Every gent wants to be able to engage gracefully with other people, but some conversations can be more challenging than others—particularly with strangers and those with whom you don’t have much in common. How can you draw these people out in order to have a pleasant conversation? How can you convey authentic interest without coming across as fake?

Everyone encounters awkward conversations from time to time (see Embrace Awkwardness). It’s not the end of the world to realize that you don’t have much to say to someone, but it can be a shame because with a few simple techniques this rarely has to be the case. Below are a few simple tips that can be helpful in drawing people out.

Note that many of these tips have as much to do with an approach to people in general as they with specific conversation skills.  Self-help and self-improvement sites often include tips for making small talk or chit-chat, but not for engaging with people in conversations over the long-term. If you just need pass the time with someone sitting next to you on the airplane this might work fine, but most interactions happen with people we see over and over again. For these types of relationships, it’s important to view conversations in light of both the immediate conversation and the long-term relationship.

Here are eight specific ways to accomplish that goal:

1. Use open-ended questions. This is a fundamental skill that’s often under-appreciated.  Essentially, an open-ended question is one that invites someone to respond with more than a "yes," "no," or other one- or two-word response. The point is to get the other person talking about something they enjoy or care about—the things that are most likely to make them feel comfortable and enjoy the conversation. Some examples of open-ended questions might include:

• "What got you started in medicine?" – Not "Do you like working at the hospital?"
• "What’s your favorite part about watching a game at the stadium?" – Not "How many times have you seen this team play?"
• "What brings you to an event like this?" – Not "So, come here often?"
• "What do you think about the new U2 album?" – Not "Have you ever seen U2 live?"
• "What were you doing when you heard about 9/11?" – Not "Do you remember when the Berlin Wall fell?"

And so on, and so on. Be careful not to overdo it lest you come across as insincere—it’s NOT about feigning interest or pretending that you’re fascinated by some mundane aspect of someone’s life. It’s about finding a topic that can facilitate a great conversation.

2. Give the person you’re talking with your undivided attention. This can be especially hard in today’s age of phone calls, instant messages, texting, or any of the countless other distractions which interrupt our days. If someone is in your office and the phone rings, make it a point to note that you can call the person back. It might be a small inconvenience, but everything you do sends a message about your priorities, and giving your company the attention they deserve shows them that you respect them (and their time) enough to focus on them exclusively. Along these lines, remember to make eye contact (not creepy eye contact, just enough to show that they have your attention) and don’t gaze out the window or fidget distractedly. Body language can clearly convey a message that’s entirely different than what you intend with your words.

3. Remember the seemingly small things that matter greatly to the other person. You might not think that they care if you remember the names of their kids or their wife’s favorite hobby, but it means a lot if you do. If the opportunity arises, to ask about the details of the other person’s life, especially those things you’ve never personally experience. If you work with someone, it’s easy enough to ask about how their new position is working out—that’s your own turf and probably something that’s easy to remember. Remembering that their five year old plays T-ball or that their high-schooler wants to join the military takes more effort and demonstrates that you view them (and their families) as a valuable people with unique interests, important relationships, and a life apart from whatever circumstances brought you together. Don’t force topics into conversations if it’s not relevant, of course—you’re not just trying to score points by showing that you remember.

4. Take active measures to remember—and USE—people’s names. Studies have shown that there is no sound that people enjoy hearing more than their own name, but this is far from the only reason to call people by name in conversations. Most notably, using someone’s name demonstrates that you recognize and affirm their individual identity. This might sound silly at first, but people want to know that view them as more than just some faceless cog in a machine. It doesn’t matter if it’s a waiter at a restaurant, your child’s teacher, a boss, or anyone else—using a name shows that you’re interacting with them as a person, not a position. Using someone’s name also has a practical benefit for you—it makes it much easier to engage someone that you encounter only occasionally. No one wants to run into someone in the hall (or even worse, have to ask for a favor) and start off by saying "hey, remind me of your name again." If you know that this’ll probably be the case, it can easily make you averse to speak with people for fear of embarrassment—so it’s much better to just learn, remember, and use their names up front.

5. Don’t approach conversations like one-night stands. If you have a fascinating conversation with someone and then never speak to them again, what’s the point? Just to pass the time engaged it witty banter? If you want to set the stage for a great conversation the next time you see someone, don’t just let them drop off your radar. Swing by and poke your head in their office, just to say hi–you don’t need a reason to say "Hey, I remember you said your Mom was sick when we talked a couple of weeks ago—how is she doing?" Think about how conversations fit into the long term picture, not just how to get through an awkward elevator ride or meeting.

