Speaker 1: Think back to the last meeting you had, did someone
Speaker 1: interrupt you? It's pretty frustrating, right, and you're totally justified
Speaker 1: in being annoyed, But it also turns out that interruptions
Speaker 1: have bigger consequences. This is game Plan. Hi. I'm Rebecca
Speaker 1: Greenfield and I'm Francesco Leavy, and this week we're talking
Speaker 1: about the universal phenomenon of being interrupted while speaking at work.
Speaker 1: It happens to all of us, and we all do it.
Speaker 1: I had to hold back from interrupting you just now
Speaker 1: you're doing your introduction. Yeah, I've learned, um, that I
Speaker 1: am an interrupt or. Well, first of all, I should say,
Speaker 1: when we had a meeting to plan this episode, Um, you,
Speaker 1: me and one of our producers basically spent the whole
Speaker 1: meeting interrupting you other. And we all acknowledge that. Well,
Speaker 1: you and I acknowledge that we are kind of natural interrupters.
Speaker 1: It's part of our conversational cadence. Yeah, it's just um
Speaker 1: and family upbringings I think teach you that if you
Speaker 1: want to be heard, you have to interrupt, which is
Speaker 1: an unfortunate truth maybe in meetings, but it's also part
Speaker 1: of like a vicious cycle of if you're feel like
Speaker 1: you have to interrupt, then you're always interrupting, and then
Speaker 1: people are getting interrupted, and maybe we should learn how
Speaker 1: to have better public discourse. But I like to make
Speaker 1: myself feel better by thinking that when I interrupt, it's
Speaker 1: not so bad because I'm I am still listening to
Speaker 1: somebody and I am interrupting because I'm like so enthused
Speaker 1: about what they're saying that I just want to interject
Speaker 1: my my approval or like my follow up thought. That's
Speaker 1: nice of you, because I definitely do the thing where
Speaker 1: I'm just thinking of the brilliant thing i want to say,
Speaker 1: and I'm just so excited to say, and I can't
Speaker 1: help myself sometimes. But maybe that means the other person
Speaker 1: you're talking to is not that interesting. No, when that
Speaker 1: when when I get interrupted in a certain way, it
Speaker 1: annoys me deeply. And I was thinking about this in
Speaker 1: preparation to talk about it with you, and I think
Speaker 1: that what what bothers me more than somebody interrupting me
Speaker 1: in let's say a meeting, is them interrupting me and
Speaker 1: then like my voice not getting heard because they interrupted me.
Speaker 1: So someone can interrupt you, and then someone else can
Speaker 1: say like oh wait, back up. I want to hear
Speaker 1: the rest of what Francesco said, and it's just like
Speaker 1: it never happened. And I feel like that's a natural
Speaker 1: conversational thing that happens. But when someone interrupts you and
Speaker 1: then later says the exact same thing you said, but
Speaker 1: everyone else congratulates them for their insight, or they just
Speaker 1: start talking about something else, and you're like, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: we could have had this. We could have been having
Speaker 1: a different conversation if you had just let me finish.
Speaker 1: So it's it's that feeling of not being heard, which
Speaker 1: it's not the interrupting itself, it's the interrupting and then
Speaker 1: like the group dynamic supporting the interruption. And I think
Speaker 1: that piece of it is they're a little gendered or
Speaker 1: can be gendered. Um. We were thinking about talking about
Speaker 1: this because interruptions of women in particular husband and the
Speaker 1: news so much recently with Senator Kamala Harris being interrupted
Speaker 1: un of course, you know the classic Taylor swift to
Speaker 1: be interrupted, and it's harder for people to hear women
Speaker 1: in meetings just to prove that this isn't just us
Speaker 1: anecdotally complaining about our experiences and meetings. Um, I will
Speaker 1: just point to some of the research that was a
Speaker 1: really interesting study in these two linguists. They recruited forty
Speaker 1: people to have conversations, and when there was men paired
Speaker 1: with women, they interrupted them on average two point one times,
Speaker 1: and when it was men and men they only interrupted
Speaker 1: one point eight times, which um. And then there's been
Speaker 1: research looking at the Senate and Supreme Court that both
Speaker 1: showed that women in these powerful groups also got interrupted more.
