Once, in a Co-Active training session, INTERRUPTING was the key coaching skill I was assigned in a many-to-one coaching roleplay. I decided to go for it. I interrupted early, often and with boldness.

In the debrief, the group feedback was unanimous.

Everyone thought: Dan was WAY TOO EARLY with his interruptions. “I wanted to hear more of the story!” was the collective thought-in-the-moment. But as the exercise progressed, everyone came to see how much it SERVED the thinker to bring thoughtful and empowering interruption to the conversation.

I’m being a little braggadocious, here. So I’ll temper all this by saying (i) I was fortunate with the assignment of a skill I already like to lean into, and (ii) it didn’t go exactly to plan, every single time. But I share, because this is such a powerful lesson.

More often, we are taught simply NOT to interrupt. And at times, it might indeed by totally inappropriate. But if we throw out interruptions all together, we’re left with a whole other set of issues.

My belief: Oftentimes, you MUST interrupt. Oftentimes, it’s of SERVICE to the speaker who’s lost down their own rabbit hole.

If you want to bring the skill of thoughtful, purposeful interruption to your conversations and meetings, here are 5 options with which you can experiment.

🔸Interrupt by asking them to summarise.
“Could you bottom-line this for us?”

🔸Interrupt with a provocative question
“What does this mean for the project?”
(NOTE: this is not a question asking for more detail.)

🔸Interrupt by articulating what is happening in the story.
“Sounds like …”

🔸Interrupt with a request.
“Apologies. Can I make a request?”

🔸Announcing your intention to interrupt:
“I’m going to interrupt here with a question.”

HOW you bring these interruptions is crucial to their efficacy …

🔸You must come from a place of service.
🔸You must be focused on and serve the big picture.
🔸You must do this in a way that “looks after” the person.
🔸Your interruption must NOT be driven by impatience.

What has historically been the cost of no one in your group/team wanting to interrupt? What holds your group/team back from bringing a powerful interruption? And what could you and your group/team do to make interruption a permissible and highly-effective conversational habit?