Comment by rapjr9
3 years ago
I'm surprised no one here has mentioned the power dynamics of interruption. It is well known in psychology that interrupting anothers speech is a way to exert power. The boss can interrupt anyone, no one interrupts the boss. It's one of several types of interruption:
https://www.psychmechanics.com/psychology-of-interrupting/
Interrupting someone can say "I am more important than you". This can also cause failures to communicate since the boss can change the subject and the interrupted speaker may never get to finish their thought. I've seen projects fail because a boss intentionally interrupted people who were trending in a direction they did not want to go, squashing anyone who was pointing out a major flaw in the bosses plans, which resulted in building things in a bad way and then having the flaw manifest and cause the project to fail.
There are other types of interruption though that can be more supportive or more like parallel conversations. The efficiency of those often depends on the quality of the participants memory and ability to follow multiple threads simultaneously.
Without interruptions, I would not be able to finish meetings on time. EVER.
Information exchange is always the bottleneck in larger organizations, so efficiency of meetings is really important.
I will interrupt someone if I understood their point, and we have different, more pressing items on the agenda. It's not a power play, not psychological warfare or bullying. I just want to get shit done on time.
Companies with a waiting culture get things done on time. You might perceive interrupting as being more efficient but interrupting has its own set of inefficiencies.
Ok, next time an engineer on my team can't stop himself from talking about his SIMD lock-free distributed queue, I'll just keep listening. Maybe I get to sleep in the office too.
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If only my fraternity brothers understood this during our meetings. So many hours wasted on off-topic ranting or the entire chapter discussing issues that should’ve been settled in committee (or one malcontent stalling the committee’s report)
If workers can’t interrupt boss, then you’re in dysfunctional organization.
Perhaps if it is taken to the extreme. But it may be pretty efficient to have teams where workers only interrupt the boss when there is a strong reason to interrupt, and sparingly, especially if the team is gathered.
Especially if the boss came by the role as boss BECAUSE he/she is a good communicator.
Similarly with parents and small children, teachers and pupils or other situations with large asymmetries in competencies.
I see that you're describing many blue collar jobs then as dysfunctional. The power imbalance in many companies that rely on year's tenure means that juniors can be seen but never heard.
My thought exactly.
Obviously there ARE dynamics there, but they're not nearly that solid.