Speaker 1: It doesn't surprise me at all, but I also have
Speaker 1: a hard time understanding why people do it to women
Speaker 1: so much. I mean, years of socialization, Francesca. But the
Speaker 1: other frustrating thing is that when women are maybe anyone,
Speaker 1: when you try to push back and assert yourself, women
Speaker 1: also in particular get punished for that. We've talked about
Speaker 1: how you know, when women try to speak up, we're
Speaker 1: seen as more aggressive or I mean, there's a lot
Speaker 1: of research about how like women do things that are
Speaker 1: perceived as angry or incompetent when the exactly behavior by
Speaker 1: men is perceived as a leadership quality. Yeah, but and
Speaker 1: also like why wouldn't you been why wouldn't you be
Speaker 1: angry if you've been interrupted? Five times in a row.
Speaker 1: By the time you get to the point where you
Speaker 1: have to say, like, guys, please quiet down and listen
Speaker 1: to me, maybe you're right in having a slightly angry tone.
Speaker 1: There was a Times article that solicited um all these
Speaker 1: women who had said they had been interrupted, and one
Speaker 1: of the women quoted in the article said that she
Speaker 1: had to wait until she was interrupted five times before
Speaker 1: bringing up because if she did bring it up sooner
Speaker 1: than that, then people would get mad at her. It's
Speaker 1: like you're speaking out of turn if you just expect
Speaker 1: to be heard all the way through the first time
Speaker 1: you say something, yeah exactly, oh yeah, yeah yeah. Getting
Speaker 1: interrupted isn't just annoying. I mean, it is annoying and frustrating,
Speaker 1: but by affecting who gets to speak in meetings and
Speaker 1: whose voice gets hurt, it also impacts business decisions. And
Speaker 1: that's exactly what our guest today has written an entire
Speaker 1: book on. Chris carp Wooz is the co director of
Speaker 1: the Center for the Study of Elections and Democracy at
Speaker 1: Brigham Young University. He also co wrote with Tolly Mendelberg,
Speaker 1: The Silent Sex, Gender Deliberation and Institutions. Thanks so much
Speaker 1: for coming on. It's great to be here. Thanks for
Speaker 1: having me. So what made you decide that you wanted
Speaker 1: to study the gender dynamics in group meetings. Well, I've
Speaker 1: been interested in how small groups make decisions together, how
Speaker 1: they talk about politics, and how they make decisions together
Speaker 1: for quite a long time. And as Tolly, my co author,
Speaker 1: and I started talking about this project, we first sort
Speaker 1: of got into, um some findings by other scholars, and
Speaker 1: we noticed some very interesting gender dynamics, and that made
Speaker 1: us want to pursue this topic uh further. And I
Speaker 1: think in addition to those scholarly reasons, just our own
Speaker 1: experiences as men and women in groups made us fascinated
Speaker 1: by the dynamics of those groups and about how those
Speaker 1: groups come to decisions together and what happens when members
Speaker 1: of those groups start talking together. Can you tell us
Speaker 1: about what some of those gender dynamics you discovered in
Speaker 1: the previous research were. Yeah, Well, we found that first
Speaker 1: there were, um, there appeared to be differences in the
Speaker 1: authority that men and women had within the groups, and
Speaker 1: that gets demonstrated in a variety of different ways, one
Speaker 1: of which is just the raw talk time of men
Speaker 1: and women. And we noticed some disparities there, and we
Speaker 1: wanted to understand how changing different features of the group,
Speaker 1: like how many women or how many men are in
Speaker 1: the group, or how they were asked to make decisions,
Speaker 1: whether through majority rule or unanimous consensus rule, how those
Speaker 1: features of the group affected what happened and how exactly
Speaker 1: did you research that. One of the places we looked
Speaker 1: to try to figure out what was happening in these
Speaker 1: group settings was school board meetings from all across the country.
