Manterrupting is a phenomenon that has been described and publicised for many years now. It has been explored, ridiculed, caricatured, dissected and analysed for many years. Just by searching for the hashtag on social networks, hundreds of examples, researches, articles illustrating it come up… so why talk about it again?
Marianne is a young executive in a multinational company, who came to the role after being placed in a development programme for high potentials. During one of the individual coaching sessions included in the programme, Marianne arrives very angry. She tells me that she often attends meetings with colleagues and management levels higher than her own. Before these meetings, she prepares thoroughly for the topics on the agenda, but she is often unable to contribute. In coaching, she tells me about the last meeting. She tells me that it was on a subject she knows very well, that she had prepared a whole series of data to contribute to the decisions, that she tried several times to share them but that in the end she had to give up: she was interrupted almost immediately when she started to speak.
From the 1980s onwards, a number of university studies began to highlight this phenomenon, showing that female researchers were interrupted much more often than their male colleagues, for whom, moreover, the measured speaking time was much greater than for them.
Interrupting someone in a conversation from time to time is normal: to add information, to bring the other person back on topic, to show agreement, to limit verbiage… But during the 1990s, the phenomenon continued to be investigated and a hypothesis began to emerge: not all interruptions are the same, some are quite intrusive and, behind them, there is a conscious or unconscious desire to question the legitimacy of the word of the person who is communicating.
The systemic theories on relationships (Gregory Bateson, P. Watzlawick), in particular the description of the different levels of human communication, provide us with interesting insights to analyse what happens in “manterrupting”: there is a level of content, in communication, which we can call level 1, where the interruption actually serves to add information, express an opinion, circulate the word among the participants in the meeting. In this level we can analyse the “what” is exchanged in the communication and realise, for example, that the added content actually contributes to the objective of the communication.
There is also a level 2, which defines the relationship between the participants in the conversation, including the distribution of power between them. It is a level in which we can analyse the process of communication, the ‘how‘. Research at Princeton University has shown that manterrupting is, for the men who practice it, rather a way of re-establishing power relations that they feel are threatened by women. It is as if, by interrupting, the communication passed implicitly to the other party is ‘look what you say is not important, because you are not important‘. While interrupting having in mind the objectives of the communication (the why) can be useful, manterrupting is dysfunctional because its unconscious objective is not to enrich the conversation but simply to exercise its own power, which it feels threatened.
Marianne’s company has, as in many companies, agendas around DE&I and unconscious gender bias. In the top management’s statements about the company’s culture and values, there is a willingness to move towards a state of equity, where gender should not affect skills or professional relationships, but the focus is on performance. It is the ‘stated‘ theory that should define what people should do to produce results.
But if we analyse Marianne’s case within the relational schema described above, we realise that, unconsciously, the “theory in use” (what really happens, beyond the declarations) is quite different. Marianne’s colleagues unconsciously (or consciously?) operate in the sense of re-establishing a power relationship over her by interrupting her during meetings.
In the intentions, there are attempts to bring about a change, stimulating women to “dare”, to take their own space: within the talent programme itself, in which Marianne is included, there are modules on women’s leadership. But behind the manterrupting there is a visceral drive, a patriarchal occupation of territory that does not tolerate being questioned. Marianne’s silence corresponds to an implicit acceptance of the rules of the game. The cultural mental model of male power must not be questioned.
Why, after so many years and so many declarations, does gender equality still seem so far away?
There is a first, very important step that has been taken. That of naming the phenomenon and describing it in order to give keys to interpreting an often inexplicable reality for women and men, and not only in the workplace. After awareness, there is action to follow. And for this there are different ways. One possible way is to realise, collectively, what are the rewarding leadership models of how leadership manifests itself, for women and men, and then to imagine a new leadership, different, more inclusive, less guided by laws that were fine (perhaps!) for men and women in other eras but are no longer suited to the challenges of 21st century organisations.
With Marianne, in the coaching process, it was very important to start from this observation, which helped her to understand that what is happening is not her fault: it has nothing to do with her level of preparation, her skills, her personality. It is important, in order not to aggravate what is happening by attributing blame that does not exist, that the different phenomena are read within the contexts in which they occur. The keys that come from the theories of group relations are particularly useful, in order not to limit oneself to a personalistic reading. What unconscious mental models condition people’s actions within this system? Marianne can answer this question, but a collective questioning can be much more effective in order to really produce a profound change. In coaching we then opened up on the question “what is concretely in my power to change the situation?”. A realistic exploration is important in order to accompany the person to operate at a level of responsibility that is possible and not on an omnipotent idea with respect to transformation, which risks being comforting in the short term and very frustrating in the medium to long term, once we become aware that it is not only the action of an individual that can operate on a cultural model but that of a collective.
From her point of view Marianne can work on her assertiveness, on her ability to immediately point out to the men who interrupt her the dynamic in which they are caught by saying something like “You have just interrupted me, but I will continue what I was saying” or “I was talking, now I will finish what I was saying”. These are some of the issues we are addressing, together with the group of women who are involved in the leadership workshops, in the same company. This kind of intervention allows to interrupt the vicious circuit. One does not interrupt the other by speaking louder and adding content (level 1) but by redefining the relationship (level 2). Another type of assertiveness intervention is to avoid any sentence that undermines Marianne’s legitimacy to intervene in that meeting. This means dropping all openings such as “Excuse me, but I would like to add…”, “Perhaps it would also be important to take into account…” etc. and replacing them with, for example, “I will now give you some data that it is important to take into account…”. “The argument in favour of this decision is…’ etc.
Another track of change is to work on creating alliances, both with other women sensitised to the issue and also with men. This is the theme of “allyship” and its importance in transformation processes affecting DE&I. Together with Marianne we produced a ” map of allies and sponsors ” and how to work on these alliances. Without a viable alliance with the “dominant” party, it is much more difficult for change agents to achieve the desired results, while waiting for interventions on the organisational culture to bear fruit. Allying is different from simply ‘networking’. Allies can, for example in a manterrupting situation, in turn interrupt the switch to give the interrupted woman back the floor, thus breaking the ‘two-way’ relational dynamic. Going from two to three, in the relationship, means not only avoiding the risk of escalation “I’ll interrupt you more”, but also taking a step towards the collective. The game is no longer between the dominant group and the dominated group, the third party also has the role of questioning the status quo and promoting movement.