, but culture indeed. College is also where I learned this was considered bad practice / rude

I think it's important to note that it is considered bad/rude in most american culture. Manners are relative to the culture you are living in. This style is certainly not rude in Cuban circles, for example.

It's like how belching at a restaurant is rude in the US, but a sign of respect to the chef in Japan.

As a side note, when I notice these differences, I like to reason from first principles and decide if I should change my behavior (without completely alienating myself from my peers). A Japanese chef might consider my belch a sign of respect, but how respectful is it to the people around you eating? A gross smelling burp could make me loose my appetite completely.

But it's hard to imagine you ever reached any sane conclusion to these discussions?

It just seems like a bunch of primates expressing their feelings, opinions and tribal affiliations, but not a way to make good decisions.

Or am I missing the point?

It's just another conversation style, I don't need to hear the end of your sentence to know the point you are making, at a certain point the end of the sentence is likely fluff. If the end is important, I'll still hear it, and if it changes what my response is, I'll probably stop and react mid-stream.

But that is unfortunately not always why. Some people take a very, very long time to get to a point they’ve already telegraphed long before. In a conversation that’s about problem solving, this is wasting everybody’s time, and I will absolutely shove you out of the spotlight and without compunction. Daylight’s burning.

To these people I say, think about your writing style. Do you bury the lead? Do you save your best information for last? Sort yourself out. Give the person permission to stop reading when they get the gist. Then try to do the same with your speaking. Maybe work on noticing comprehension cues from your peers.

The longer we go on a tangent the higher the probability that everyone’s working memory has been reset. If that keeps happening, a good solution is unlikely to arise. And if you don’t have time to do it right you have time to do it over. If you’re accepting defeat at the beginning, just pull the bandaid off, pick any reversible solution and get on to other problems.

> and I will absolutely shove you out of the spotlight and without compunction

Just to be really clear: this makes you toxic.

Brevity allows the process to continue. It avoids upsetting the checklists in people's brains. Grandstanding, soap boxing, and shaggy dog stories are actively harmful to this process. These are primarily the situations where my patience for ineffective communication is at its nadir, and we can't stop this process to have an intervention or let you keep interfering.

Also, by unspoken consensus you will quickly find yourself disinvited from these meetings.

This is definitely part of my problem. I get excited; I can understand where a point is going; I get impatient, especially when I'm hearing it described in an overly verbose way.

However, I think I probably need to remember that it's worth hearing someone out. Ultimately the team might benefit, even though the problem might be solved at a slightly slower pace.

When talking about new angles of view it is quite unusual that the whole argument/"paragraph" is 100% logically sound. In fact that is quite an exception when talking. Maybe there is more than one argument for the other position that would still follow.

I think a lot about problems and details at work that have a lot of impact. These things cannot be summarized in single sentences and I don't have the time to follow higher standards in organizing my speech than others. So in the end I often ended up repeating my standpoint through various meetings until managers realized that this is indeed a thing.

> Some people take a very, very long time to get to a point they’ve already telegraphed long before.

Many people often take a very, very long time to troubleshoot problems, perhaps even work overtime because of that. I prefer to solve things by talking when this is possible and spent engineering time on the really interesting things.

(Also it might be an organizational problem if there are no meetings to discuss things in-depth with large rounds. Dailies are surely not the place for that.)

The best thing I can do is attempt to use my natural inclination to help people like OP.

To that end, I'll usually say things like. "I think this is what "president" was saying, am I right?" This both validates to a more quiet team member that I heard them, but also gives them back the floor from someone who interrupted them.

I also attempt to listen to signals from quiet people who have opinions and then ask them their opinion after sharing. If they grunt or make a noise then I can direct it away from people who are more like myself and willing to speak out.

My goal is to not take the spotlight but instead to re-direct. I do this because I used to be SUPER quiet and I worked hard to get away from that. Now I'm considered fairly outspoken but I remember what it's like to be quiet and try to help out by giving them the time they need.

Turns out keeping your attention on something interesting isn’t actually a problem for people with ADHD. It’s the boring stuff that’s hard, and boy do I hate the boring stuff. We pay people to clean our house. I’ve had take away (healthy and organic of course) at least two days a week since I left home. I’ve paid people to do my laundry for as long as I’ve had a decent job. Heh. Long story short, I’m now in the process of being tested for ADHD. I’m not sure the results will change anything, I’ve done fine so far after all, but knowing is better, and it was interrupting people that started it.

Yep, same here. Though if I do cook, it has to be a massive production. If there's not something to be actively preparing the whole time, it's too boring to make. Which means there's gonna be a ton of dishes... that I really don't want to do.

Whatever is most stimulating gets my attention.

Also when I talk to someone who has ADHD it might sound strange to neurotypical people. The discussions are much faster and also less - well, I don't want to call it less boring. They are more exciting, but it does not mean that discussions with neurotypical people are boring.

I'm trying to tackle it by writing it down and waiting for others to finish with some decent success.

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. It's all about listening first.

There was a thread here on HN recently, titled "People with Greater Intellectual Humility Have Superior General Knowledge".[0] I think it's pretty relevant here in this topic. Intellectual humility goes a long way I'd say :-)

[0]https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20124447

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.

Start it when you start talking, and periodically make it a habit to check ("How long has it been since someone else talked?").

If it's been too long, wrap up your thoughts and pause a while before launching into the next bit.

It's usually obliviousness ("I didn't notice anyone else", in my personal experience), but it can feel very rude to others ("I didn't want to listen to anyone else").

All part of soft skills. We all get better together.

If it's really important, I'll remember it.