Speaker 1: And the interesting thing about school boards is that you
Speaker 1: actually get really interesting differences in gender composition across those boards,
Speaker 1: and so that was one place where we could look
Speaker 1: to see how how does changing certain features of the
Speaker 1: group affect what happens within the group and what did
Speaker 1: you find? Well, we found that it makes a big difference.
Speaker 1: So in the most common kind of group in politics today,
Speaker 1: so groups with more men than women that decide by
Speaker 1: majority rule, we found that women were far less likely
Speaker 1: to speak up than men. And when I say less likely,
Speaker 1: I mean not just less likely because there were fewer
Speaker 1: women in the group, but but less likely than we
Speaker 1: would expect given their lower numbers in the group. So,
Speaker 1: for example, we found in groups of five people with
Speaker 1: four men and one woman deciding on a topic together
Speaker 1: by majority rule, the women tended to take up about
Speaker 1: ten percent or so of the conversation, even though they're
Speaker 1: twenty of the people in the room. So so when
Speaker 1: we say that they're speaking up less, they're speaking up
Speaker 1: far less than we would expect given their numbers. They're
Speaker 1: already low numbers in the group. And so we found
Speaker 1: these really stark gender dynamics where increasing the number of
Speaker 1: women in the group really helped women to participate more fully.
Speaker 1: But also changing other features of the group also mattered.
Speaker 1: So if we take that same group with one woman
Speaker 1: and four men and we said, now decide by unanimous
Speaker 1: rule instead of by majority rule, that also helped the
Speaker 1: woman who was outnumbered to speak up a little more,
Speaker 1: because unanimous rule sends the signal that everybody's vote matters
Speaker 1: and everybody's voice matters. Therefore, did you look into why
Speaker 1: it was that women didn't speak up as much. Well,
Speaker 1: we can get some clues about why that's the case.
Speaker 1: So one of the things we found was that um
Speaker 1: going into these group sessions before they even met the
Speaker 1: other members of the group or had any you know,
Speaker 1: big interaction together, we found that UM women were less
Speaker 1: likely than men to be confident that that they could
Speaker 1: be effective in the group setting. And and we're not
Speaker 1: the only scholars who have found that. There are other
Speaker 1: scholars who have looked into this sense of efficacy or
Speaker 1: confidence have also found gender differences there. So, so one
Speaker 1: of the things that seems to be happening is that
Speaker 1: men and women, most likely because of their experiences outside
Speaker 1: any individual group, come into the group setting with different
Speaker 1: sets of expectations and and different levels of confidence about
Speaker 1: their own authority and their own ability to make a
Speaker 1: difference in the group. Can you say more about those
Speaker 1: patterns of interruption that you mentioned, What are they and
Speaker 1: how can group dynamics change them? So we invited both
Speaker 1: students and men is of the community to come in
Speaker 1: UM for a study about how people make decisions together.
Speaker 1: And then we told them that later in the lab
Speaker 1: session they were going to make they were going to
Speaker 1: have an opportunity to earn some money. And then we said,
Speaker 1: you get to decide together how you want to divide
Speaker 1: the money that is earned, and you can divide it
Speaker 1: however you want. So if you don't want to divide
Speaker 1: it at all, if you just want to let some
Speaker 1: people earn a lot more than others, that's fine, but
Speaker 1: you could also choose to to to redistribute it in
Speaker 1: some way among the group members. And so we asked
Speaker 1: them to talk about that question and to come up
Speaker 1: with a principle for redistributing the money that they would
Speaker 1: feel good about for their group and that they would
Speaker 1: feel good about applying to society more broadly. And so
Speaker 1: that's the conversation that they were having. As they were
Speaker 1: having that conversation, we recorded. We told them that we
Speaker 1: were recording it, and we and we recorded very carefully
Speaker 1: what each person said, and then we could go back
Speaker 1: and look at times in which people interrupted each other
Speaker 1: by an interruption. We meant a time where somebody was
Speaker 1: talking and somebody else broke in um and tried to
Speaker 1: say something else. And one of the things we looked
Speaker 1: at was the fact that there are different kinds of interruptions.
