Ask Christa! How Can I Ask My Co-Worker to Quit the Chit Chat? (S4E45)

Introduction

Hi everyone and welcome to Ask Christa! the place where you can ask questions about how to work through business challenges and workplace issues. I'm Christa Dhimo and today’s listener question is about The Socializer! We’ve all experienced it at work: an affable, well-meaning co-worker who swings by various desks or pops into an office to connect as a good human. And we ALL need that at work, but boundaries matter, and TIMING and TOPIC for social time matters, too. YOU may need a social break, but those around you need the quiet time, or maybe vice versa: you are deep into your work and 

twenty minutes before you’re finished with a task that needs all your focus, you suddenly hear… knock knock knock—“Heeeyyyyyyyy! How’s it going?”  

Today’s listener question is about how to manage those situations, and as always, I’m going to get you started with what you can do for YOU first, then offer additional resources. As always, you’ll find those resources in the show notes. 

Listener Question

Here’s the question: “I have a co-worker who seems to time his socializing energy right when I start to feel mental momentum. Our office environment is made of half-cubicles, which are the short ones where everyone has a line of site to each other. That means I can see him making his rounds with everyone a few minutes before he gets to me. He works in a different room from us, but we all do analysis work. There are times during the day when everyone needs a mental break, and management encourages us to get up, stretch, walk around, get some water, and check in with each other to make sure we aren’t staring at a screen all day. That part of my job is great. We all like our managers and we all like each other, too, including our very social co-worker, but there are times when I need to get my work done, and his pop-in “hello’s” are distracting and often frustrate me. I instantly clench up when I see him enter our room. How can I ask my co-worker to quit the chit-chat?”

It's OK to have boundaries, and you can do that through norms

Here’s the good news: there are a lot of WAYS to create and enforce boundaries at work, especially when it comes to getting your work done. But—depending on your environment, culture, and personality, it might not be easy to ACTUALLY create and enforce boundaries, even though there are a lot of ways you can do it.

Take a step back, and start with what you want. What’s your objective? Are you looking to minimize interruptions during certain times, overall? Are you looking for ways to improve awareness across both rooms about whether someone can stop their work to talk? OR, are you just looking to guide your CO-WORKER’S behavior because that’s really the only time a chit-chat style can be disruptive to you? 

If it’s the latter, then it will be easier and quicker to address your co-worker’s behavior directly, and we’ll talk about that, but my guess is other people might be struggling with the same issue, and maybe it’s time for managers and leaders to provide examples of what a “check in on others” culture means AND… that boundaries matter, too. What our listener describes is actually an EXCELLENT environment for everyone to find the right mix of what it takes to recharge throughout the day, but that should include awareness that the time and attention of one co-worker’s need for a recharge won’t be the same for another co-worker’s need for a recharge.

There is also the reality of people who want to go into work and produce for 4 hours at a time before they’re ready to come up for air. Those who are less inclined to socialize are probably that type, where they work their best in blocks of time and if they’re interrupted, they’ll lose momentum. I’m one of those people. I go to work to get good work done, and when I’m in the zone, I PRODUCE. I love to socialize, but that’s because I’m genuinely curious and interested in others, and it’s rarely to recharge. Most times if I need a recharge at work, I’ll get up, walk around, change sceneries, and give my brain a real break. I do my best to do… nothing. Not even socialize.

But in this case, … it sounds like it’s time to establish a few new norms about boundaries so that those deep into their work can stay deep into their work and simply let others know when they’re open for chit-chat.

Three easy ways to address a chit-chat drag-down

Here are three ways to address the issue at work:

First option, have a candid discussion with your manager. That’s good information for them to have—that while you appreciate the culture overall, and agree that breaks are important and checking in on each other establishes good bonds, there are times when it’s actually hard to get your work done. See how your manager can guide you, because they’ll see (or at least they SHOULD see) a bigger picture across the team. They may even start a dialogue with the manager of the other room, if they are two different managers.