Apology speaks directly to your impulsive mind, a kind of self-inflicted peer pressure mechanism.

However, if I notice that I have interrupted someone too late, I finish my point, and then say "but I've interrupted you, you were talking about X", and then make an effort to listen actively instead of coming up with thoughts of my own.

Sometimes, when we get carried away, I remind the other person of something he had been talking about so long ago that even he has forgotten about it. In my experience, being able not just go with the flow of the conversation, but keeping long conversation "stack traces" in mind so you can go back and actually "return" from a "subroutine" in your conversation is one of the most useful communication skills I have.

I asked a good friend of mine who was a successful CEO that people really listened to what his secret was...

He said he stays quiet until people ask him for his opinion, then he makes sure what he says is succinct and on point as much as possible. That blew me away. Since I have been practicing that method I have noticed amazing results. It's really something that I continually need to work on, and it doesn't work with family and friends (of course) but try it out...

Also, fight the urge to put emojis in company emails, people will lose respect for you ... :\

... Crap, still working on that one.

These days a lot of people feel the need to be first and last to talk. This way, you're in the middle, but not overly invested in being heard, but choosing times when you speak, and choosing your words carefully for relevance, for best overall impact.

Eventually after a while of practicing this, people grow into the habit of looking forward to your input, and they always ask you for it, provided you don't screw up things too often.

One day our director called a meeting and announced that our whole department had a serious issue with interrupting. He noted the results of interrupting each other (not hearing each other out, drifting off topic, just being seen by the rest of the company as jerks). He laid out a bunch of rules for meetings, discussions, etc and he policed them for a few months.

It mostly worked as everyone (even the interrupters) saw the benefits pretty fast and the urge to interrupt seemed to fade as everyone knew they'd get to get all their words out of their mouth when it was their turn. Meetings even went faster.

Might be worth probing if your manager or any leadership feel like it is a problem / what the impact of this communication style is.

I'd say that without knowing more, it's better to advise the safer and more diplomatic approach.

So some of use have learned how to recognize that type of situation and how to deliver bitter pills of truth without risking a job you might otherwise really like for it.

Be direct if you can, but don’t stay silent if you can’t.

Like an absent god.

He was a mixed bag as a director as he could get sort of autocratic, impulsive and ... was a bit out of his element a lot of times.

But, you could hold him to his word, he listened, and he was loyal. One of those flawed guys who... you'd still choose to work for if you could.

Generally the meeting holder called on people and such.

Lots of "let's address that at another time" kind of stuff from the person holding the meetings.

Meetings had agendas.

After that it sort of bleed into how most conversations went.

I learned to be an utter asshole to these people.

When interrupted, I stop speaking. Entirely. Nine out of ten times the person interrupting realizes I'm no longer speaking and…also stops speaking. I guess they think this is a conversation? I don't know.

So I restart. From wherever I started, not where I was interrupted. Because I'm usually trying to get a coherent point across, an argument, a statement, whatever.

And if interrupted again…I stop and repeat the process.

I don't raise my voice.

I may throw a glare or two.

I have found that after two or three of these cycles the person in question waits until I'm done or I ask for questions or whatever the context demands.

In turn, I consciously try to refrain from interrupting someone else, especially women. I am in no way perfect at this.

I've had people tell me (or my manager more likely) that my silence in these moments is more intimidating than if I just barrelled over the interruptor.

I have heard that in organizations where there's recognition that this is a problem, a talking stick or some other object, helps: the only person who can speak has to have the object, they "have the floor" until they relinquish it.

And for the people who are prone to interrupting others: cut that shit out. You're not impressing anyone. You're not getting your point across. You may well have a valid point or issue or comment, but if the only way you know to make an argument is to disrupt anyone else…then that's the takeaway, not whatever your issue actually is.

Am I taking crazy pills? What's the problem with just politely saying, "Can you please not interrupt?" or "Let me finish my point please."

I'm assuming this option has already been exhausted and didn't have any effect.

I've worked with people who prefer to apologise all the time instead of changing their behaviour. When you bring that up they... apologise and move on.

I've become aware of that recently because of reasons, and I think it's all right to not just drop it after someone apologises. It's all right to not accept an apology if the underlying behaviour isn't changed.

If it keeps being a problem after that (only in an extreme minority of cases would this be true), then yes, I'd transfer or look for a different job.

But engaging in a war of talking over each other is just stupid and immature. I have kids, so I guess I prefer the workplace to consist of adults acting like adults.

It is actively defensive.

"If you're being interrupted, it's because you're interruptible"

https://soundcloud.com/jonathan-mitchell-1/interruptible

What a load of victim-blaming shit. There are people, and I've worked with many, that would have interrupted Jesus preaching the Sermon on the Mount.

If both parties keep talking it will get awkward for everyone in the conversation. This is what you want, as it will lead to immediate understanding that an interruption happened and that it's not OK. You can calmly discuss afterwards that you were interrupted, and after a few occurrences even those with only a modicum of social awareness will get the message and change behaviour. And peer pressure can then help those stragglers.

Two things work. First is if I start a sentence I finish it. If you start talking then stop, you implicitly give permission to someone else to interrupt you when they interject. Get over the awkwardness of two people talking at once. They now (mostly) let me finish my thoughts -- after I started doing this.

This one is sneaky, but I do it when someone is especially obnoxious. They'll interrupt (on a call) and Ill say "Hey (name), are you there? We can't hear you." They freak out and beseechingly yell into their mic like Sandra Bullock in Gravity and then Ill calmly say "oh there you are, as I was saying..." and complete my thoughts. It's a pattern interrupt. Not the most honorable method, but it works.