Speaker 1: So when you interrupt someone else, that could either be
Speaker 1: a positive thing or a negative thing. And by positive interruptions,
Speaker 1: we mean times when someone is talking and someone else
Speaker 1: breaks into show support and solidarity. They might say something
Speaker 1: like oh yeah, yeah, that's a good idea. And they're
Speaker 1: technically speaking over the other person, but they're doing it
Speaker 1: in a way that actually enhances the authority of the speaker.
Speaker 1: They're helping that speaker to feel good about what they're
Speaker 1: saying and to let them know, hey, people are listening
Speaker 1: to you and they want to hear more of what
Speaker 1: you're saying. But there are also negative interruptions. By negative interruptions,
Speaker 1: we mean times when someone interrupts to say no or
Speaker 1: to take the floor and just start talking about something
Speaker 1: totally different. UM that happens a lot of negative interruptions
Speaker 1: as well, and so we could look at the differences
Speaker 1: between these positive and negative interruptions, and one of the
Speaker 1: things we find is that as women become more authoritative
Speaker 1: and successful parts of the group, they're being interrupted in
Speaker 1: positive ways more often, and they're being interrupted by men
Speaker 1: less often in negative ways. So in groups where there
Speaker 1: are more women, or in groups where the group has
Speaker 1: to decide by consensus, that rule where you know every
Speaker 1: voice matters, then women receive from men more positive feedback
Speaker 1: and less negative feedback. And that seems to be a
Speaker 1: really important UM dynamic because it's associated those same groups
Speaker 1: where women are being interrupted more in more positive ways.
Speaker 1: Are also the groups where women are talking a little more.
Speaker 1: They're also the groups where women are um saying things
Speaker 1: that are quite distinct and different from what men are saying.
Speaker 1: And they're the groups where women are seen as more
Speaker 1: influential and authoritative members of the group by themselves and
Speaker 1: by the other members of the group. That doesn't mean
Speaker 1: that men and women can't ever disagree about issues UM
Speaker 1: or shouldn't ever disagree um. It just means that really
Speaker 1: successful groups in the sense of women's authority are groups
Speaker 1: where there's a kind of underlying sense of rapport and
Speaker 1: support that even where they have um differences of opinion,
Speaker 1: they're not interrupting each other in ways at sap the
Speaker 1: authority of the other members of the group. Yeah, it
Speaker 1: reminds me of the strategy that the women and the
Speaker 1: Obama administration used. They called it amplification, So when a
Speaker 1: woman made a point, another one would repeat it and
Speaker 1: give credit to the speaker as a way to kind
Speaker 1: of amplify each other's voices. Are there are other things
Speaker 1: that women can do like that. The example of the
Speaker 1: Obama White House is a really great example of how
Speaker 1: women can um develop strategies that enhance their authority and
Speaker 1: their ability to make a difference in decision making. So
Speaker 1: that notion of amplifying each other and helping the other
Speaker 1: members of the group recognize good ideas that women bring forward,
Speaker 1: I think is it's just a terrific example of the
Speaker 1: kinds of things that can happen for us. We were
Speaker 1: really looking at these two factors in our study. We
Speaker 1: were looking at these two factors. One the decision rule
Speaker 1: that the group makes and too, um who's in the
Speaker 1: room UM. And the good news is that we often
Speaker 1: have control over one or the other of those things.
Speaker 1: So if it's a group that is going to make
Speaker 1: decisions by majority rule, then one thing that UM, people
Speaker 1: who care about women's participation and authority might do is
Speaker 1: find ways for more women to be part of that group.
Speaker 1: If that's not a possibility, if the group is meeting
Speaker 1: together and it's and it's not a possibility to increase
Speaker 1: the number of women, you might the group might might
Speaker 1: think about how to change the way they make the decision.
Speaker 1: So groups have control over that too. They might say, well,
Speaker 1: let's have some rules by which we can be sure
Speaker 1: that everyone is participating successfully. UM. And so groups with
Speaker 1: few women might want to use consensus procedures more often. Now,
Speaker 1: there are some downsides to consensus procedures that can make
Speaker 1: it take longer to make decisions. It can be harder
Speaker 1: in some ways. But having group members think hard about
Speaker 1: the signals that they're sending to each other is a
Speaker 1: really important thing. One of my colleagues from graduate school
Speaker 1: said that in her sorority they had a rule about um,
Speaker 1: sort of how to show positive feedback, and they would snap, um,
Speaker 1: you know if someone was saying something that they really liked.
