Having Better Conversations

It's been tough to step away from work lately.  My team and I are in the process of onboarding a small company's worth of new hires within the next few months.  It's exciting, challenging, and thought consuming work.  These are the kinds of challenges I love, a big hairy audacious goal where we get to bend the limits of what we've been able to achieve in the past.     

I did however, get the opportunity to step away for a moment to see Celeste Headlee speak at the 2019 Pennsylvania Conference for Women.  She kicked off the Workplace Summit with a great keynote entitled "We Need to Talk:  How to Have Better Conversations".  Her presentation was inspiring and based off of her insight, I've been practicing a few of her tips.  My daily interactions with friends, family, and co-workers have improved.

Interested?  Read on!

1. Stop multi-tasking, you can't do it well.  In fact it can actually harm your brain, dropping your IQ and increasing stress.  Give your full attention to the person you're talking to or excuse yourself to focus on what's important.
2. Stop trying to change people's minds, especially with data.  People don't change their minds based off of numbers on a chart.  Instead, ask open ended questions.  A simple question can provide you with a complicated answer providing you with more details.  These are details you can use to find a common ground.
3. Don't listen to respond, the conversation doesn't need to be about you.  As you're listening, If you have a thought that will steer the conversation towards yourself, simply note it and let it go.
4. It's OK to say "I don't know" if you are unsure of the answer to a question.  No one expects you to have all the answers.  It can actually help to build trust because you'll be seen as more genuine.
5. Don't repeat yourself.  If people know you will repeat yourself then they will stop listening.  They know that eventually you'll come back around to the topic again.
6. Face to face conversations are better than email or over the phone.  In fact "Research by UCLA psychology professor emeritus Albert Mehrabian found that 7 percent of a message was derived from the words, 38 percent from the intonation, and 55 percent from the facial expression or body language".  Douglas Van Praet of Psychology Today

Interested in learning more?  Check out Celeste's website or read her book "We Need to Talk: How to Have Conversations That Matter".  Quick note, this is not a referral link, I'm not making any money off of my recommendation.  I just think you can learn something, I know that I did.