I find I interrupting people while they speak to be terribly rude. I judge people pretty harshly who do so, which is probably my own hang up. These two methods have worked for me.

I imagine that living in a place with such high population density causes behavior that seems rude and pushy to us in America.

Not at all. The population density in Japan is extremely high too, and they don't behave this way at all. This is entirely cultural: some cultures don't respect rules very well, other cultures do. Jumping line in Japan is considered extremely rude.

High considerateness style is getting too much credit in this thread. The two styles are similar in the relevant respect: more dominant speakers get more airtime. Conversations in high considerateness style don't dictate a turn order, so when someone finishes speaking, there's a competition for who gets the floor, and dominant speakers will win more often, and then get to keep talking for as long as they want. Effectively, high considerateness style just increases the packet size, without changing the bandwidth distribution.

High considerateness probably does have the advantage over high involvement in problem solving conversations, since it makes it easier to communicate more complex thoughts, but it's not the best. These two styles describe organic conversations, but it's possible to impose a rule-based structure that makes problem solving conversations more productive by dictating a turn-order (not necessarily in a static way). A structured conversation style that biases the competition for the floor in favor of those who have insights rather than dominance will outperform high considerateness style.

Neither of the organic styles are optimized for problem solving. High considerateness is optimized for preventing speakers from abusing the ability to jump in while someone else is speaking to silence people for political reasons. High involvement is optimized for making conversations enjoyable so that people actually want to have them.

In an ideal world, we would use high involvement style as a default, high considerateness in politically tense company, and various kinds of structured conversations when work needs to get done.

[0] https://linguistextraordinaire.com/2018/01/07/conversational...

I’ve internalized patience. I’m not in a rush to be heard or make a point. I use the time others are speaking to listen and formulate my response. Then when it is my turn to speak I try to limit myself only to what needs to be said.

It can be very hard on me to do this. Especially when the conversation steers into something I am passionate about or I am completely uninterested in. It takes a lot of practice and energy to be polite, show interest, and listen to what is being said.

I find that the most effective technique in my arsenal is to wait. Then when there is a moment of silence I turn the tables and repeat back what it is I heard from the other person in my own words. I may ask a question or two to ensure I completely understand what they are saying. I find that there are many cultures where it is unusual and disarming for others to intentionally try to understand you. Once someone is aware they are being interviewed and their thoughts are being thoroughly and fairly considered I find the conversation turns into my favour and I can get my point across without having to interject.

Shouting over people to get attention is.. odd. I mean I have to do that with my children because they are not old enough to be considerate and hold a conversation. But I resist the temptation with them. If I am quiet and patient they listen better.

And sometimes none of this works. If I get into a conversation with more than one person and everyone is moving too quickly I simply cannot handle it. I politely remove myself from the conversation and follow up through back channels with individuals as necessary.

If you think you can convince someone by reasoning about it from the seat of your pants don’t be surprised when your colleagues are not convinced.

This is good advice!

Although sometimes you have to bite the bullet and accommodate your hands-on improvisational types and have a good old-fashioned spit-balling session!

Just write it down afterwards.

The complete rejection of interruption-during-conversation is equivalent to the denial of existence of far-too-long monologues, isn't it?

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.

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 point of what I laughingly call my career, your best move is to shrug and walk off.

I think I still lean towards talking to a manager as a more effective strategy, and a culture where management lets this kind of thing happen isn't really one I want to be a part of anyway.

I’m not sure going to a manager will work. That’s like saying: Rather than adapting my behaviour, I’d rather go to someone in the group who has power and ask them to defend me...I would rather improve my social skills and navigate the company myself. This would build my EQ and make promotions more likely.

You can escalate and re-assert that your point is valid, but that's just escalation that can go both ways, it can result in your message being heard and it can also result in you being physically removed from the discussion; so if you choose to escalate, then you need to be certain about who'll "win" the escalation. If it's an internal team meeting and the 'interrupter' is your peer, then it's one context; if it's a customer-vendor meeting and the 'interrupter' is your boss, then that's a quite different context, and you'd better stop making that point as soon as you get a hint that it's not where he wants to direct the conversation (with the other party); your point may be valid but if making it here and now would harm the company negotiating position, then he gets to decide that your message shouldn't be told here and now.

A big aspect that's important is who's setting the topic of the discussion, and the limits of what's off-topic, disctracting or irrelevant? In an informal small discussion between peers usually that's everyone and includes you, but there are many cases where it's someone else. And in many cases that someone else should be interrupting people and ensuring that some things don't get listened to - moderating discussions is a valid need that's hard to do and often gets done less than it should, resulting in excessive ineffective long offtopic meetings.

I'd argue that much better way is to back off for a moment and try more diplomatic solution.

– Guess culture: Doesn't name needs. There's an expectation that people guess each other's needs from clues/context/intuition.

– Ask culture: Names needs as an ask.

– Tell culture: Names needs. No specific kind of response is required or expected.

These aren't normative categories, but I think in any workplace, being collectively aware that these different styles exist and that communication will be improved by each person knowing their own styles and the styles of others can improve things.

– Guessers can work to name their needs.

– Askers can learn to interpret Guessers and gently help them articulate their needs, and likewise can gently ask questions of Tellers to determine their asks.

– Tellers can likewise learn to interpret Guessers and gently help them articulate their needs, and for Tellers, invite questions about their asks.

A LessWrong post, with another take on the subject: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/rEBXN3x6kXgD4pLxs/tell-cultu...

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 to work, at least in my workplace. Y quickly began to realize that they were cutting off X and that the table was interested in what X had to say.

