Several of my coworkers sit and face each other in the cubicles next door to me. They’re good friends and it seems, especially lately during our slow season, that they spend the majority of the day chatting about anything and everything. Most mornings, the first hours are nothing but chatter. It’s terribly distracting. I’ve tried to plug in my earphones and listen to music to help me focus but it doesn’t drown out the noise. Any tips on asking the “chattaholics” to turn it down and minimize the disruptive discussion without seeming rude or snobby?
Answer:– Dear,
This sounds like a classic case of being stuck. I define “stuck” as not getting results you want, getting results that you don’t want, failing relationships, recurring problems, or being frequently bugged. Our Crucial Conversations book and training contain a set of skills that helps you get unstuck.
These skills help you solve situations characterized by high stakes, opposing opinions, and strong emotions. Before I offer some advice, I want to take a moment to suggest how these situations generally develop, and hope this note will motivate everyone to speak up early.
Here is the main point. Chattiness, like tardiness, or sloppiness, doesn’t happen suddenly—it sort of sneaks in or evolves. No one or no team starts the day by saying, “Look we have typically been getting eight hours of effective work done every day, but now I suggest that we chat for three hours and work for five. Won’t that be fun?”
And I doubt any group started chatting three hours the first day. Social time most likely increased by a few minutes every day. Lower standards creep in little by little, here and there, which can make the problem hard to notice.
