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Showing posts from September, 2019

How to Stop Interruptions in Conversations

     So you're sitting in a meeting, and you begin to answer a question that has been directed toward you by your boss.  You get through about half of your response when a colleague jumps in and offers his take and essentially silences you.  There is evidence that if you are a woman, this will happen to you more often than if you are a man, and it's likely to happen to you by both genders.      Interruptions in communications like this happen all the time whether you're in a group offering your opinion or one-on-one sharing a story.  Regardless of the setting, we all find it annoying and rude.  These disruptions of dialogue hamper thought processes, contribute to misunderstandings, and devalue people's input.  So what do we do when they keep happening to us?  A few worthy suggestions can be found in Kathryn Vasel's article,  "Next time someone interrupts you in a meeting, try this" .      But what if you're the one doing the interrupting?  I'