Unfortunately this requires two people. If you are the one being cut off, without someone else to step in, this is a hard problem to deal with.

I often go with a little self-deprecation just to keep it light when things are spiraling out of control. Something like, "Okay, time to take a pause and dumb it down for the PM. It sounds like we've settled on the fact that the issue is x, and the possible solutions are a, b and c. <Quiet engineer>, you've dealt with x before - what are your thoughts?"

Smart people are prone to chime in with their thoughts, even if it involves interrupting. In PM/design meetings, I'm guilty as hell of that, but I recognize when whoever is running the meeting is shutting me up so others can speak and appreciate it.

For in-person meetings, I am constantly watching for people who raise their hands or try to get a word in. If necessary, I cut the people monopolizing the conversation and make sure those people get a chance to speak. For the wallflowers at the meeting I make sure to reserve some time at the end when people who haven't spoken get a chance to speak up.

For online meetings (Skype), the manager has to watch time and interrupt people where necessary. It is very easy someone to go on a monologue during Skype meetings. Again, listening for people trying to get a word in is the managers responsibility.

Every now and then, a team gets an employee who is disruptive, constantly interrupting the flow and going off on tangents. For those employees, the manager has to bring the non-productive behavior to their attentive offline and suggest changes. In extreme cases, where the behavior persists and is ruining the team environment, that person has to leave the company.

In short, your manager is responsible. Talk to him/her.

Have some kind of object that a person holds while they're talking. While the person is holding the object no one else is allowed to speak. Once they're finished speaking the object is passed to the next person and they get their turn (if they want).

The object can be anything, but when I've seen this strategy used it was a rubber ball a bit smaller than a soccer ball. Something big enough that everyone can see who is holding it, not something small enough to be hidden in a hand.

As long as the person running the meeting introduces the strategy well, and maintains its rules, it should work. You might get a little bit of backlash from people that think it's demeaning, but you'll probably find that they're the ones doing the interrupting.

(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Token_ring) in Networks.

I've had limited good luck dealing with them by asking a lot of questions, Socrates-style. Really pinning them down. Particularly if I have an opposing solution that answers my own questions better. This helps highlight the difference between the people that have legitimately put in a lot of thought, and the bloviators.

There's one person I've worked with that has me stumped though. They start talking, and then they trail off... not quite mid-sentence, enough so that you think they're done. And then I respond, but they immediately continue their thought, rapid-fire like they're pouncing.

Person: "and the JWT token doesn't have that field, so..."

(2-3 seconds elapse)

Me: "Well, I think we can handl--"

Person: "SO-I-DON'T-THINK-THAT-WE-CAN (etc etc)"

It's so weird, they don't continue their thought until I start responding. Every time it plays out like I feel like I'm the one that was interrupting, even though I know I'm not.

I don’t think this is a reasonable style to deal with and for my part I’m trying to make my thoughts more concise before sharing them. Just don’t take it personally?

Alternately, "let me know when you decide how to handle it."

Or maybe that person is using you for rubber duck debugging[0] and you're not fulfilling your part, in which case buy him a rubber duck.

[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubber_duck_debugging

And it’s not like she starts talking right when the other person starts, no, the other person is almost done their first sentence and she talks over them.

I have to laugh at it or it will drive me bonkers.

Even better, you make the timer be the talking stick. Every time you hand off the timer, you reset it for the next person. They say their piece and reset/handoff to the next person.

I've done this for daily standups/sprint meetings where things were getting out of control, it works well.

Usually the team learns from the tools and the tools naturally stop being used when they are no longer needed.

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 them and redirect the flow of the discussion.

However, if that person going on and on is the most senior person, then sitting there and listening and humouring them is your job.

Seniority is a matter of job description. My job as a senior engineer involves driving alignment on the design and implementation of features. When I run meetings, they have an agenda and concrete outputs. If someone derails the meeting, I will politely but forcefully run them over. When that bubbles up into an interpersonal conflict, as it sometimes does, I'm again, polite but forceful.

I know what my job is, and I hold myself accountable for getting it done.

The only time I've been openly rude to someone was a Senior Principal at AWS who thought derailing 12+ engineer meetings to rant about unrelated topics was an acceptable use of time. The rudeness was probably uncalled for, but it got the job done and was (surprisingly) well received.

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.

I started using a whiteboard for all our meetings. For whatever issue we were discussing, I would first write it down. I then proceeded to function as a moderator. Whenever one of my colleagues wanted to interrupt, I made sure to keep him/her at bay by pointing out that I wanted to let other colleague finish first. Whenever one of them would drift away from the main issue, I would point out to the topic on the whiteboard and emphasize that we needed to keep the conversation focused on that issue.

It worked wonders.

In general, I've noticed that having a "meeting leader" that keeps the meeting on track with the agenda and functions as a moderator really improves the quality of the meetings and even makes them shorter.

But to your point, I personally just confront the person who keeps interrupting me: - Hey, can you stop talking over me and let me finish my thought? - Dude, you're wrong, and talking over people won't make your argument better.

That being said, I'm sometimes the one interrupting when people keep babbling on and on, and the manager (or meeting lead) doesn't do their job. I try to do it politely by redirecting discussion to the point or summarizing the decision, but sometimes I need to force it and be a bit rude. I don't like doing that, but when you see people starting to roll their eyes or look at their phone, someone needs to step in.

Having a clear agenda with a meeting lead also help to keep the discussion on point while giving a chance to everyone to express their thoughts. If there are bullies, the meeting lead can shut them down.