6. Pause before speaking. This has a couple of effects: First it shows that you’re not in a rush to speak and that you actually care about what the other person has to say. You’re not just waiting for them to run out of breath so that you can share your own thoughts. Second, it prevents you from interrupting. By taking a calculated pause, you give yourself time to slow down enough to ensure that the other person has finished whatever thought they were trying to express. This may seem small, but it’s a small gesture that can go a long way towards developing an air of sincerity and authenticity. All the open-ended questions in the world can’t make up for someone who jumps in without waiting their turn to speak.

7. Find something to compliment. There’s nothing like positive reinforcement to give people a positive association with their interactions with you. This shouldn’t be empty words or flattery—just finding something nice to say that lets the other person know that you noticed something.  It’s important that compliments be specific, since anyone can say "great job!" after a presentation. Check out The Art of Giving Praise for more suggestions on giving compliments in a ways that are meaningful to others.

8. In groups, try to shift the conversation away from issues that leave participants out. For instance: if you’re at a work party and notice a coworker’s spouse standing at the edge while a couple of people talk about office politics, try to find a way to (gracefully) move the conversation into something where everyone has something to offer. Open-ended questions can be especially helpful in this regard. Remember that some people might be uncomfortable speaking in front of strangers and would rather just hang back—so again, don’t force topics. In most cases, however, people are happy to share their thoughts if they believe they have something to contribute and the other person actually cares.

Keep in mind that the focus for all of these tips isn’t just on social success or even productive conversations.  The point is to demonstrate respect for those around you and and ensure that your daily encounters leave others walking away feeling refreshed and valued. 

If you have other conversation suggestions or tips, feel free to leave them in the “comments” section!

Related posts:

1. Embrace Awkwardness
2. How to Communicate Like Ben Bernanke
3. Is Volume Really Equated With Competence?

Four Practical Tips for Giving Praise

We all know that genuine praise can brighten the day of not only the recipient, but the praise-giver as well.  But how can you ensure that your commendations are received in the spirit they’re intended?  Steven DeMaio at The Harvard Business Blog offers four practical tips today in a post entitled The Art of Giving Praise.   Here are the four (with my paraphrased explanations):

1. Be truly specific. Anyone can come up with a generic “great job!”, but noting something specific lets the recipient know that you truly noticed something worthwhile.  I don’t know if this is what Steven was getting at, but I see it as the positive equivalent of an apology.  Sure, it can’t help to just say “I’m sorry” — but it’s an acknowledgment of the specifics that lets the other person know you truly get it.

2. Don’t confuse politeness with praise. It’s certainly important to be polite, but it’s like anything else–when overused it can easily become underappreciated because the impact wears off.  If you express thanks and appreciation for everything, don’t expect others to understand praise if it’s couched in the same exact terms. 

3. Praise with action, not just words. This seems like a no-brainer, but it’s awfully easy to toss out a few compliments here and there without follow-up.  Saying you place full faith and confidence in your people is one thing–actually demonstrating it in a way that they can appreciate is another.

4. Don’t pad constructive criticism with empty praise. Yes, of course it makes sense to phrase things positively–but there can be too much of a good thing.  Trying too hard to be positive can undermine your credibility and lead others to doubt the sincerity of your words. 

Some of these might take a little effort, but a couple (“being specific” in particular) strike me as things that should be pretty easy to do.

What about you?  How do you make sure that your praise actually gets translated as such?

-Trey

The Art of Giving Praise

Related posts:

1. Eight Simple Conversation Techniques for Drawing People Out
2. How to Communicate Like Ben Bernanke
3. Embrace Awkwardness

What’s your primary motivation in life?

Most of us want to achieve something in life…but there are time when our aspirations go beyond being a good steward of the opportunities we’ve been given and taken on a life of their own.  They can even be masked in noble terminology like wanting to “leave a legacy” — not an inherently negative thing, but when our egos take charge any noble thing can easily become more about the person and less about the work being accomplished.

Dumb Little Man discussed the Ego yesterday, using movies characters (Johhny Depp as George Jung in Blow, and Denzel Washington as Frank Lucas in American Gangster) as examples of egos run amok.  They also shared six signs that someone might be ego-driven.

Check out the article for full descriptions, but these six signs are:

• Concern with the approval of others
• Fear of asking for help
• Comparing and Competing
• The constant need for more
• Lack of presence
• The need to always be right
  

If found their thought on comparing yourself particularly good:

“People who are driven by ego often fall victim to what I call the comparative and competitive disadvantage. Comparing yourself to others is the ego in one of its most vicious forms. It’s a perpetual losing battle because there will always be somebody better and always somebody worse than you are. Even if you are the best in the world at what you do somebody will always be right on your tail. If you keep seeing your life as a competition with those around you, then you will continually be dissatisfied and the ego will drive your life.”

