The conversational narcissist
My teenage son came home from school one afternoon looking down. He had a less-than-stellar lunchroom social situation that day. “My friends kept talking over me,” he said. “I added to what they were talking about, but when I introduced a new topic, they ignored it and went off in another direction. I decided I just didn’t care anymore.”
Kid, I know what you mean. This has happened to me over and over again. I had always assumed it was because I am not an aggressive talker. I listen and ensure that others finish what they are saying before chiming in. But when your input is dismissed, interrupted, or downright ignored, you have to wonder, “Why am I even a part of this conversation?”
There are several types of dismissers and interrupters:
The talkaholic: Someone with an uncontrollable compulsion to speak or monopolize discussions, often rooted in discomfort with silence. This person just cannot stop talking.
The conversational narcissist: Someone who steers every topic back to themselves or their own opinions to seek validation. They're not a narcissist in the clinical sense. (The term was coined by sociologist Charles Derber.) A conversational narcissist dominates the dialogue, often ignoring others' input, which may stem from a need to be noticed and feel important.
The lead singer: A workplace-meeting archetype who spends a disproportionate amount of time talking, crowding out other voices, also likely stemming from the need to feel important and noticed.
I was once in a meeting where an upper-level employee interrupted me while I was speaking to the table to show me an image of a man falling off a subway on his phone.
In the workplace, meeting with people like this is frustrating. A conversation that keeps circling back to personal experience, or that limits input from others, can stall progress and eventually discourage people from even trying to get a word in. After years of meetings, I began to notice similar threads with the over-talkers:
Interrupting: Cutting you off mid-sentence to insert their own views.
One-upmanship: Responding to your story with a more dramatic or extreme version of their own.
Pivoting: Asking a question, then immediately redirecting the answer back to their own life.
So what can you do? Dr. Shadé Zahrai, a behavioral scientist and Harvard-trained coach, recommends a few tactics for steering the conversation back on track:
Conversational threading: Pick up a specific keyword from their monologue and use it to pivot back to your point.
Politely interject: Assertively claim your turn by stating, and perhaps even interrupting (!) with: "I have a quick thought on that too."
Acknowledge and segue: Briefly validate what they said, then pivot to the topic you actually need to address.
It can be hard to do these things because you may start to lose interest in the conversation, just like my son did. That happens, and I find myself disengaging. Check yourself on this. One way to do it in the workplace is to ask others whom you trust what you look like during a meeting. Often, we do a poor job of hiding our feelings, especially on Zoom meetings. Use this as an opportunity to learn about where you need to be more active in creating an equitable meeting.