When the manager or meeting lead is the one being a jerk, then it's obviously tricky. Depending on the culture, you can either politely redirect discussion to the point, summarize the decisions... or just don't attend the meeting. If asked why, can be honest and say you keep being interrupted and might as well work on something else if they don't want to hear your thoughts.

The problem was me, and that I was boring to listen to.

I worked on making my statements shorter, funnier, getting better at analogies so people could follow along with a picture in their heads (especially when speaking to non technical people about technical issues), and by promising something interesting in the first sentence and then not giving that info until the end of my statement.

I don't use all those techniques all the time, but every time I take over a big group conversation I will be conscientiously thinking about doing one of them. It's been 5-6 years of effort and I went from extremely boring to now being consistently asked to give presentations because people think my speaking is entertaining.

I also always played devils advocate, and presented the best case from both sides of an argument whenever a big decision was being discussed. I stopped doing that completely and don't share my inner debates. Everyone has their own and they don't need to be informed by yours.

People just want new interesting information + plans for action with strong reasoning briefly summarized.

If all your statements are like the following, you will find people cutting you off less and less...

"I found X that you will never believe! And after spending all day analyzing this new information I recommend we quickly adopt Y before disaster happens. Any questions?"

Beyond that, if you've got something important to point out that others are missing then you can jump in with a dominant attitude and make the point quickly and then sit back and fade away and let the conversation go where it will.

Timing is important but starting with something like "I think we need to consider..." or "you're missing something important here" loud enough to be heard can draw the focus to you quickly.

Once you've made your point stop talking. It will either be ignored, dismissed, or discussed. If they ask you to expand give them all you got but don't get frustrated if it gets ignored or dismissed. Bring it up again in a private conversation later with whomever really needs to know and give them time to let it sink in.

If someone cuts you off you can always pop back in by starting with something like "We still need to consider..."

Back to not giving a shit. You do your best work no matter what. That's what you get paid for, but you do the work the way they want it done and don't take it personal if they ignore you when you know have a better way. That really doesn't have to matter to you at all.

I feel that's a useful test to use as well before talking in a meeting: is what I'm about to say something that really needs to be said here and now?

So I've learned to stop interrupting people. They're only going to listen to what I say once they're done saying what they need to. Without at least one side listening to the other, the conversation will go no where.

From there, the problem is when one person won't give others a chance to speak. On my team, we raise a hand to let the person speaking know that someone wants to get a word in. This works very well in my experience.

One thing that helped me was to understand the motivations of those involved. It's easy to think somebody is rude, or showing off, but fortunately I started from a place of deep respect for the capabilities of everyone in my group, and eventually a great affection for them. I saw that we had a few individuals who, if they weren't interrupting, it meant they weren't interested. After I realized this, I started to prize the guy practically jumping out of his chair to take over what I was saying, because it meant he was engaged and excited by it.

Nevertheless, I did often think about the effect on people who might be less self-confident than me, or quieter (we had a lot of students passing through in those days). In the end, if I needed to be heard, I could raise my own voice just as effectively as anybody else in the group -- but not everybody can do that.

It came to a head one group meeting, when a foreign researcher came to present some results. His presentation effectively ended after a few slides, because it got derailed by the back-and-forth of the "audience". I was really steaming and embarrassed.

He agreed to come back the following week, so I sent round an e-mail saying we had all better be on good behavior. I told the group I would bring three notebooks -- one green, one yellow, and one red. The meeting would start with the green one on top of the stack, and if I got annoyed, I would move the yellow one to the top. If the red one came to the top, I would -- well, I don't remember what I threatened, but it couldn't have been very scary, since I had no power.

In the event, the green notebook stayed on top. Not only was the group on strictly respectful behavior for the presenter, but I think it got better generally for a long time afterwards. I think seeing how that behavior affected an outsider gave everybody a little pause, and made us see ourselves better. But again, I think the details of this anecdote show what a great group of people these were. As a junior team member, I felt able to express and act on my disappointment, and everybody listened and tried to accommodate me.

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 idea instead of cooperating to lay out all ideas. If you need to, go buy a damn ruler, label it the talking stick, and whoever holds it gets to talk. Preferably before getting to that point, have a conversation with your peers that the deliberative process is a cooperative one - it's not about winning and losing, it's about everyone putting out their possible solutions and working together to build the right one.

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.

You know the type, that talks for 10 minutes and you still have no clue what the point is or where it will lead to.

The thing is: there are many reasons why people interrupt other people and they might be completely different.

In my case you probably would in the best case react with something like: “Wait, let me summarize my point” and then proceed to do precisely that.

Some people might shut you down, some might get excited by the thoughts your contribution envokes in then. Some might just hate it that they are not in the spotlight.

If you know the reason, you know how to react to it.

If you get pushback when doing this, I'm sorry you're experiencing that. My recommendation would be to find a new job, unfortunately.

1. Ask a person who has cut you off in a recent conversation for a 1 on 1 conversation. Tell them about the recent conversation and what happened from your perspective. Ask them for advice on what you can do to have your voice heard more.

2. Ask a third party who is typically in those conversations that you get cut off in (but isn’t the one who cuts you off) for a 1 on 1 conversation. Explain to them what is happening and ask them for their advice. — not only will you get some advice but they might change their behavior to discourage others from cutting you off

3. Next time you get cut off remember what you just said, the details of how you said it, and the topic at hand and write it down. After you do that a few times take a look at the data you gathered and see if you can find any noticeable patterns — may you were getting off topic or maybe you had a snarky tone, etc.