Think about options you can share with your manager about how to best signal when someone isn’t open for chit-chat. Maybe it’s a small orange cone on the top portion of the cubicle so those deep in work can signal they are in a “do not disturb” zone. Of course, The managers will have to consider how to support a co-worker who may not want ANYONE to disturb them throughout the day, because unless the job requires them to chit-chat, their permanent orange cone needs to be respected as a boundary they are creating and enforcing.

Second option: talk to your co-workers. Collaborate with various teams to determine how to get the most out of social interactions without disrupting workflow. It could look like this, and maybe it’s part of YOUR office chit chat, “I’ve been noticing I lose my focus at certain times during the day. I’ve been thinking of putting a “In Deep Space” sign on my cubicle when I’m in deep into the analysis to reduce the interruptions. What do you think?”

You may hear what other co-workers already do to reduce interruptions, like put headphones on or go to a different place in the building to work, or they only had issues with a couple of people, talked to them, and there haven’t been interruptions since. 

AND, by talking with your co-workers (without mentioning names, because this isn’t about office politics—see episode 44 for that one…) you’re elevating trust and opening up in new and different ways. You’re solving interpersonal dynamics that aren’t working in a constructive way also.

Option 3? If it’s just this one person, then address it directly with your interrupting co-worker. Use the BIC method I talked about in Episode 16. B is for Behavior you’ve observed, I is for Impact, and C is for Change or Continue. It could look like this, “Hi Christa—got a second? I need your help. One of the things I enjoy the most about working here is how we are encouraged to get up, stretch, walk around, and check in on each other. For some reason, most days when you swing by my desk to talk, I’m deep in my work, so when you start asking how things are going [that’s the behavior] it disrupts my mental momentum and I find it really hard to get back in gear after we talk [that’s the impact]. Could I ask that you hold off on talking until after lunch, because I usually get my big heady work done in the morning? [that’s the change—but ALSO includes a continue]

Not every BIC will include a change AND continue, but in this type of situation where there is a cultural norm to step away from desks and it’s suggested to check in on each other, you want to mention that you’re open to it, but there are…. boundaries. 

Additional Resources

For your resources, I experienced something I haven’t experienced yet—there AREN’T a lot of good resources on this topic. Most articles talk about how Introverts can survive around extroverts when this is not an introvert-extrovert issue, it’s a boundaries issue, followed by a focus and distraction issue. 

It’s OK to want social time at work, and in fact it tends to create a higher performing environment with stronger co-worker bonds and a higher level of genuine interest in each other AND the shared work and shared goals you… share!

But most of the articles out there talk about someone who’s chatty at work as though they have a character flaw, or they talk about ways to manage in a very passive aggressive way or a childish way.

BUT, I did find an OK video from Kristen Wright, a communications expert, who offers a few good tips in a four minute video. You’ll find it in the show notes.

And of course, it would hardly be an Ask Christa! episode if I didn’t haven an evidence-based resource to offer also, and this was the only study I found. It was the only ANYTHING I found, which surprised me, because chit-chat at work can be such a boost or a drag.

The paper is by Methot et al., published in the Academy of Management Journal in June 2020, and you can request the paper directly from the authors using the link, also in the show notes. It’s a technical paper, but it’s an easy read if you do as I usually guide for research: read the Introduction, read the Discussion, read the Conclusion. Skim the rest.

Wrap Up & Submitting Your Questions

And that’s a wrap for Episode 45 of Season 4!  Three more episodes to this season, then we’re in Season 5, focused on questions about career growth.

Submit your question on my show’s site, AskChrista.com, that’s Christa with a C-H, where you will see all my episodes listed based on category and season. While your there—sign up for my More Answers… newsletter, where you will receive additional content on Sunday nights to set you up for the work week.

As always—thank you for your support. And remember, if you have a business challenge or a workplace issue—Ask Christa!