These are good to keep in mind, especially in a competitive, Type-A culture where everything is about competition and “getting ahead.”  I’m sure that many of the factors driving egos are more complicated than I could really comprehend or explain, by I have a suspicion that competitive and aggressive environments that measure us in terms of our outward achievements have to play some kind of role.  Or maybe it has less to do with our environment and more to do with basic human nature.  In any case, these six signs are good to keep in mind.

-Trey

.

[How to Manage Your Ego So You Can Reach Your Full Potential at Dumb Little Man]

Peacock Photo by BS_Thurner_Hof, GNU 1.2 License

Related posts:

1. Embrace Awkwardness
2. Eight Stress-Busting Tips
3. How to Communicate Like Ben Bernanke

Leaders have a natural tendency to take charge, and during meetings this often means that they end up driving the conversation. In many cases this makes sense, especially when the intent is for send-receive (generally one way) communication. However, there are also many times when this isn’t the goal, and the conversation needs to focus on dialogue, brainstorming, and sharing ideas. What then? What’s a boss or leader to do?

According to the Harvard Business Review, the answer can be found in the approach of Ben Bernanke. Their idea is that leaders need to be comfortable and confident enough in their position that they’re willing to forgo the opportunity to speak their minds up front.

“Letting others take the lead in discussions when you’re the boss is not a sign of insecurity; it can be a sign that you are in control. You are not seeking to impose your will on discussion; you are facilitating alternative points of view. This is essential to establishing the trust necessary to broker agreements between parties who don’t agree.”

Bernanke, they say, models this approach very well. In contrast with Greenspan, he often lets other participants have their say before jumping in—something that works very well when working with groups that don’t see eye-to-eye.

Moderation in all things of course–they also note that decisive action and bold action are necessary at times, because the more legislative role of “facilitating discussions” (as opposed to executive decision making or dictating) is only one aspect of leadership.

So what’s the lesson? Not that it’s better to speak or not to speak, but that it’s not always necessary for a leader to drive the conversation right off the bat—especially in circumstances when mediation or reconciliation of divergent viewpoints is necessary.

-Trey

Original Article: How to Communicate Like Ben Bernanke

Related posts:

1. Embrace Awkwardness
2. The Art of Giving Praise
3. Eight Simple Conversation Techniques for Drawing People Out

Everyone has awkward moments. Yes, everyone. Even the suave and professional people we look up to.  Naturally, we want to limit our awkwardness. Awkwardness is, well, awkward!

So the idea that awkwardness can be a good thing is counter-intuitive.  But here is why it is true: making an effort to not be awkward cannot prevent you from having awkward experiences (they are inevitable), but it can create more awkwardness.

Therefore you might as well break your fear of it right now by embracing it. Embracing it will in the long run make you less awkward. But you don’t embrace the awkward solely for the sake of becoming less awkward. That’s just the natural outcome.  You have to break the fear of the awkwardness so that you are better able to learn and to enjoy life and relationships, and really engage people.

You can be a less awkward conversationalist because you do not worry about the state of the conversation constantly. When we worry about it too much, rather than having a conversation, we start playing competition of who can act the most in line with convention (and perhaps how far someone will dare to the edge without actually getting too close), and when we try to compete, we are no longer practicing.

Being worried about awkwardness will stunt your growth and confidence. Letting yourself be awkward will let you venture into a really interesting conversations and interactions.  Awkwardness is not itself a good thing, but being able to enjoy it is, and will ultimately give you a confidence which will be anything but awkward.

Ben Stiller and Robert DeNiro in "Meet the Parents", a study in awkwardness.

Brian G.

Related posts:

1. How to Communicate Like Ben Bernanke
2. Eight Simple Conversation Techniques for Drawing People Out
3. The Art of Giving Praise

There may be times when the easiest way to get rid of stress is just to avoid stressful situations. For all the rest, check out today’s post from Dumb Little Man on ways to eliminate stress. They’re all common sense and include both physical factors (exercise, sleep, diet, etc.) and mental approaches (taking breaks, doing one thing at a time).

One tip that resonates with me was also the subject of a post I wrote earlier this week—eliminating caffeine. I also like the reminder to focus and avoid trying to multitask (says the person with twelve open browsers right now!).

Personally, I think the Office Space approach of destroying electronic equipment might be enough in many cases–and I can’t help but feel like life might be a lot more enjoyable if computers weren’t around. Then again, nah—if it wasn’t computers it would just be something else. Maybe I just need to learn to not open up all those browsers windows to begin with.

Ok, it’s almost 11pm…time to go get some coffee!

Kill Your Stress: Eight Stress-Busting Tips

Related posts:

1. Stressed? Ditch the Caffeine.
2. Preserve Trust by Avoiding “bcc:”
3. The Art of Giving Praise