4. Determine what your need is and explore other ways to have it met. If your need is to feel as if your opinions are heard, consider that in person technical conversations are just one way to meet that need. Another way might be a written proposal or Slack conversation. Or maybe you could run a more structured meeting that is run in a way that protects against people getting cut off (e.g. time assigned specifically for generating several different options)

As for solutions: * Establish a protocol for raising attention that someone has input before the speaker is done; like raising your hand * Use a talking stick

Non-solutions: * Calling someone out for interrupting you might foster hostility. Instead, during a retrospective or something similar, raise a concern that generically people are having a hard time completing their thoughts because they keep getting cut off.

I haven't tried this myself, but it might help to question the person doing it as being potentially overcaffeinated in the moment. Maybe it can be done playfully, without being combative. Something like "Man, how much coffee did you drink today? You're out of control."

Also, it's kind of an arms race if this is what's going on. What you can do is caffeinate yourself and fight fire with fire, if you don't mind a caffeine dependence.

Caffeine is like a mild form of cocaine. It similarly tends to make people arrogant, overconfident, loud, impatient, obnoxious, talkative, and over eager.

At my last office position, which was in SF, I absolutely hated most of the social interactions because people were abusing caffeine like a pile of junkies. The lunchroom had a dedicated corner full of coffee making apparatuses and scales, it was completely ridiculous. There was enough equipment for half a dozen people to freshly gravity drip coffee simultaneously into their cups.

I basically don't use caffeine at all, and it was simply impossible to tolerate communicating with most of the employees in any serious topic. They would just go a million miles an hour and bulldoze right over my entirely sober state. Rather than try match their energy level and agressiveness I'd just walk away and engage virtually on IRC/slack/github instead.

SF in general strikes me as a city full of addicts. In the office people were largely high on caffeine, and outside the office they would get drinks nearly every day after work. It's definitely not for everybody, and I had a better experience in this regard working in Silicon Valley (Mountain View).

Lately, I've been doing the opposite. If I have a thought, I wait until the end up what's being said. If they barrel into another topic without waiting, I'll simply start talking and tell them my thoughts on the last topic that they so hastily abandoned.

Occasionally I'll forget what I was going to say because there was so much going on. In those instances, I simply don't worry about it. No matter how important it was, it'll either come up later or we'll deal with it eventually somehow.

That all said, there's one thing I will interrupt. When a person says the same thing repeatedly, even in different ways, I feel compelled to stop them and keep the conversation moving. Anyone that doesn't understand can ask for clarification. There's no need to repeat things.

So if someone makes a loud assertion you know is wrong, ask a series of leading questions like a trial lawyer would that takes them down the path of realizing it's wrong (or at least takes everyone else listening down that path).

Second, check out the book The Gentle Art of Verbal Self Defense [1]. It may help.

Third, are you a woman perchance? This is an especially common problem for women. If so, find a company with a better culture. They're out there, and not worth your energy to try and change this one.

[1]:https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/133203.The_Gentle_Art_of...

1. Abject rudeness or lack of a culture that values social graces (usually the "hacker"/"power player" mentality). Usually can't be solved except from the top, but not as common.

2. Time pressure. The rudest meetings in my current workplace happen when the meeting is ill-formatted (like a design review meeting that has nothing posted beforehand that only lasts 1 hour and is expected to get a stamp at the end). The time pressure for some people to get their points or feedback across results in a total loss of empathy.

3. Lack of any moderation or management. If nobody is in control of any meeting, it leaves it to the loudest voices, who sometimes won't give space for others to talk.

There's no magic to it, no reliance on a corporate directive, or gimmick like a talking stick or hacky sack. You just directly address the other persons behaviour.

But after the third time, when she interrupted, I just continued (louder than her), "As I was saying, the way the tech works is..."

She didn't interrupt me again. (Of course, I didn't say much more in the meeting once I said what I needed to...) I don't remember whether she interrupted anyone else after that.

Incidentally, that was in the bay, and I've had better experiences elsewhere - purely anecdotal.

If someone repeatedly interrupts me without need in a conversation, then I will get annoyed with them, consciously ignore their interruptions and finish my thoughts, even if they keep talking. This usually sounds unintelligible to everyone involved. Once they are done trying to talk over me, I'll ask them a question relating to something I just said, which makes two points: 1. Now it's their turn to talk, and 2. They don't know what I just said because they were talking when it was not their turn to do so.

If it's a problem, raise it and propose a change in the meeting process. Ask for someone (or volunteer) that keeps track of the meeting agenda and makes people accountable.

IMO adding process that helps structure conversation in places where it's not happening naturally helps tremendously. There's some friction initially, but if implemented correctly, benefits appear really early on.

This takes some amount of guts, but I am yet to experience anyone not allowing me to finish my point.

In "brainstorming" or problem solving meetings, instead of everyone going silent and then the loudest guy getting an idea, try briefly breaking up the meeting from say 6 people into 3 groups of 2. Discuss for 2 minutes and then present the conclusions to the whole group.

Let the interrupter do his thing, then go "Alright John Doe, you were saying X Y Z?" He'll start his train of thought again, and if someone tries to interrupt, cut them off and say "Hold on let John Doe finish answering my question". You come out looking professional to interrupters, the interrupted likes you more, _and_ you start to change the behavior that annoys you, without you being the bad guy. win-win-win

And what if they are chosing wrong solution? If you are sure and have a moment of silence, usually after every noisy person understood the solution and is content with it, present one specific bulletproof counterexample. Might earn you deep thinker badge and love-hate relationship with the rest of the team.

