'Boomerasking': The Annoying Habit Ruining Your Office Conversations

Perhaps this has happened to you: A coworker asks if you had a good weekend, then without responding to your answer, goes on to share about his own awesome Saturday night at a rock concert or birthday party.

Harvard Business School Associate Professor Alison Wood Brooks calls this phenomenon “boomerasking.” Like a boomerang that returns to its thrower, people who boomerask show interest in others by asking them questions, but then without commenting on the responses, immediately bring the focus of the conversation back to themselves.

It’s a common conversational quirk that’s almost universally disliked by those on the receiving end, according to Brooks’ research, "Boomerasking: Answering Your Own Questions," recently published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology. Brooks, the O'Brien Associate Professor of Business Administration, coauthored the research with Michael Yeomans of Imperial College London.

“We’re all trying to figure out if people’s motives are selfish or selfless in conversation,” says Brooks. “So when someone asks us a question like, ‘How was your weekend?’ we are hoping that they really do care. Then, if we go to the trouble of sharing about ourselves and the other person doesn’t follow up, it undermines those perceptions.”

In a business context, managers who chronically boomerask are often seen as self-serving and can make colleagues feel they’re not being heard, which can cause team morale to deteriorate. “When people constantly turn the conversation back to their own egocentric needs, it’s a mistake,” Brooks says.

The research comes as employees—including those in hybrid or remote roles—are juggling multiple forms of communication, from in-person meetings to emails, chats, and video calls. A 2023 Forbes study found that poor communication is taking a serious toll in the workplace, lowering job satisfaction, increasing stress, and eroding trust in leadership.

The good news: The bad habit of boomerasking can be overcome if people practice simply acknowledging others’ responses before offering their own. It’s a courtesy worth learning, Brooks says, since having more satisfying conversations could improve people’s relationships both personally and professionally.

When talks take a wrong turn

Brooks has long analyzed the key elements of effective communication, assembling multiple datasets of thousands of conversations between people in different contexts to see what makes them work well—or not. In the past, behavioral researchers mostly focused on a line or two between conversationalists, such as a greeting and reply. Brooks and her colleague’s research goes further, looking at more complex behaviors in back-and-forth interactions.

In their most recent work, Brooks and Yeoman conducted eight studies, circulating surveys asking participants to recall their own experiences with boomerasking, conducting experiments asking people to imagine engaging in boomerasking conversations, as well as observing people having live conversations. They found:

• Boomeraskers are trying to make a good impression. When boomeraskers were asked why they do it, some 83% reported they thought recipients would actually have a better impression of them if they started a conversation with a question, rather than launching into what they wanted to say first.

• Recipients of boomerasking are likely to find it annoying. In asking participants to recall a time when they were on either the giving or receiving end of this conversation pattern, boomeraskers invariably recalled such exchanges to be more pleasant and enjoyable than recipients, who were more likely to find them unpleasant.

• Recipients found boomeraskers less sincere and therefore less likeable. Recipients favored those who overtly disclosed information about themselves from the get-go. “When people commit the boomerask, they think they are being smooth and showing interest in the other person, but to their partner, it just seems insincere,” Brooks explains.

• Conversation domination makes talking less fun. When given a list of topics to discuss with a partner, participants reported that they enjoyed conversations less when one partner raised the topic—whether gardening, books, TV shows, or children—and then proceeded to dominate the speaking time.

The results were remarkably consistent, persisting across cultures and in a variety of situations, such as at parties and during romantic dates. In one study, participants read transcripts from a fictional first date—a situation in which asking questions is generally encouraged—and 71% said they would accept a second date with a person who overtly talked about themselves, whereas significantly fewer participants, about 56%, desired a second date with a partner who boomerasked.

“Previous research has shown that in dating contexts, asking questions is incredibly powerful,” Brooks says. “Unfortunately, it turns out that boomerasking is an easy way to undermine the superpower of question-asking.”

Why boomerasking backfires at work

In the workplace, Brooks says, regular boomerasking can create a tense or even toxic environment. “Imagine someone is trying to get you excited about a task so you’ll work on it with them—and they ask what you think about it, only to ignore your response and spill all of their own ideas. That’s not a good way to work together,” Brooks says.

Over time, team members can become annoyed and feel less willing to work with those who boomerask. The phenomenon can be particularly damaging in group interactions, such as team meetings.

“We’ve all had the experience of the bad boss who calls a meeting to ask for people’s feedback on a topic and lets people briefly chime in, only to mostly tell them what he thinks,” Brooks says. “It’s what drives people nuts about meetings—people come together to take advantage of the hive mind, to share their useful knowledge or feel heard.”

Conversely, Brooks says she’s spoken to successful managers who often intuitively understand the concept of boomerasking—having learned to avoid it in favor of sincerely listening to subordinates and responding to and valuing their input.

“I don’t have to sell the importance of the topic because listening curiously and selflessly is often the reason top executives have been successful,” Brooks says. Meanwhile, less experienced or less savvy managers often have to be trained out of the practice to create space for others to have the license to voice their views.

Breaking the boomerasking habit

Thankfully, Brooks says, it’s a habit that’s not difficult to overcome if people are committed to following a few tips:

Become more self-aware

Simply being aware of boomerasking and its pitfalls—and becoming aware of whether you’re guilty of it—can go a long way toward breaking the habit, Brooks says. Once you realize you’re asking questions without taking time to listen to the response, you can stop yourself before constantly sharing your own views too quickly.

Learn to respond better

It doesn’t take much to show real interest. For instance, providing a follow-up question, a validating word, or a reformulation of what your conversation partner said can make the person feel heard and create a more favorable impression.

Ask unanswerable questions

If you have trouble resisting the impulse to boomerask, try asking people questions you are unable to answer yourself. For example, if you don’t have children, try asking coworkers about their kids. That way, you’re more inclined to listen to the response without feeling the temptation to jump in.

Create a culture of accountability

As a manager, you can foster healthy dialogue by starting a conversation about the problem of boomerasking in the workplace and encouraging colleagues to strive for more open back-and-forth discussions. An analysis of an employee’s conversational style could even be included as a dimension of a 360-degree performance review by colleagues.

In the end, Brooks says, chronic boomeraskers should ask themselves what they might lose by continuing the practice—whether it’s an opportunity to gain valuable feedback or a strengthened bond with a coworker.

“Think about what you are not doing when you turn the conversation so quickly back to yourself,” Brooks says, “and how you could show more virtuous behavior by staying focused on the other person for at least one more beat.”

Image by Ariana Cohen-Halberstam for HBSWK.