Please don’t interrupt - unless you’re a man

Jane, a pseudonym for a woman in one of our recent workshops, observed that the men in her office seemed to have no problem being interrupted by other men. However, when Jane or another woman interrupted these same men, watch out! This naturally infuriated Jane, and I sympathized with her. Michael then offered the following explanation to shed some light on, an otherwise, puzzling phenomenon.

In the Celebrating Men, Satisfying Women workshop we explain why, to a single-focused man like me, almost every outside stimulus occurs as an interruption. Anything that diverts our attention away from the task at hand is potentially very costly in terms of lost time and productivity. Men don’t easily transition from A to B and then back to A. In contrast, multitasking women easily shuttle from one task to another; interruption being a natural part of their lives.

To understand the dynamic, you have examine the two components of the transaction: the question and the answer.

Because men generally get to the point quickly and because we’re focused on getting only what need for the task at hand, questions are pointed and direct. “Jay, can you put that XYZ spreadsheet on the server.” “Burt, can you make a meeting at ABC Company’s offices on Thursday?” Bing, bang, boom, it’s over in seconds. There’s no “getting related” before asking for what we need. There’s no back-story about why we need it. There’s no preface for the question.

If the responding man’s answer is in the affirmative, it may come as a grunt, a hand wave, or a head nod. Occasionally we’ll even use language to answer “yes.” Simple and direct. If our response is negative, it may take a few more words, but we’re also direct. For men, “No” just means no. We’re not wondering “What did he mean by that?” We don’t take the “No” personally. We’re not concerned that saying “No” to a male colleague is going to strain our relationship.

The entire transaction takes mere seconds, beginning to end. We’re in, we’re out, and we’re done. It’s not gracious. It may not be “civilized.” But it’s efficient, and that’s what counts.

Can you see that when there’s a woman in front of the man it’s a totally different scenario? The question takes longer, usually a lot longer. Even an affirmative response needs to be delivered a bit more graciously. Because we’re sensitive to your feelings - yes, believe it or not we are - negative responses demand even more consideration and time. All of which throws us off the track we were on. It could take us fifteen minutes to get back to where we were when you walked through the door.

For men who are less single-focused and more capable of multitasking, the effects of interruption will be minimized. However, most of my gender cringes inwardly at every interruption because we suffer its effects. Wish it weren’t so, but it is. I hope this provides some insight into, yet another, puzzling behavior of men.