The 7 Second Rule

November 3, 2011 by Alan Pentz to Uncategorized

I am an extrovert, which means that as soon as an idea pops into my head, my mouth is already expressing it. As a result, I am often interrupting conversations and find silence uncomfortable. Doesn’t everyone? The answer I’ve found is no.

I recently completed a project with a colleague who has a preternatural ability to accept silence. Groups often need time to answer particularly difficult or high-level questions. Particularly if this is the first instance in which they’ve dealt with these types of issues together. Still, total silence can be disconcerting and after a lull of a few short seconds, I usually intervene to rephrase the question or provide “helpful” examples.

In this case my colleague had the lead and she asked some very open-ended high-level questions that don’t lend themselves to pat answers. The group was silent, “struggling” in my mind and “considering” in hers. Within 1-2 seconds, I was about to jump out of my chair as if I had some terrible itch I couldn’t resist scratching. My colleague sat calm and serene in the face of silence for several seconds and then lo and behold, the ideas began flowing.

She did this several times throughout the meeting and it always worked. I was impressed so when the meeting ended, I asked how she could remain so calm and that’s when I learned about the seven-second rule. The rule is this: After you ask a question, let the silence sit, and slowly count to seven (just to yourself) before saying anything else. It almost always works. I did some quick Google searches and found some evidence supporting the idea of pausing after asking more open-ended or higher-level questions based on studies with school children.