One of the joys of teaching without notes is that I sometimes surprises myself by what I say.
It happened yesterday evening, when I was running a CPD session for the ICF Wales and Shropshire Coaches Group: an Introduction to the Thinking Environment. (For one participant's insightful reflections, see here).
I had given a brief overview of Attention, Equality and Ease, as the first three of the ten components that I wanted them to practice, and heard myself say: 'And interruptions, of course, violate all three of these.' I had never stated it quite that way before, but recognised that it was absolutely accurate.
Which led me to think further (and this is, in part why I love a Thinking Environment) after the session. Is there any of the components that Interruptions do not violate?
Clearly they assault appreciation, encouragement, and the full expression of feelings. But the others are less obvious and deserve unpacking.
I think interruptions also undermine the component of Difference; for often they take the form of agreement (yes, that happened to me!) which minimises difference in the search for comfortable commonality) or disagreement (no, what I think is...) which often fails to honour difference, but rather 'correct' the other.
Place is interesting: and my thinking here is that interruptions do attack place, as they shift the focus, or even locus (which means place) of attention from the thinker to the interrupter.
The component of Incisive question is perhaps less obviously attacked; but one way we understand generative listening is that it implicitly (and silently) asks the incisive question: if you knew that I believe you have more good thinking to do on this, what would you say? In that context, it is clear that interruptions violate that.
And that's the 9/10 of my title. Which leaves the component of Information. And frequently that is the content of the interruption: something the interrupter knows (or thinks) that he or she feels an urgent need to share with the thinker. But even in that instance, an interruption also impedes information: what would the thinker have said next if not interrupted. So perhaps it's nine and a half out of ten that interruptions sabotage. But that would have been a less snappy title!
What do you think?
