The Science Of Politely Ending A Conversation. Research-based tips on finding a delicate way to part ways.
In business, finding a polite way to break off a conversation is as tricky as it is critical. Time is money, so you don’t want to chit-chat with a client or a colleague longer than necessary, but respect buys time, so you don’t want to betray any annoyance or impatience. Short of the classic hidden button beneath the desktop that rescues us with a well-timed “call,” or perhaps a modern smartphone app equivalent, we perform our best conversational gymnastics and hope society judges us kindly.
Humans go through a veritable song-and-dance when taking leave of our fellows.
The clumsy among us can turn to the behavioral evidence on ending a conversation that’s been compiled over the years. Though humanity has been finding delicate ways to part ways since the dawn of spoken language—I’d love to grunt more, said the caveman, but I have a rather fast predator to avoid—scientific study of cutting off a discussion didn’t occur until the 1970s. The research is a bit scattered and intuitive, but it does offer a few guidelines on general norms for ending a chat, be it pleasant, intolerable, or otherwise.