Making the Most of Interruptions

"When interruption is all there is, make the most of interruption."

In the March issue of Fast Company magazine an article entitled "Six Interruptions Every Hour!" states that the average number of messages received in a day by the typical office worker includes:

52 phone calls
35 e-mails
23 voice-mails
18 postal mail messages
18 interoffice messages
14 faxes
13 Post-its
8 paper messages
3 cell-phone messages, and
3 express mails

How do we deal in an intelligent way without being driven nuts by all these interruptions? The following definition of intelligence has been attributed to a number of people. I don't know who said it, but I like it.

"True intelligence is the ability to hold two
apparently conflicting ideas in the mind
at the same time."

Anyone who wants to achieve something at this period in human history is in great need of this faculty. Consider the counsel with which this article began, about "making the most" of interruptions. Many goal-driven souls among us would warn: "Hey, tolerate interruptions and you can kiss your goals goodbye." But why does it have to be one or the other?

TRICK RIDING
"Either-or" thinking is a killer -- it chooses one option and offs the other. Conversely, "both-and" thinking tolerates paradox. It tells us intuitively that we CAN set, hold to, and achieve goals -- WHILE at the same time leveraging at least some of the unexpected things that inevitably happen along the way. The trick is not to go jumping off the goal-wagon in order to ride the serendipity wagon. Be a trick rider and keep one foot on each wagon.

What does this mean in practical terms? It appears that when an interruption strikes, we have to stop and handle it more or less independently of our goal. But what if our first response were receptivity to the event as being possibly in service to our goal? Even if it isn't, we haven't automatically rejected it out of sheer habit. (If the interruption is a person, our receptive attitude projects calm, grows the relationship, and incidentally gets the interaction over with quicker.)

So the mind might go: "Here's a surprise. I feel irritation-but I'm going to trust a higher principle than the emotional. I will examine this apparent intrusion of my process as no random event, but something sent to (a) help me; (b) warn me from misapprehension or error; or (c) cause me to think and act in a more appropriate way."

BOTH BRAINS
It is Right-Brain, Intuitional functioning that enables this bicameral attitude. The part of us that trusts that "all things work together for good." A far different part from the reptile brain that steels itself for battle at each intrusion. More particularly, it's both hemispheres co-functioning brilliantly --right-handed guy staying goal-directed, lefty knowing-without-knowing-how that things that "just happen" in our everyday experience are somehow meant to happen. Working in elegant synchrony, the two sides of us give us access to more than the sum of us.

Granted, operating this way requires the "true intelligence" we spoke of earlier, that ability to include things of apparently opposing natures. Even a little remembrance and practice of this capacity widens our functioning in regard to everything else we do. Do we need this? You bet! Why? Because all there is, is interruption.

INTERRUPTIONS AS PRACTICE
So, next time interruption hits, see what happens when you take it as a challenge to exercise true intelligence. Treat it as practice time (that's making the most of it). Afterwards, sift the event to see if your understanding has been deepened, or if you're calmer-or even if you've actually been eased or furthered on your way by it.

Here's to handling interruptions elegantly!

James Ballard is a management consultant, leadership trainer, motivational speaker, consulting partner with the Ken Blanchard Companies, and author of What's the Rush? He founded Maudala Press, a direct-mail educational publishing firm, and wrote a series of children's books and books for teachers on humanistic education. Mr. Ballard has also helped create a number of widely-used Blanchard Training and Development models including "Managing the Journey", "Leadership Training for Supervisors", "Quality-Driven Leadership", and "Everyone's a Coach".