From the most remote and tender childhood, when the mother fills with her words the pauses that the baby makes while feeding, the human being should begin to learn something that is at the base of human communication, of productive dialogue and even of democracy, which is that a conversation is a matter of two. One talks while the other listens, and then vice versa. However, there are those who have not yet acquired the productive habit of not interrupting the speaker.
People who interrupt their interlocutor may not realize the implications of such behavior. The first is simply that constant interruptions show disrespect. When someone speaks you have to listen to him, it is a basic and essential social norm. Constantly interrupting implies that the person doing it thinks that his ideas are more important or more urgent than those of his interlocutor.
The second is not to realize that things occur to anyone while listening. However, what differentiates people who are good listeners is that they are able to remember it until they can intervene.
The last implication is perhaps the most important, because it has to do with the interrupter’s own ability to learn. And it is that you never know when someone who is speaking is going to say something really intelligent, innovative or suggestive. Whoever interrupts settles with a resounding gesture the possibility that whoever is speaking will illuminate his path with ideas that could be really interesting to him.
One of the keys to good listening is simply not to interrupt.
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