Speaker 1: And that's kind of a silly example, but um. But
Speaker 1: you can think of lots of ways where groups can
Speaker 1: be sensitive to the signals that they're sending each other.
Speaker 1: Other groups, I know, use other kinds of rules like
Speaker 1: um um, a rule maybe where everybody has to talk
Speaker 1: once before anybody talks twice. You know. Uh. There there
Speaker 1: are a variety of opportunities and ideas and and I
Speaker 1: think the key is for groups to be aware of
Speaker 1: what the typical dynamics are and to find ways creatively
Speaker 1: that send the signal that every member of the group
Speaker 1: matters and that everybody's voice matters. In small decision making
Speaker 1: groups like a school board, or like a p T,
Speaker 1: a committee or even a work team. It's really important
Speaker 1: for groups to think about these sorts of core core
Speaker 1: features of the group and how they're going to work
Speaker 1: together as a group. And the good news, as I said,
Speaker 1: is that groups have control over this, and there are
Speaker 1: reasons to care about that, those decision making processes and
Speaker 1: who's at the meetings besides just wanting to be nicer
Speaker 1: to women, right, like you have said that it affects
Speaker 1: the actual substance of the conversation absolutely, and I think
Speaker 1: this is the most important reason. Right. So, when women
Speaker 1: have greater levels of authority and power within the group,
Speaker 1: when they speak up more often and articulate their opinions,
Speaker 1: they don't say the same things as men. So it's
Speaker 1: not just the case that you know, the women in
Speaker 1: the in the room is just going to repeat what
Speaker 1: the men have said. Women have have good ideas. I mean,
Speaker 1: that's kind of so straightforward and obvious, but it's true,
Speaker 1: and um don't say the same things as men. That's
Speaker 1: not to say that women and men always say radically
Speaker 1: different things. That there's overlapped there too, and there's diversity
Speaker 1: within both groups of men and women. But women don't
Speaker 1: say the same things as men, So you're adding you're
Speaker 1: improving the conversation by adding new perspectives and new ideas.
Speaker 1: And second, UM, in groups where women are empowered, the
Speaker 1: ultimate decisions were quite different. So remember our groups were
Speaker 1: all about how the group would divide money that they earned.
Speaker 1: We found that in groups where women were more talkative
Speaker 1: and thus more empowered, UM, more participatory and more empowered,
Speaker 1: that the group was much more generous to those who
Speaker 1: earned the least, so they were more concerned about the poor. UM,
Speaker 1: they were more concerned about those who didn't do as well.
Speaker 1: And there were other features of the conversation that we're
Speaker 1: also different. But but we think that's a pretty important
Speaker 1: thing when it comes to big decisions that we're making
Speaker 1: as a nation. We need the perspective of both men
Speaker 1: and women to be articulated fully and we find that
Speaker 1: when that happens, groups make different kinds of decisions. Well,
Speaker 1: thank you so much for coming and talking to us
Speaker 1: about this, UM. It was really interesting. I'm glad to
Speaker 1: be here. Thanks so much for having me so Christmas.
