[hinkley]

A lot of the time I’m like you, or I see that the person is starting a long train of thoughts based on a faulty premise... why would you let someone catastrophize or take everyone in a magic carpet ride that is based on bad information?

But that is unfortunately not always why. Some people take a very, very long time to get to a point they’ve already telegraphed long before. In a conversation that’s about problem solving, this is wasting everybody’s time, and I will absolutely shove you out of the spotlight and without compunction. Daylight’s burning.

To these people I say, think about your writing style. Do you bury the lead? Do you save your best information for last? Sort yourself out. Give the person permission to stop reading when they get the gist. Then try to do the same with your speaking. Maybe work on noticing comprehension cues from your peers.

The longer we go on a tangent the higher the probability that everyone’s working memory has been reset. If that keeps happening, a good solution is unlikely to arise. And if you don’t have time to do it right you have time to do it over. If you’re accepting defeat at the beginning, just pull the bandaid off, pick any reversible solution and get on to other problems.

[DanBC]

The way to address those people is in private, outside a meeting. Behaving the way you do is just rude, and is not acceptable in any workplace I'm part of.

> and I will absolutely shove you out of the spotlight and without compunction

Just to be really clear: this makes you toxic.

[hinkley]

There are times when the stream of thought is the most important thing in the room. Especially in triage situations.

Brevity allows the process to continue. It avoids upsetting the checklists in people's brains. Grandstanding, soap boxing, and shaggy dog stories are actively harmful to this process. These are primarily the situations where my patience for ineffective communication is at its nadir, and we can't stop this process to have an intervention or let you keep interfering.

Also, by unspoken consensus you will quickly find yourself disinvited from these meetings.

[harimau777]

My experience is that this sort of approach (pre-empting people who are explaining their point) often results in a "solution" being reached quickly that fails to take into account the nuance that the speaker was trying to explain.

[lwhi]

> But that is unfortunately not always why. Some people take a very, very long time to get to a point they’ve already telegraphed long before. In a conversation that’s about problem solving, this is wasting everybody’s time, and I will absolutely shove you out of the spotlight and without compunction. Daylight’s burning.

This is definitely part of my problem. I get excited; I can understand where a point is going; I get impatient, especially when I'm hearing it described in an overly verbose way.

However, I think I probably need to remember that it's worth hearing someone out. Ultimately the team might benefit, even though the problem might be solved at a slightly slower pace.

[blablabla123]

> A lot of the time I’m like you, or I see that the person is starting a long train of thoughts based on a faulty premise...

When talking about new angles of view it is quite unusual that the whole argument/"paragraph" is 100% logically sound. In fact that is quite an exception when talking. Maybe there is more than one argument for the other position that would still follow.

I think a lot about problems and details at work that have a lot of impact. These things cannot be summarized in single sentences and I don't have the time to follow higher standards in organizing my speech than others. So in the end I often ended up repeating my standpoint through various meetings until managers realized that this is indeed a thing.

> Some people take a very, very long time to get to a point they’ve already telegraphed long before.

Many people often take a very, very long time to troubleshoot problems, perhaps even work overtime because of that. I prefer to solve things by talking when this is possible and spent engineering time on the really interesting things.

(Also it might be an organizational problem if there are no meetings to discuss things in-depth with large rounds. Dailies are surely not the place for that.)