Almost all successful and happy people are good conversationalists. They have developed an ability to communicate naturally and spontaneously with almost anyone they meet. Good conversationalists are a pleasure to be around and they are welcome wherever they go. Learning the art and skill of good conversation can help you in virtually every human relationship, both at business and at home.
In this segment, we are going to talk about some of the things that you can do to become a more effective conversationalist. As with anything worthwhile, these ideas require practice, over and over, until they become a normal and natural part of your personality. Once you begin putting these points into action, you will feel more confident and competent in your interactions with virtually anyone and everyone you meet.
There are three aims and purposes of conversation. The first is the plain enjoyment and pleasure of self-expression and interaction with other people. One of the most enjoyable things we ever do is to spend time with people we like and whose company we find stimulating and fun. This potential pleasure is the driving force behind all of our social activities. We like to get together with people with whom we have a lot in common and just share ideas, letting the conversation go where it will.
The second aim or purpose of conversation is to get to know the other person better. In sales, and in all kinds of business, you require prolonged exposure to another person in order to get a feel for how he or she thinks, feels and reacts. This can’t be accomplished in a short meeting. Many customers will have a salesperson come back several times to converse and explain his product or service. These conversations may cover some of the same ground but their major purpose is to help the customer assess whether or not he or she wants to get involved with the salesperson and his company.
In our personal relationships, there is no substitute for extended periods of conversation in the development of friendships and more intimate relationships. People who get along very well together have almost invariably spent a lot of time just talking about various subjects as they come up.
The third aim of conversation is to build trust and credibility between two people. This is perhaps the most important thing we do as we proceed through life and it is only possible with the kind of continuous conversation that reveals us to each other.
Sometime ago, I was asked to present a proposal for a strategic planning session for the senior executives of a billion dollar corporation. This presentation was to the president of the company and two of his senior executives. When the presentation was over, the president concluded the formal meeting and suggested that he and I go for a drive.
He called for his car to be brought around to the front of the company offices. We took the elevator down, got in the car and he had his driver take us to a large city park some miles away. When we arrived at the park, he suggested that we get out and walk for a while. We ended up walking for about an hour and a half, with the conversation going back and forth from business to personal life and touching on other subjects. There was no detailed discussion of my proposal, the cost of the strategic planning session, or the logistics. What he seemed to want more than anything else was to get an idea of my general philosophy and approach to life.
At the end of the hour and a half, as we got back into the car, he told me that he had decided to go ahead with the strategic planning session and that he would leave it to me from that moment onward. We then drove back to the company where we parted until the strategic planning session some weeks later. The conversation during the walk in the park had been the clincher.
One of the very best ways to learn about another person is to spend unbroken time in their company. I’ve found that a two or three hour car trip is one of the most revealing experiences you will ever have with another human being. People who have gotten along well for many years working or socializing together in brief stints will often find that an extended car trip brings out elements of their personalities that they did not even know existed.
Before you enter into any serious business or personal relationship with anyone, you should spend several hours with them experiencing the ebb and flow of sustained conversation. It’s amazing what you will learn.
Many people think that the art of good conversation is to speak in an interesting and arresting fashion, to be noted for your humor, your ability to tell stories, and your general knowledge of a variety of subjects. Many people feel that, if they want to be better at conversation, they must become more articulate, outgoing and expressive. They think that they must become better talkers.
Nothing could be further from the truth. As you’ve heard many times before, we come into this world with two ears and one mouth and we should use them in that same proportion. In conversation, this simply means that you should listen twice as much as you talk if you want to get a reputation for being an excellent conversationalist.
The art of good conversation centers very much on your ability to ask questions and to listen attentively to the answers. You can lace the conversation with your insights, ideas and opinions, but you perfect the art and skill of conversation by perfecting the art and skill of asking good, well worded questions that not only make the conversation go in the direction you want, but it gives other people an opportunity to express themselves.
Do you remember Rudyard Kipling’s famous poem, “I had six honest serving men. They taught me all I knew. Their names were What and Where and When and Why and How and Who.”
The person who asks questions has control. The person who is answering the questions is being controlled by the person asking them. These six pronouns, “What, Where, When, Why, How and Who,” are the key words to asking open ended questions, questions that can not be answered with a “yes” or a “no.” Open ended questions encourage the speaker to expand on his thoughts and comments. One open ended question leads to another. You can ask open ended questions almost endlessly, revealing little of your own thinking and drawing everything out of the other person that he or she has to say on a particular subject.
In order to be an excellent conversationalist, you must resist the urge to or to dominate the discussion. The very best conversationalists seem to be low keyed, easy going, cheerful and genuinely interested in the other person. They seem to be quite content to listen when other people are talking and they make their own contributions to the dialogue rather short and to the point.