Speaker 1: Research found that when women are empowered more to speak,
Speaker 1: different decisions get made. And it's interesting if you think
Speaker 1: about it in the context of all these punnies that
Speaker 1: are trying to hire for diversity, because there's all this
Speaker 1: research that shows that it's good for the bottom lines
Speaker 1: of businesses, and if the people that you're hiring, if
Speaker 1: their voices aren't going to get hurt in meetings, it
Speaker 1: really diminishes the effect of hiring them. Yeah, sorry to interrupt,
Speaker 1: but I liked that his book points out that you're
Speaker 1: that as a person running a meeting or running a company,
Speaker 1: you should work hard to make sure that underrepresented groups
Speaker 1: get heard, not just to make them feel better, although
Speaker 1: that matters because you want to retain people and you
Speaker 1: want people to develop in their jobs, but because you're
Speaker 1: just going to have a different outcome, you're gonna hear
Speaker 1: different kinds of perspectives if those less typically less heard
Speaker 1: people have a chance to speak up, and he gave
Speaker 1: some examples for how to do that, although I'm not
Speaker 1: sure that they would quite work in a business world. Yeah,
Speaker 1: his consensus thing was really interesting. I mean, I liked
Speaker 1: the philosophy that if you just create a system where
Speaker 1: everyone has to be heard and has to be acknowledged
Speaker 1: in order to arrive at a decision, that's that's going
Speaker 1: to eliminate some of the kind of like natural jockeying
Speaker 1: for power and meetings. But a consensus decision making process
Speaker 1: sounds super long and exhausting to me. Yeah, it's I
Speaker 1: can I can picture how it would go down in
Speaker 1: some of the meetings that I'm in every day that
Speaker 1: are already really long, and I can only imagine it
Speaker 1: making them twice as long. I read about this thing
Speaker 1: back before I worked here called it was a solution
Speaker 1: to brainstorming, and how it was a similar problem in brainstorming,
Speaker 1: the extra verts and the loudest people and the interrupters,
Speaker 1: their ideas get more heard more and so they kind
Speaker 1: of outweigh the other ideas which could still be good.
Speaker 1: So there were these researchers who said that you should
Speaker 1: do this thing, which has a terrible name called brain writing,
Speaker 1: and that you should people should write down all their
Speaker 1: ideas and then you talk about them in the meaning yeah,
Speaker 1: I love that, and we are we should give some
Speaker 1: voice of the introverts who are not in the room,
Speaker 1: since you and I are not introverts, but yes, like you,
Speaker 1: there is a thing where the people who come off
Speaker 1: as the smart ones are the creative ones are happen
Speaker 1: to be the ones who have said the most in meetings,
Speaker 1: and that's typically not a measure of anything except how
Speaker 1: comfortable you are speaking up and interrupting other people. And
Speaker 1: introverts hate that UM and I like the idea. It's
Speaker 1: sort of matches that consensus theory of of submitting your
Speaker 1: idea as ahead of time, so that they get evaluated
Speaker 1: outside of the meeting, like everybody has to read it,
Speaker 1: read them over, and then you come in and discuss
Speaker 1: everyone's idea. UM it eliminates I think some of that dynamic.
Speaker 1: Although if you're going to have meetings, you're always going
Speaker 1: to have people talking over each other. And you know,
Speaker 1: what we talked about earlier, and what Chris talked about
Speaker 1: in the interview about women just kind of getting hurt
Speaker 1: differently or not getting hurt at all, I think is
Speaker 1: proof that it's up to the person running the meeting.
Speaker 1: You know, as an individual, you can't help whether people
Speaker 1: are going to interrupt you, and you can't help whether
Speaker 1: you're going to come off as sounding super angry if
Speaker 1: you object to getting interrupted. So I think it's just
Speaker 1: really important for people running meetings and running organizations to
Speaker 1: acknowledge that there's something more going on than just a
Speaker 1: regular conversation when people are interrupting and you have to
Speaker 1: kind of make sure everyone gets heard, and there are
Speaker 1: actually meanings like that. I wrote a lot about holocracy,
Speaker 1: which is alternative management to the hierarchy situation that companies
Speaker 1: like Zappo's use, and they have these very specific meetings
Speaker 1: and they're called tactical meetings. And I went to one
Speaker 1: and is like, everyone has a very specific role and
Speaker 1: it definitely feels different than a meaning, but in some
Speaker 1: ways you are like, oh, this meeting has a purpose.
