Interrupting someone is best way to handle a boring conversation

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella asked his execs to read
Marshall B. Rosenberg’s “Nonviolent Communication” when he became
CEO in 2014.
AP

• Interrupting people may seem impolite, but it’s the best way
  to inject life into a boring conversation.
• That’s one of the points in “Nonviolent Communication,” a
  book that Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella made his senior leadership
  team read when he took over in 2014.
• “The best time to interrupt is when we’ve heard one word more
  than we want to hear,” author Marshall B. Rosenberg wrote.

There are few things more uncomfortable at a party than getting
stuck in a lifeless, one-sided conversation.

If you’ve found yourself in one of these dull interactions, you
know how hard it can be to change the subject or make a graceful
exit. Meanwhile, mentioning how bored you could hurt the feelings
of your conversation partner.

But that’s exactly what one expert recommends to inject life into
a dead conversation.

Psychologist Marshall B. Rosenberg wrote in his 2003 book
“Nonviolent
Communication” that interrupting someone can be a powerful
conversational tool that leads to more shared empathy between
people.

In his book, Rosenberg argues that communication breaks down when
people fail to articulate their needs and feelings. Microsoft CEO
Satya Nadella famously
made the members of his senior leadership team read the book
when he took over in 2014.

“Our intention in interrupting is not to claim the floor for
ourselves, but to help the speaker connect to the life energy
behind the words being spoken,” Rosenberg writes in the book.

Read more: 
When
CEO Satya Nadella took over Microsoft, he started defusing its
toxic culture by handing each of his execs a 15-year-old book by
a psychologist

At one point, Rosenberg described a cocktail party he attended in
which he was “in the midst of an abundant flow of words that to
me seemed lifeless.” He decided to take matters into his own
hands:

“Excuse me,” Rosenberg said to the other members of his
conversation circle. “I’m feeling impatient because I’d like to
be more connected with you, but our conversation isn’t creating
the kind of connection I’m wanting. I’d like to know if the
conversation we’ve been having is meeting your needs, and if so,
what needs of yours are being met through it.'”

As might be expected, the other people in the group “stared at me
as if I had thrown a rat in the punch bowl,” Rosenberg wrote.
Recognizing their surprise, he asked the original speaker, “Are
you annoyed with my interrupting because you would have liked to
continue the conversation?”

His answer shocked him even more.

“No, I’m not annoyed,” the speaker said. “I was thinking about
what you were asking. And no, I wasn’t enjoying the conversation;
in fact, I was totally bored with it.”

Rosenberg said the experience taught him the value of
interrupting someone, even though it can be hard to muster the
courage to actually speak up. To remedy that, he recommends
chiming in before it’s too late. 

“I’d suggest the best time to interrupt is when we’ve heard one
word more than we want to hear,” Rosenberg wrote. “The longer we
wait, the harder it is to be civil when we do step in.”

He later conducted an informal survey asking people the following
question: “If you are using more words than somebody wants to
hear, do you want that person to pretend to listen or to stop
you?” All but one respondent said they preferred to be stopped,
he wrote.

“Their answers gave me courage by convincing me that it is more
considerate to interrupt people than to pretend to listen,” he
wrote. “All of us want our words to enrich others, not to burden
them.”

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