In fact, good conversation has an easy ebb and flow, like the tide coming in and going out. Whether it is between two people or among several, the conversation should shift back and forth, and around the circle with each person getting an opportunity to talk and an opportunity to listen. Conversation in this sense is very much like a ball that is tossed from person to person, with no one holding on to it for too long.
Each person has a need to talk a specific amount combined with a need to listen to a specific amount. If a person does not get an opportunity to get to talk enough in a conversation, he or she will become bored or irritated and will look to break off the conversation or just walk away. Out of politeness, people will often allow a talkative person to go on and on, without replying or interrupting. But they will then avoid that person in subsequent conversations.
If you feel that you have been talking for too long, and you can tell if no one is saying anything, you should stop and ask a question of someone in the group. As long as you begin with the words, “What, where, when, why, how or who” you will be tossing the conversational ball to so meone else and giving him or her an opportunity to converse.
You can learn to listen effectively. Listening is the most important of all skills for successful conversation. Many people are very poor at listening. Since everyone enjoys talking more than they enjoy listening, it takes a real effort on one’s part to practice the fundamentals of excellent listening over and over again until they become a habit.
Here are the four major keys for effective listening in a conversation. They work for you whether you are in sales, business, management or conversing with a friend or member of your family. They are powerful, practical and proven techniques.
The first key to effective listening is for you to listen attentively, without interruptions. As a rule, you pay attention to people you most value. When you pay close attention to another person when he or she is speaking, you signal to that person that you very much value him or her and the content of their comments. This is very flattering to another person and it causes them to respond warmly to your attentiveness.
The major reason that most people are poor listeners is that they are busy preparing a reply while the other person is still speaking. In fact, they are not even listening closely to what the other person is saying. They are thinking of other things and formulating their comments to be ready as soon as the other person takes a breath. They are very much like boxers waiting for the other person to let their guard down so they can jump in with a quick verbal punch and take over the conversation.
But this isn’t for you. Effective listening requires that you face the other person directly, lean slightly forward, and hang onto every word. Listen as though there were nothing else in the world more fascinating to you than what the other person is saying. The very best conversationalists seem to have developed the knack of making the person that they are listening to feel as if he or she were the only person in the world. Good conversationalists can do this in the middle of a crowded room.
Dale Carnegie once wrote that, “Rapt attention is the highest form of flattery.” If you want to flatter a person and cause him or her to think highly of you, just pay close, undivided attention to every single word he or she says, as though he or she were about to give you the winning lottery number and would only repeat it once. You will be amazed at how much more conversant a person becomes and how much happier they are with you when you show them that you are an excellent listener.
In addition to listening without interrupting, you should also nod, smile and agree with what the person is saying. Be active rather than passive. Indicate that you are totally engaged in the conversation. Make eye contact as the other person talks. Relax your body and if you are standing, allow your weight to roll forward onto the balls of your feet. Only you will know that you have done this, but the overall impression you will give the speaker is that your whole energy is now forward and focused on what he or she is saying.
How do you get this opportunity to listen so well? Simple! You ask good, pointed questions, and you keep the questions coming, one after the other.
Here are three powerful questions you can use to control any conversation, to open up the other person, and to get the other person talking extensively about himself or herself.
The first question, when you meet a new person in a social situation, is, “What sort of work do you do?”
This is an easy, general question to ask. It does not demand information on the person’s current job or position. The critical words are “what sort of work?” This gives the individual the choice of answering you briefly or in depth.
Your second question, to follow the first is, “How did you get into that line of work anyway?” Ask the question as though you are absolutely fascinated by the choices that he or she made to get into that particular field.
Most people feel that their personal career paths are among the most fascinating stories ever told on earth. When you ask people how they got into their current line of work, they will usually be very pleased to tell you about the various twists and turns of their life and career and the factors that lead ultimately to them doing the job they are doing at the current time.
The third question you can ask, when the other person hesitates to check to see if you are really interested or if you are just making conversation, is, “And then what did you do?”
This third question can be used to keep almost any conversation going indefinitely. You can ask, “How did you happen to move to this city?” or “How did you happen to go to work for that company?” or “How did you happen to choose this sport or activity?” People will be more than willing to answer these questions for you and when they slow down, for any reason, you smile pleasantly and ask, “And then what did you do?” You will be amazed at the responses.
The second key to effective listening is to pause before replying. A short pause, of three to five seconds, is a very classy thing to do in a conversation. When you pause, you accomplish three goals simultaneously.
