Interrupting
when someone else is speaking is bad manners, bad form, rude, whatever. We don't like it when somebody does it to
us. They don't like it when we do it to
them. Unhappily, many of us don't even
realize we are doing it. My pal David says I have been interrupting since we
were in high school a thousand years ago. It is a very hard habit to break.
Why
do people interrupt others? The reasons vary but certainly include thinking we
have a more important point to make than the speaker. Sometimes we are trying to be helpful by
agreeing and then launching into an example of our own to reinforce the
speaker's thought. Once in a while we
view our own interruptions as public service to lessen the perceived (or real)
pain being inflicted on those already listening. In any case when we interrupt
we are thought of as someone who would rather speak than listen.
The
late Ed Roach was a masterful storyteller who often held court around the
better bars in Avalon, New Jersey. His
1000 watt smile plus familiarity with the names and faces of the crowd gave him
unbeatable weapons to deal with interrupters. “Let me finish this joke first,
Tony, then I'll turn the mic over to you so I can have good manners and
listen.”
A
conference speaker memorably dealt with an interruption by asking: “Sir, excuse
me, how did the Middle of my sentence run into the Beginning of
yours?”
I
don't usually watch morning television, but I learned a lot recently from the
cast of NBC's Today show. That
otherwise likable group simply could not control themselves when on camera
together. For a good bit of time every one was speaking at the same time,
talking over each other and robbing viewers of a clear message.
On
that day theirs was a showcase on how not to do it.
