The Rules of Effective Conversation:

Conversations are supposed to be fun. They involve personal interactions between two or more people about something of interest. But many people worry about having conversations. They are concerned that they won’t be able to keep the conversation going, or about what they will say.

Keeping a conversation going is something of an art, and one which many of us now seem to lack. This article explains how you can learn this ‘dying art’, and have constructive and enjoyable conversations with others.

1. Conversation is a Two-Way Street:
The first and most important rule of conversation is that it is not all about you, but it’s not all about the other person either.
A monologue, in either direction, is not conversation. Try to achieve a balance between talking and listening in any conversation.
This is where social media makes life difficult. We’re used to broadcasting our views, and then responding if others comment. That can feel like the start of a conversation but, when you’re face to face, it’s not polite to start by broadcasting your views.
Instead, try asking a question to establish common ground. For example: “What do you do?”, or even “Isn’t the weather beautiful?”

2. Be Friendly and Polite:
Smiling, and being nice, will take you a long way in conversational terms. Everyone would rather chat to someone friendly and pleasant.

3. Respond to What They are Saying:
To respond genuinely to what someone has just said means that you have to listen. You can’t just switch off, and think about what you’re going to say next. However, if we’re honest, most of us would admit that we often do just that.
It’s important to focus on the other person, and what they’re saying. You also need to take into account their body language.

4. Use Signaling to Help the Other Person:
When a conversation is flowing well, it moves naturally from one person to the other. However, if one or both are finding it more of a struggle to ‘chat’, you may find it helpful to use ‘signals’ to show the other person that it is their turn to talk.
The most common type of signal is questions. These may be either open or closed.

  • Closed questions invite a yes/no answer.

In conversation, they might include “Don’t you agree?”, and “Are you enjoying the party?” They are not really inviting the other person to do more than nod and agree, rather than to share the conversation.
  • Open questions invite more information.

They open up the conversation to the other person, and invite them to participate. For this reason, in conversation, they are often called ‘invitations’. Open questions often start ‘How…?’ or ‘Why….?’

5. Create Emotional Connections:
Of course it is perfectly possible to conduct a conversation entirely at the level of small talk, with nothing important being said.
But conversation is also a way to explore whether you wish to know someone better and build a relationship with them. It can therefore be useful to understand how to use conversation to create and build emotional connections.
The key is sharing appropriate information.
That means being prepared to be open about what interests you, what makes you into you as a person, and inspiring the other person to share too. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Avoiding Common Managerial Mistakes:

When you first take on a management or leadership role, you will probably have to learn a number of new skills.  What is often overlooked, however, is that you also have to avoid a number of common management pitfalls.  These pitfalls often catch out new managers, but with a little careful thinking and organization, many can be avoided.  This page outlines some of the most common management mistakes, and explains how you can take action to avoid them. This knowledge should help you to become a more effective manager, and develop your skills over time.  1. Failure to Delegate  New managers—and, indeed, many established managers—fail to delegate work effectively.  The end result is that they are overworked, and their team members are underworked and bored. A sure sign of this error is a manager who is staying late in an otherwise empty office every night, often coupled with high turnover among the team.  This happens for two...
Read more

15 lessons every successful entrepreneur follows:

Here is the list out the 15 things that will make you a successful entrepreneur. Read on... Marketing cannot create entrepreneurs; it is the market that creates them by accepting the good and rejecting the bad. While there are huge number of start-ups and companies that take the leap, most of them fall short of achieving the desired success. According to a recent study done by IBM & Oxford Economics, 90 per cent of Indian start-ups fail within the first five years. Building a sustainable company is harder than most people can imagine. Entrepreneurship is defying logic, building dreams and achieving the impossible. The journey is a humbling experience even for the best ones. Setbacks are inevitable, how entrepreneurs handle them decides their fate.   The successful ones have the passion to do whatever it takes to cross the line. They put their wholehearted efforts into accomplishing things that move the world forward. While there is no magic formula to...
Read more

10 signs that your co-workers secretly hate you:

Be it taking credit for a business idea or chewing food in an irritating manner, sometimes we do not realise that we are pestering our co-workers because of these annoying behaviour. In our personal lives, it becomes really easy for us to be with our kind of people. But at the workplace, this becomes really difficult as it can create a larger problem. Doing a great job can earn you your co-workers respect but it isn't enough. You also have to be liked, or at least not actively disliked. Independent revealed some subtle signs that your co-workers secretly hate you but there can be chances that you may just be misreading their body language or tone. Here are the signs that can tell you that your co-workers secretly hate you: You are being avoided. If you pay heed to the actions of your co-worker, they can be seen avoiding you by the stairs when they see you waiting for the elevator or they wait until you return from the break ...
Read more