Are You an Interrupter in Virtual Meetings?

We’ve all been taught not to interrupt. And that still seems like good advice in our virtual world.

But with so many virtual meetings now, bad listening and speaking habits seem to be morphing. Should you try to interject when a meeting is dominated by one person? When they don’t pause, don’t take a breath, and their sentences are strung so tightly together, like taxis at a busy airport, should you wait patiently for an opening? You’ve taken time to come to this meeting and now you’re sitting silently. Your time is too valuable for this kind of treatment, isn’t it?

Is it ok to interrupt people in virtual meetings?

Before answering, there’s another question I think we should consider: Why are people in online meetings not pausing between sentences anymore?

The answer to this second question is easy. Talking without pauses is a conditioned response. Because it’s likely they’ve been interrupted once too often and now that they finally have the floor for just a second, they’re going to keep it by talking and stringing one sentence right into the next even when they have nothing to add but are still thinking and don’t want to give up the floor because if they do, it will be hard to get it back.

Now, to answer the first question. No. Your silence is important. Interrupting is still usually wrong unless the speaker has veered wildly off course (in which case, it’s the meeting moderator’s job to bring things back to topic).

Do you interrupt people in virtual meetings? Do you work with others who do?

If you’re struggling to keep from interrupting in a virtual meeting, what can you do to curb your impulse to be heard?

1. Take notes. This will give you something to do while you’re waiting. It will also enable the other person to finish fully. If you’re afraid you will forget what you were planning to contribute, jot that down too.

2. Keep your camera on. Watch the person who’s talking so you get the full meaning of what they’re saying. This will help them feel completely understood and become less conditioned to ramble on and on.

3. Be empathetic to the speaker. This person is fighting for airtime for whatever reason. Maybe they’re feeling left out. Maybe in the last meeting, they didn’t get to talk about their good ideas because louder voices dominated.

4. Pretend you’re interviewing the person on-camera and they’re answering. This suggestion from LinkedIn is interesting. The idea here is that if you imagine that the other person is being recorded, you don’t want your interruption to ruin the footage.

5. Use chat or raised hand features of the video conference you’re using. Sometime by asking a question, you can help the person to elaborate on what they’re saying, helping them to feel finished with their thoughts.

6. Remember that the value you bring may not be from your talking. Facilitating and asking questions so that someone else can elaborate is valuable.

7. If you are running the meeting, explain ground rules up front. Explain the knowledge each person brings to the meeting and that you want to hear from everyone. Ask participants to be cognizant of how much time they’re speaking and whether they’re staying on topic. Let those present know that you will be working to keep the conversation on topic.

Check the schedule for a workshop in your city and sign up for:  Communicating With Tact and Professionalism.

If you’re the person interrupted, experts tend to agree on the best course of action: Keep talking. While this will feel awkward, remember that you were the one who was interrupted. If someone jumps in as you pause, take back control by saying, “Great point, Jim, and now I’ll finish what I was saying.” This advice does come with a caveat: Be sure you’re not the one monopolizing discussion during online meetings.

Related post: Skilled Interrupting: Polite Ways to Keep Meetings and Conversations on Track.