First, you avoid running the risk of interrupting if the other person is just catching his or her breath prior to continuing to answer your question. Second, you show the other person that you are giving careful consideration to his or her words by not jumping in with your own comments at soon as he or she takes a breath. The third benefit of pausing is that you will actually hear the other person better. His or her words will soak into a deeper level of your mind and you will understand what he or she is saying with greater clarity. When you pause, you mark yourself as an excellent conversationalist.
The third key to effective listening is to question for clarification. Never assume that you understand what the person is saying or trying to say. Instead, ask, “How do you mean?” or “How do you mean, exactly?”
These are the two most powerful questions I’ve ever learned for controlling a conversation. They are almost impossible not to answer. When you ask, “How do you mean?” the other person can not stop himself or herself from answering more extensively. You can then follow up with, “And then what did you do?” and keep the conversation rolling along.
The fourth key to effective listening is to feed back what he or she has said and paraphrase the speakers words in your own words. When you nod, smile, agree and then say, “Let me see if I’ve got this right. What you’re saying is…”
By paraphrasing the speakers words and then feeding them back to him or her, you demonstrate in no uncertain terms that you are genuinely paying attention and making every effort to understand his or her thoughts or feelings. And the wonderful thing is, when you practice effective listening, other people will begin to find you fascinating. They will want to be around you. They will feel relaxed and happy in your presence. And all you have to do to achieve this is to ask good questions, and then listen carefully to the answers.
You can ask other questions that begin with the six magic words. You can ask questions like, “Why did you decide to do it that way?” “How long have you been living here in this city?” “Where did you grow up or go to school?”
“When did you start that particular activity?” and “Who do you like most in that particular area?” There are thousands of open ended questions you can ask, and the more you practice, the more fluent you will become with them.
The reason listening is such a powerful tool in developing the art and skill of conversation is because listening builds trust. The more you listen to another person, the more he or she trusts you and believes in you. For example, when men and women go out together for the first time, they spend most of their time together talking and listening to each other. And the more each listens to the other, hopefully the more attracted to each other they become.
Listening also builds self-esteem. When you listen attentively to another person, his or her self-esteem goes up.
Finally, listening builds self-discipline in the listener. Because your mind can process words at 500-600 words per minute and other people can only talk at about 150 words per minute, it takes tremendous self-mastery and self-control to keep your attention focused on the other person. If you do not practice self-discipline in conversation, your mind will wander in a hundred different directions. The more you discipline yourself to pay close attention to what the other person is saying, the more discipline and self-controlled you will become. By learning to listen well, you actually develop your own character and your own personality.
The underlying quality of good conversationalists is what is called, “Unconditional positive regard.” With unconditional positive regard, you remain positive, cheerful and totally accepting of anything that the other person says. You do not judge or criticize. You do not express shock or disagreement. No matter what the other person says, you nod pleasantly, politely and cheerfully and encourage him or her to go on. You make the other person feel comfortable talking to you and with you. You never do or say anything to make him or her feel guarded or hesitant. Your regard for him or her is unconditional and positive.
The final key to becoming a great conversationalist is to practice the friendship factor. The friendship factor is based on the three C’s of caring, courtesy and consideration.
You’ve heard it said that, “They don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.” Caring is the catalyst in all good relationships. The people you like the best and who like you the best, are the ones with whom you have the most caring relationships. Whenever you show another person that you genuinely care about him or her, and his or her situation, you come across better as a conversationalist and as a friend.
The second C in the friendship factor is courtesy. It is a magic quality of politeness that causes people to like you and to want to be around you. All good conversationalists are exceptionally courteous, kind, gentle and polite with other people. They make other people feel calm and comfortable in their presence. They never do or say anything that could hurt or offend the other person in any way. They are continuously diplomatic and they keep their concerns and irritations to themselves. They always remain warm and friendly on the outside.
The third C in the friendship factor is consideration. One of the major sources of positive emotions is the feeling that we are respected and considered highly by other people. Whenever you treat another person as though you value him or her as an important and worthwhile human being, you trigger this consideration factor. You make him or her feel happier to be around you. You come across as an even better conversationalist.
Becoming a good conversationalist is based on learning and practicing the golden rule. This simply says that you should treat other people the way you would like them to treat you. Just as you would like other people to ask you questions about yourself and to listen attentively to you when you talk, you should extend the same courtesy to them. But you should do it first. Remember, the purpose of conversation is not to dominate, control or be right. The purpose of conversation is to enjoy yourself and to make sure that others enjoy themselves when they are with you.
You can become a brilliant conversationalist by learning how to ask good, open ended questions that bring out the very best in other people, and then by listening attentively to their answers so they feel that who they are and what they say is of great value to you. And the better conversationalist you become, the more doors and opportunities will open for you in every area of your life.