Speaker 1: What are the like what are the roles or what
Speaker 1: kind of roles? So they have this person who's the facilitator,
Speaker 1: who's the kind of the person you're talking about, and
Speaker 1: they run the meeting and they go through and ask
Speaker 1: each member if they have any tensions that need to
Speaker 1: be processed. They go through it like that, and it's
Speaker 1: it's a whole process and there's a secretary and it's
Speaker 1: very structured and it is like do people trade off
Speaker 1: roles or you know, you're like, I'm in the facilitator Okay,
Speaker 1: So it's kind of like a personality type. I think
Speaker 1: we want to do that, but I mean it's extreme
Speaker 1: and tele ocricy definitely hasn't worked for some companies and
Speaker 1: has worked for others, but it is an alternative way
Speaker 1: to think about meetings so that every single person in
Speaker 1: the room does get to say something. Yeah, it doesn't like.
Speaker 1: The more structured the meeting, the more you can get
Speaker 1: around some of these problems like that. It almost looks
Speaker 1: like the worst thing you can do is just invite
Speaker 1: everybody into the room from first. So fun. That's how
Speaker 1: we have our podcast meetings. We do get derailed a
Speaker 1: lot though. Yeah, and now it's time for half big takes,
Speaker 1: halfy fake takes. You can always call in with your
Speaker 1: own half bake take at two and two six one
Speaker 1: seven zero one six six And this week we have
Speaker 1: a listener half big take, and he's responding to one
Speaker 1: of Francesco's half bake takes about how she thinks it's
Speaker 1: weird that people pose for pictures with a half hug.
Speaker 1: Reladies love the show. Just got done listening to the
Speaker 1: half baked take around taking awkward pictures. Um, and I
Speaker 1: just want to chime in that I also really hate
Speaker 1: the like the one arm half hug and so I,
Speaker 1: when possible, try to do like the lean into it.
Speaker 1: So instead of putting my arm around the other person
Speaker 1: and making it seem like we're doing a half embraced
Speaker 1: I'll just kind of crane my neck over into their
Speaker 1: personal space. And usually they meet me halfway, and so
Speaker 1: there's this obviously, oh, we are in each other's personal spaces,
Speaker 1: and this definitely is not normal. But at least we're
Speaker 1: a little more intimate than just kind of being put
Speaker 1: up to take a picture. And so I will avoid
Speaker 1: the awkward touching and back thing whenever possible. But I
Speaker 1: think it is possible to take a canned photo that
Speaker 1: looks a little more personal that doesn't involve all of
Speaker 1: the how we're gonna, how we're gonna do this posing.
Speaker 1: I love the show, thank you for keeping up all
Speaker 1: the half bake takes, and will hopefully call you one garage.
Speaker 1: I love this. I think this is I think this
Speaker 1: guy is a is a genius. Yeah, great solution. It's
Speaker 1: like this sort of subtle mind control that he exercises
Speaker 1: just by moving his body in a certain direction. I
Speaker 1: like that he said people just tend to meet him halfway.
Speaker 1: It's like it's like there's a thing hypnotists do where
Speaker 1: they like grab your wrists or something, and it like
Speaker 1: gets you. It gets you, catches you off guard enough
Speaker 1: that it sends you into a state of disorientation and
Speaker 1: makes you vulnerable to them. I think that's what he's doing.
Speaker 1: He's like moving his body in a way they don't expect,
Speaker 1: and then they're like, oh, weird. I guess I'm gonna
Speaker 1: do the same thing and take the picture this way,
Speaker 1: and it works for him. He's a he's an evil genius.
Speaker 1: I think I'm just imagining him like the awkward of
Speaker 1: like him doing the head thing and somebody putting their
Speaker 1: arm around and oh no, yeah, but it's I agreed,
Speaker 1: too much touching. Yeah, all right, Francesco, what is your
Speaker 1: great idea that you just need to talk the world?
Speaker 1: Everybody needs to know that the most evil person on
Speaker 1: the escalator is not, in fact, the person who stands
Speaker 1: on the left side of the elevator. Sorry, is not
Speaker 1: the person who stands on the left side of the
Speaker 1: escalator instead of walking when obviously you should be standing
Speaker 1: to the right and walking to the left. It's the
Speaker 1: person directly behind that person who does nothing about it.
Speaker 1: So my first hand experience of this is almost daily.
