How to interrupt someone while they are telling a group wrong/embarrassing information?

Question

I've recently read a great question on Workplace.se and it reminded me of a similar situation I've come across a couple of times, where I did not know how to interrupt the speaker without embarrassing him even more. It often happens with non-technical coworkers that misunderstood something technical, but can also happen in a situation between friends.

I think it would be easiest to take the example from the Workplace.se question:

John starts his argument with how he found out about the 'new mom's room' that was recently created. He is disappointed there is no new dad's room as newborn baby life is just as hard for dads as it is for moms. He goes on about how unfair it is new moms 'get to nap' and that change needs to be made. The company needs to be more mindful of equality, so a new dad's room needs to be made too, so dads can unwind or have a power nap too.

Now John here had misunderstood the meaning of this 'new mom's room'. The room was intended for breast feeding women to be able to have privacy while pumping. I understood this quite early on in his story and could have stopped him from embarrassing himself any further. With this topic he could have potentially offended people as well.

How do you stop someone in a public or group situation like this, without putting his mistake in the spotlight even more?

Or would putting the mistake in the spotlight give him a chance to set his argument straight?

Answer 1

In this particular case, John is speaking in public. You see that he is going to embarrass himself tremendously. You want to keep the embarrassment to a minimum. And you don't have the luxury of thinking time.

You start by saying calmly "John, can I stop you right there." If he stops, you say "Can we have a minute outside." And if he agrees, you take him outside and explain things to him. That's about the least disruptive and the least attention grabbing way you can do it. You need to get enough of his attention to make him stop after all.

If you said to me "Gnasher, can I stop you right there." I would think "he better have a very good reason to do this". I would also think "maybe he does have a very good reason to do this". So the reasonable reaction for me would be to stay calm and follow you. If John behaves unreasonable, like shouting at you for daring to interrupt him in his highly important speech, then the result is down to him. Most people are reasonable and leave the room with you with minimum fuss.

PS. To Jerome: There is absolutely no "demonstration of power". There is no power to take him outside. I explained how I would react to such a request myself, which is hopefully that I would assume that such an extraordinary request wouldn't be made without a very, very good reason. The person is absolutely free not to follow that request - and as a result, embarrass themselves. And the situation described was not about making a mistake. It was about a situation posted on workplace where someone desperately looked for help recovering from some outrageous embarrassment. The person asking for would have been glad (in hindsight) if someone had taken them outside.

Answer 2

If it was me, I might say something like,

John, you bring up an excellent point. Calling it a 'Mom's Room' is kind of confusing. But calling it a 'Breast Pumping Room' sounds kind of awkward. [Making eye contact with John and the other members of the group] What are some other names we could call the room where mothers can pump their breast milk for their babies?

So by deliberately misunderstanding and redirecting, John is complimented, corrected and embarrassment is mitigated. John is also given space to process the interaction: he can relinquish focus to the group while he deals internally with his gaffe or he can continue to be part of the conversation on his gently corrected course.

Generalizing this approach:

• Error: John says something completely wrong in front of a number of people. So wrong that the rest of the group knows John is wrong.
• Affirmation: "John, you bring up an excellent point."
• Misinterpet to correct: Restate John's statement so that it's now correct. Pretend that this is what you heard John say. If you can, elaborate on your misinterpretation to both distract John from trying to "correct" you and to signal to the group that the topic has changed.
• Redirect: Making eye contact with John and the other members of the group, ask a question about your deliberate misinterpretation, as open-ended as possible.

Answer 3

Honestly, when someone is dumb enough to jump in to complain about something they know nothing about, embarrassment can't be avoided.

In this particular case, John's blunder could have been sidestepped as soon as it was clear what he was doing by using it as jumping off point to start discussing a point which has a little more merit, like "Should we be calling it a 'new Mom's room' when it's only for breastfeeding moms?" In this particular case, since John was speaking from the viewpoint of someone trying to safeguard equal treatment, this would be a valid point to make, and pushing the conversation in this direction would have given John something relevant to talk about, rather than him having to fold up his presentation and sit down rebuked.

Answer 4

For your example of "someone getting something technical wrong": Most of the time technical mistakes are irrelevant to the conversation, and no one else even realizes there's a mistake. Since you want to avoid causing embarrassment, the best IPS option is to do nothing at all. Whatever they said will likely quickly be forgotten anyways.

If it really irks you, you could let them know privately later. If they're the type who takes offense when being corrected, you could frame it as a TIL:

Oh, hey, check this out. According to this website, snargles actually do flurbulate. Neat!

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However, in the original example where the person is saying something wrong that they really need to know about for the rest of the conversation, and/or everyone else already knows it's wrong, if they aren't prone to confrontation you can let them mostly save face by saying something like

That's a common misconception. Most people think snargles snagify, but they actually flurbulate.

This shifts the mistake from them to "most people". They'll still probably be embarrassed, but significantly less than if you hadn't spoken up.

If they are prone to confrontation (eg. the type who refuses to admit when they're wrong), there's basically nothing you can do for them without hurting your relationship. Unfortunately in that case, I'd recommend doing nothing and letting them learn from their mistakes.

Answer 5

For such situations I like to wrap the missing bit of knowledge in a question, e.g. "This is very interesting, John. Would all of this continue to be true if mothers used the New Mom's Room primarily for breast pumping?"

Hopefully the light goes on for John. That is, the question hopefully makes him realize that he has misconstrued the purpose of the New Mom's Room. By transmitting the correct purpose to him as a hypothetical, wrapped in a question, he can extricate himself from his predicament with a minimum of embarrassment. (Although not zero!)

If the light does not go on for him, then he has bigger problems than merely misconstruing the purpose of the room. At that point he would seem to be incapable of grasping the true purpose -- and who knows what else -- and so I'd say he's on his own at that point.