And if they pick wrong solution anyways or you don't have an opportunity to pitch in. Relax. Not your circus, not your monkeys. It might come out ok in the end. Or you might still get to be a hero during recovery from this effup. And your team might get more billable hours which is good for you and your team. Not so good for your employer but that's the failure of development process he set up. You are not responsible to plug holes in the process.

This attitude will make you more relaxed and happier and have better relationship with the rest of the team. Your output will improve and you'll have more chances to infect noisy people with your ideas via 1 on 1 watercooler conversations and in the meetings just watch how they do the hard part of promoting your idea for you. Your employer might even get benefit from you not trying your hardest to represent him in the meetings.

There should also probably be a time limit as well.

I have coworkers who constantly talk over each other in meetings. Bringing this up as a problem in weekly team meetings, one-on-ones with manager (she's one of them) and any other review meetings has been somewhat successful.

Team discussions are a competition of views and attention for space to express them and can be chaotic. Exploring

1. Verbal strategies - some have pointed out couple in the thread

2. Preparation of what you want to say - and framing the negatives strongly and the positives of your argument confidently

3. Seeding - Doing the groundwork and preparation before the discussion itself. Talking to your team members about your ideas and gauging they're reactions - in a way reading the room, and planting your idea so it's not out of the blue at the discussion

There's more but it's down to you. It's probably what you don't want to hear. You'll have to improve the way you communicate within discussions or learn how to influence the leaders and decision makes of the group outside the chaotic conversations.

I'm like you in a way but you've got to choose your battles.

For instance, over a meeting invite, letting everyone know the agenda and the rules of engagement would go a long way in setting the expectations beforehand. You might even set rules of engagement generally enough for all meetings instead of just yours... of course, then, expect to work on the feedback from all quarters, but that's manageable. It might also stand to surprise you the number of people that might be supportive of such a thing because it makes future meetings productive and approachable for them.

That said, some teams do have dynamics where a few powerful personalities by the virtue of their position in the team or their closeness to the management drain out all other voices in the room, as it were. This is a different ball-game since it involves power struggle which you'd eventually lose. A couple of ways I know to out manuver is to:

1. Show up in the meeting prepared with facts beforehand.

2. Do a post-meeting commentary on the meeting notes or talking points with a view to encourage further discussion, over email or wikis or docs.

Regardless, your comments may be ignored. Don't take it too hard, but know that you were heard loud and clear, fwiw. Rest of your team most certainly isn't turning a blind-eye.

Sometimes I say in the same voice... Hold on a tick Moira, I think Francis is trying to make a point.

Moira in our organisation is a meetings pest, she speaks without listening and speaks often.

Just be polite, don't let the conversation move on, and advocate for others who are spoken over. "I didn't hear Josh, Josh can you please repeat that"

Please let me finish.

Excuse me, I wasn't done with my point.

Jen, were you trying to say something?

I'll address that as soon as I'm done with what I was saying.

Hold on, let me just finish what I was saying.

I was one of the people who "most disagreed" and my "opponent" got to go first. I had to listen to her for 3 minutes or so. At the end of her speaking time, I assumed that I would get to go BUT _I had to repeat what she'd been saying_.

It was an incredibly enlightening moment, it pointed out very clearly that really, most of the time I wasn't listening to what she was saying, I was trying to work out how to rebut what she'd said.

I also hate it when people talk over me, I do wonder how well they're listening or if they're just trying to get their point across.

I'll follow this thread, thanks for asking the question.

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...

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expressions_of_dominance

Solution: moderation. When a person is interrupted, the moderator interjects and asks the interrupted person to finish the idea.

If the interruptions persist, adjourn the meeting.

Participants who respect each other observe The Cocktail Party Protocol, which is so obvious it's enshrined in silicon: when you sense that the shared medium is available, you may begin transmission. If you discover that somebody else has also done so, back off for a short randomly variable interval and then try again. Multiple simultaneous transmissions are well understood to be a degenerate case to be avoided, with participants who fail to follow protocol regarded as defective and, in at least one case I've seen, tagged with error code BABBLING_TRANSMITTER.

SEE ALSO: CSMA/CD

Interruption is a weird thing that is both cultural and personal. I spent a lot of time overseas conversing with people in languages other than English, and with people who spoke English as a second language. During those years I became completely comfortable never being interrupted and never interrupting.

Then I came back to America and at first found the “interrupting culture” to be UNBELIEVABLY rude. It really really rankled me for multiple months. I didn’t interrupt people so why the hell were they interrupting me??

...and then I became comfortable interrupting people again. Now things are fine. I’m not saying this is the perfect solution to your problem, but it’s definitely ONE solution.

Focus on being concise and formulating your thoughts while everyone else is hashing things out - then jump in with your clearly articulated thoughts at the end.

A lot of the time it seems people get cut off because they ramble.

Now that there's an official record of the discussion in written, you can take your time writing well-thought-out responses. The format discourages heated circular rebuttals, since it then becomes obvious when an argument is a thinly disguised paraphrasing of a previous one, and people can get a chance to sleep on an idea and change their minds. The format also lets the team flesh out several topics in parallel rather than disrupting each topic half way through with tangents.

Once people are more accustomed to the idea of writing down their arguments, you can formalize the process into a Request-for-Comment (RFC) process.

One simple way to reduce the frustration and make it more bearable for you is to send your point across by email to everyone involved later on that day, it works for me.

How bad is it? Maybe at your workplace is especially bad, if that is the case and it's bothering you, it's probably a good time to leave.

Some people think they know it all, can't shut up and are literally incapable of listening to others. Some people just think while they talk, feel the need to fill the blanks of conversations constantly, etc.