Speaker 1: I have an epic escalator ride from our subway station outside,
Speaker 1: which is like eleven stories underground, and there's just this
Speaker 1: one narrow escalator that you can avoid writing. And people
Speaker 1: are pretty good in general about standing to the right
Speaker 1: and walking to the left, and if you don't walk
Speaker 1: up the escalator, you're gonna be on that escalator for
Speaker 1: forty five to fifty five minutes, so you really have
Speaker 1: to walk. And the person who stands on the left
Speaker 1: side of the escalator, it's like, either they're just really
Speaker 1: oblivious and somehow they haven't no, just this really obvious rule,
Speaker 1: or they're total sociopath and they're just like a monster.
Speaker 1: But you you the person who stands behind them and
Speaker 1: doesn't tap them, like doesn't have the courage, is just
Speaker 1: a coward, like they're ruining it for everybody else. And
Speaker 1: it's so brave franchise. I I will always tap a person.
Speaker 1: I always do because I'm I'm not just responsible for me.
Speaker 1: There's all the people behind me waiting to walk up
Speaker 1: the escalator, that's right, And I've even tapped a person
Speaker 1: in front of me to tap the person in front
Speaker 1: of them. This is a good like history lesson. You know,
Speaker 1: we're not just doing it for ourselves. It's for our
Speaker 1: children and our children's children. If you stand by and
Speaker 1: do nothing, you are a part of the problem. Wow. Yes, Becca,
Speaker 1: what is your deep thought? That is probably not as
Speaker 1: deep as you think. Minus. Also, work transit is related.
Speaker 1: It's about the elevator. So you know how you walk
Speaker 1: into an elevator as it's closing, the sensor goes off
Speaker 1: and it opens again. I feel great remorse when this happens.
Speaker 1: I feel so bad and I but it's usually an
Speaker 1: accident or sometimes it's like there's one person in the elevator,
Speaker 1: come on, let me up. I think everyone needs to
Speaker 1: feel as bad as I feel when that happens, because
Speaker 1: I see a lot of totally chill people walking and
Speaker 1: messing up that elevator sensor. It's a big deal. So
Speaker 1: you're arguing not that you should feel less bad, but
Speaker 1: that everybody should feel bad. When everyone should feel bad,
Speaker 1: they should, okay, particularly in our office building, when there's
Speaker 1: a bank of six or eight elevators and they come.
Speaker 1: One elevator comes like roughly every point five seconds, so
Speaker 1: there's always another elevator close behind. I know that there
Speaker 1: are some office buildings where this isn't the case, and
Speaker 1: you basically have to like hurdle yourself into the elevator
Speaker 1: at the last possible moment, otherwise you'll be like fifteen
Speaker 1: minutes later for work than you would have been. But
Speaker 1: that's not here. I think. Also, I'm saying it's okay
Speaker 1: to do it as long as you feel as bad
Speaker 1: as I feel. The problem is not the person who
Speaker 1: reopens the elevator doors. It's that like extra five seconds
Speaker 1: that they stay open after you've gotten on, because then
Speaker 1: the load time for the whole moralevator. And and it's
Speaker 1: just like feel bad about it, okay, Yeah, And fundamentally
Speaker 1: you've lost ten seconds of your day right there, That's right.
Speaker 1: Think of all the productivity I am. I appreciate it.
Speaker 1: And this has been half big takes, half baked takes.
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening to another episode of game Plan. You
Speaker 1: can find me on Twitter at ours Greenfield and I'm
Speaker 1: at Francesca today. Please tweet at us with your half
Speaker 1: big takes or any other thoughts. You can also call
Speaker 1: and leave us a voicemail at two one to six
Speaker 1: one seven zero one six six if you like this show.
Speaker 1: Head on over to Apple Podcasts or wherever you get
Speaker 1: your podcasts, and rate and review and subscribe. We got
Speaker 1: a new one recently and I cannot tell you it
Speaker 1: made my day. We love reading your reviews. This show
Speaker 1: was produced by Liz Smith and Magnus Hendrickson had a
Speaker 1: podcast as Alec McCabe. We'll see you next week. Something
Speaker 1: terribly intelligent to say, and I'm going to carry on
Speaker 1: saying it for the next fifteen to twenty five minutes.
Speaker 1: All right, can we just we can