It's Often Difficult Not To Interrupt

Have you ever been in the situation where you knew you should not interrupt someone during a conversation or a telephone call, you tried to force yourself to not interrupt, yet you still ended up interrupting, anyway? As frustrating as this habit is for most people, it is even more frustrating to someone like me, who has been teaching "Z.T.L." or "zip the lip" to others, as part of sales training seminars that I have been conducting for three decades.

One would think, therefore, that I would resist that urge myself during conversations with others. While I have learned to "force myself" to resist that urge to interrupt during the sales presentation process, I still find myself interrupting others far too often during other circumstances.

In attempting to understand why most of us find an urge to interrupt others, I have decided that there are several factors involved, including:

(1) Frustration that the other party is not getting to the point. Many of us, especially me, find "beating around the bush" extremely disturbing, and a waste of our time.

(2) We often disagree with the other party and feel the basic premise of that party's "argument" is not "worthy of common courtesy."

(3) We sometimes feel that we are the best qualified to answer or respond to a certain situation or question, and find an "urge to get to the point."

(4) We often get upset about a specific situation, and somewhat lose self- control.

(5) It is often easier to resist the urge to interrupt when one is having a face-to-face conversation, than when we are on the telephone. It is even more difficult to avoid interrupting when one is involved in a conference call.

(6) Many people merely interrupt because we like to hear the sound of our own voice, far more than the resonance of other voices.

While my professional background and expertise teaches me that it is rarely constructive to interrupt, it is often very difficult to resist such an urge. I pledge to try to interrupt less often, yet I realize that there will be times that I will still find myself unable to resist. Unfortunately, until I only have conversations with people that I feel "bring something valuable to the conversation," I will probably continue interrupting others,