No, taking turns speaking is its own reward, just like speeding a conversation along via interruptions is it's own reward.
If I have something complex, I have to write it out, if only to prove my work/logic. At least text tends to last longer, spread wider, and be more useful than any conversation.
I have found that in practice whether speakers assume their listeners understand them is a separate question from whether they tend to interrupt or not, however.
The most efficient and effective conversations in my experience are 1:1, with two speakers who both explicitly verify that the other person understands their meaning and is using the same definitions of words, and have some kind of efficient protocol for working backwards from a misunderstanding or gap in knowledge as soon as one pops up. There has to be enough trust involved that both interlocutors are willing to quickly and freely admit when they don’t know something or don’t understand an argument.
Many of us resorted to talking over him until he noticed, stopped, and let us reply. Surprisingly impervious to interruption.
Combined with their lack of experience, I can imagine that would be frustrating to be around.
That's not what the article proposes:
DOCTRINES OF THE CHURCH OF STRONG CIVILITY
1. Thou shalt not interrupt.
2. Thou shalt speak briefly.
3. Thou shalt use physical cues to indicate your understanding and desire to speak.
==
That said, what's wrong with listening to someone, asking questions if you require more understanding?
Another way of looking at all this: what makes you think that what you have to say is so important that it can't wait for someone to even finish their sentence?
(Note that “briefly” can sometimes be a rather extended argument, if it happens to be irreducibly complicated. The point is that it isn’t over-elaborated, not that it must be short.)
This works if people always ask for clarification when they don’t understand, but in my experience that’s pretty rare, and often a poor assumption; while this style is eminently polite, it sometimes leads to severe miscommunication when there was a fundamental difference in definitions or premises that neither person recognized.
In a preemptive model, each process just does its thing until it gets interrupted by the scheduler, and then then that process does its thing until it gets interrupted in turn. This is the "church of interruption" model. Its the responsibility of the other (scheduler / person) to signal to you (via an interrupt) when your turn is over.
But in the cooperative multitasking model, its the responsibility of the speaker to hand the baton back. It is vulnerable to a single person / process dominating the whole space by talking / running forever. And this is totally what happens when the two cultures meet - I have a friend who is 100% church of interruption. I came back from a retreat feeling calm and peaceful. We talked on the phone for a few hours the next day and I patiently waited for him to be done before I replied - which took about 3 hours. He was vaguely confused / annoyed at me for doing that. Apparently it simply didn't occur to him that if he wanted to know my thoughts he might need to ask me for them.
In the cooperative multitasking world, the golden rule is that all programs should run for a short amount of time then yield back to the scheduler so it can run something else. Its not so cut and dry for humans - I think "speak briefly" is a lossy summary of the rule because it often makes sense for one person to do most of the talking in a conversation. But in the "strong civility" culture its the responsibility of the speaker to be aware of tracking that, and usually do so only with the blessing of the group. Taking all the air in the room is a faux pas.
I wonder whether/when we would see meeting software including "karma" feature so people could just "-1" and move forward without wasting time/effort, though "-1"ing say your manager, even if anonymously ... :)