As long as you give your input or send your point across in whatever form, in person or by email at least you feel better for sure.

Unfortunately, we can't all speak at the same time. When I'm interrupted, if I'm focused enough to continue and the interruption doesn't bring up an obvious error, I apologize, take back the mic and continue my monologue.

If I'm not focused enough that I lose my train of thought as I was interrupted, I take notes and go back to it at a later point in the conversation. It is very important that you are persistent.

One thing that helps me focus is to have my notes in front of me before the conversation begins, so I can continue making my points or interrupt someone else with one of my points.

It's annoying and probably unfair to have to do this of course, and honestly takes more practice than I thought it would to recognize this situation is happening and remember to deploy it.

More generally, this is now something I try to pay attention to while interviewing at companies. I don't need to be in a struggle every time I have a conversation or make a point.

Took me years to painfully wean myself from the habit when talking with my wife, who objected strongly (as she should).

The intelligent ones have a lot to say, and worry they forget, so they want to edge in a few of that "block" chain before it's lost.

The stupid ones are simply rude and don't care about your feelings.

Step1: identify from other clues, what type you are dealing with.

Step2: if intelligent, let them finish their speech. Then ask: "are you finished?" Then ask for uninterrupted talk time. You can be humorous about it. For instance: "if the urge to cut me off hits you, take notes while I am speaking." If they took notes, ask them to rephrase what you just told them.

If the stupid type, you can cut them off, too. It is okay to be fair.

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?

Try Dissensium (https://dissensium.herokuapp.com/), a smooth project that I create for fun.

Why ? Because I'm drive about by the same problem in my recent work.

So, Dissensium allows you to create anonymous online meeting about conversations or problems with your team mates. Each person can propose a solution and each person can vote on each. The facts show us that anonymity break the rules of human domination and especially that everyboby can have a nice idea. Then, allow to each participant to vote on each solution is better constructive.

So, you can try something like this. . .

What are some tactics you're currently using? Do you wait for silence and jump back to a prior point in the conversation? Do you use phrases like "I'm not on board because of X", thus forcing the conversation to revolve around your dissent? Which ones seem to work better than others?

I like this approach in general - while being cut off isn't that much of a concern to me, not forgetting half of the points I was trying to make and presenting them in the most understandable way is. Writing helps a lot with these goals.

Whenever I have more substantial and extensive thoughts and ideas to bring up I'd post a message on a relevant Basecamp project/team and invite everyone to discuss it.

How I combat it is email and networking with the team. After a meeting where I couldn’t get a word in, ill follow up with an email laying out the pros and cons of what was talked about as well as the pros and cons of my own ideas. I’ll then have one on ones with other team members to see if there’s any buy in. If not I drop it. If so, I find that my team members will start giving the loud guy pushback on his ideas.

i can totally understand your frustrations and this seems to be affecting you personally, but i think you should do some root cause analysis before you jump to conclusions, jumping to conclusions also burns a lot of mental energy. instead, just go have a conversation in private about what you think, not about being interrupted, but about your technical ideas, if he/she's really an asshole and just wants to drown you out, you should be able to tell from a private conversation, my guess is that the person gains more respect for you. if you have trouble articulating your thoughts in real time, write it down, send an email. dont guess what's at play here, find out the truth. if the people suck, switch environments, there are plenty of great companies out there.

There are numerous examples cited in the book and around the web on how this streamlines discussions (and also gives everyone a chance to chip in from different angles).

Be the person who does this. That way when...

B. Tell them "I am speaking, do not cut me off."

You then don't look like an asshole. You have an ethical principle you stand by for yourself and for others. You'll find very few people will attempt to you off.

It's what I started doing. Has worked pretty well in the past 6 or so years. It's better than being a victim.

When I do this, I'm not intending to stop the speaker, or even to speak over them; the goal is to demonstrate that my understanding is synchronized with what they're saying. It's a tool to improve communication, not to disrupt it.

I sometimes get the impression that 50% of people do this naturally, and 50% hate it and interpret it as interruption.

I can relate because I was taught to respect people and wait for them to finish what they were saying but in some environments they’ll just talk continuously as a tactic to prevent you from saying your opinion and dominating the discussion.

What ever you do, don't lose your cool. You will not help yourself by saying "hey jackass, I was speaking, so shut your pie hole (mouth)." [1]

[1] Source: Used to lose my cool. It did not help. But therapy did :)

For what it's worth, I don't think this is generally a Bay Area norm. Most of the teams I've worked on have been pretty patient, respectful communicators. But it is definitely a norm in some places.

I was listening to this episode on the Knowledge project https://fs.blog/celeste-headlee/ not too long ago, and it got me to really stop and think about how I converse.

I wonder why a big SV company is not following this already ?

Meetings are surprisingly more pleasant now.

In case your teamates are self-help fans, you might casually drop in as many conversations as possible that "Seek to understand, before being understood" is Covey's habit n°5 ;)

Good luck !

I don't like interrupters any more than the next person, but i consider myself an adult and want to work with adults -- I can't imagine needing a babysitter like this.

Do you also have opinion, that generally working with adults one does not need a manager or a superior? Managers manage people, they should manage meetings.

Being soft spoken is not embedded in your personality permanently.

I received feedback that I needed to give more room to others in technical discussions, and it was some of the most valuable feedback I have received, because it was a shortcoming of mine that I was unaware of.

Maybe the people cutting you off are well-meaning, but they just need to be made aware of their behaviour?

I haven't found a good way around it yet.

Thank you so much for posting this.

This way you just name what they did without giving it too much weight or judgement.