Comment by closeparen | Hacker News Reader

Comment by closeparen | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

Alice makes a multipart statement about topics one and two.

Bob replies to topic two and starts to segue to topic three.

Carol has something important to say about topic one.

What is Carol supposed to do? Let the entire chain play out, then transition back to topic one when there's an opening? I know people can be bitter about interruption, but in my experience you get a prompt and decisive smackdown for trying to backtrack, especially when pressed for time. It seems important to get your point in while it's relevant. Interruption of the form, "hey, before we move on, can we talk about X" seems to be the way do that.

How would you handle this situation?

I'm especially interested in this, because interruption and other conversational "traffic control" flow much less naturally on international video conferences, and our remote meetings tend to be stressful and chaotic messes. Short of a formal, parliamentarian moderator, it's not clear how to make these better.

I think I would try to impose some structure and possibly have an actual moderator.

I basically moderate an in person meeting once a month (though my title is chair, not moderator). I'm supposed to keep things on topic, curtail problematic behavior and try to get us out of there on time. I also take written notes.

How you do that depends on a variety of factors, including the personalities involved.

So I would think about recurrent problematic patterns and try to resolve those.

Is the problem that Alice is prone to being long winded and talking about many things?

Is the problem that Bob routinely jumps in to say something about X, then just takes over the conversation, going wherever he so desires?

Etc.

So, some things that might help:

1. A written agenda for the meetings. You discuss topic A. Everyone gets their say. You check if everyone has said their piece before you move on to topic B.

2. You lay some ground rules that address specific problems you've noticed. Don't single anyone out, even if it's primarily one person guilty of doing it. Just write up a policy saying "We will not be doing x. We will do a, b and c."

3. Name a specific person who is supposed to keep the meeting on track. Part of that role includes helping make sure everyone gets to participate in a satisfactory manner.

4. Plan time at the end of the meeting for random comments, people returning to a point from earlier, etc.

This is great. We have written agendas but they're usually, "we will be discussing these three documents in this order" not an itemized list of concerns. The itemized list is dynamic depending on what comes up in the conversation. Do you try to solicit more granularity from participants beforehand to build into the agenda, or how does that work?

People who want topics added to the list can email me beforehand.

We typically go through the agenda and then talk a bit more generally afterwards. As long as it doesn't go too far afield or get too contentious, I'm tolerant of meandering topics for the last part of the meeting.

If it gets contentious and it's not really germaine, I try to say something like "This is getting really deep in the weeds about a thing we have no control over." and redirect conversation back to pertinent topics.

There is a big difference between large group meetings and face-to-face conversations between 2–3 people.

In a large group meeting it might help to have a semi-formal agenda and make sure each item is finished before moving on. Getting everyone to read prepared written documents might also help.

Yes, this. Agenda with a “last call” before taking up next topic.

Carol has to let it go. Worst thing to do is interrupt the current flow. She will come across as a "Barker" like she had sat there not listening to what Alice or Bob had to say and was just thinking about what she wanted to say about topic one the whole time.

Best thing to do is wait until the end and circle back with a question that leads into discussing topic one. Doing this you immediately relinquish control of the conversation, and when appropriate say your thoughts.

Otherwise, just let it go. Is it going to kill you to not say it?

I read a good summary once of analysing the thought process:

- Does this need to be said?

- Does this need to be said by me?

- Does this need to be said by me now?

Which are good questions to ask when interrupting the flow of a conversation.

Your view is extremely simplistic and just doesn't reflect the sophistication of any abstract and complex conversation.

Especially if the topic at hand is a new territory with a lot of unknown unknowns. If no-one ever explicitly says that "OK, we covered topic one and now we move on to topic two. Is there anyone who wants to add comments?", then the conversation was not very civil, was not yet over, and whoever organized the meeting was an amateur, and let the worst thing happen: Alice and Bob change topics for no reason, instead of stopping them short.

You're reading a lot into what was a fairly simple scenario with no mention of what the topics were. It came across as being an informal meeting with no agenda, moderator or stated outcomes.

About all we can assume from the scenario are the power dynamics. Alice spoke first which says it's either her meeting or she is the ranking person there - not Carol.

If it was a meeting to address the potential critical failure of a system that Carol is the most knowledgeable about, then yes, she should speak up. It could be potentially negligent to not do so, but most meetings are not that.

>Is it going to kill you to not say it?

It means a decision will be made without Carol's information that she'll have to live with, potentially hampering her ability to deliver something she's accountable for. If her manager finds out she knew something important and held onto it out of politeness, that'll come up in the leadership/collaboration section of her next review. If her manager doesn't know that she knew, it'll look like a hard skills problem.

>Best thing to do is wait until the end and circle back with a question that leads into discussing topic one.

Maybe this is a quirk of my meeting culture, but the success rate here is approximately zero.

>Does this need to be said by me?

This is a good one keep in mind, I do sometimes find that the point I've been hanging onto eventually gets said by someone else, and it's really satisfying.

> Maybe this is a quirk of my meeting culture, but the success rate here is approximately zero.

Is this a power dynamic, time limitation or an adherence to not backtrack?

I find when talking with computer people, just saying "if I could move a few layers back up the stack" let's you backtrack to problem 1 if you want. This only works if you have people who understand the idea of the conversation as a stack.

I've had a group of colleagues where we would at a point say "ok, pop, pop, pop". That meant this same thing.

I find the response is always, "we have limited time and we need to move on."

Carol needs to raise her hand when Bob moves to topic 3. A raised hand signal seems to transcend cultures, and it lets the speakers and all listeners know you have something important to say but you're being polite and letting them finish.

And if the speaker/chair ignores you, it makes them look rude.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com