talking

Write keynote speech for Viralink Industries

a Mission (something one person can do once) by Agent Pugsly Mon, 2008-07-21 16:15 Tags:

Re-Activate

Status:

closed

Assigned:

Agent Pugsly

Category:

task

Priority:

critical

My Mission:

Category:

task

Status:

closed

Priority:

critical

Assigned:

Agent Pugsly

Prepare presentation for Grand Opening event on Aug 1st.

1 comment

Good Conversations - Will it post in my blog?

blog posted by cidviscous Tue, 2007-11-13 05:29 Tags:

Being a Good Conversationalist

There are few skills that will get you further than becoming a good conversationalist. Knowing how to talk (and possibly more importantly, knowing how to listen) well can open doors to you, teach you things you'd never otherwise know, gain you friends and allies, spread your ideas out into the rest of the world.

To a lot of people, the word conversationalist brings to mind pictures of talking. Talk talk talk. Good speaking voice, mannerisms, witty reparte, clever retorts, engaging anecdotes, and blah blah blah.

Thing is, this is only half of a conversation.

People who are truly skilled in the art of verbal communication are not just good talkers, they're good listeners. Being a good listener might be more important than being a good talker. Okay, maybe I'm getting a little ahead of myself. We can actually take a step back and look at this from a bigger picture--we'll break it into three different aspects which make up a conversation...

Listening

The reason it's so important to be a good listener to be a good conversationalist is very straightforward. A conversation is a two way street--you have to be able to absorb information from the person you're talking to in order to gauge success, find better ways of dealing with that person, understand their side of things, etc. You need to be able to receive data as well as send it.

Another reason to develop your skills as a listener is that of listening as a means of communication. When you are actively listening to what someone is saying to you, you're feeding them a stream of complements. It feels good to know that someone appreciates you, and by having eye contact, nodding, repeating their own words (or paraphrases), and other subtle approaches you can not only better understand what the person is trying to say, but you can often steer a conversation just by how you listen, as well as provide them with a sense of importance/well-being/appreciation.

Bottom line--listening is IMPORTANT.

Thinking

This one tends to get people into trouble, both by doing it and not doing it (at the appropriate times).

Everybody (open for debate, I know) knows that it's usually a good thing to think about what you're going to say before you open your mouth. In spite of this knowledge, we often lose that filter between our brain and our mouth, frequently producing disastrous results.

The other trouble thinking can get you into involves thinking of what you're going to say (while the other person is talking). This is bad because it takes your attention away from the listening part.

Don't be so afraid of missing an opportunity to make a good point that you stop really listening. This behaviour shows on your face, and that aside, really does affect your ability to soak up the other side of the conversation. To be successful, you need to learn to balance your participation in the conversation.

Speaking

Here's where we get to the actual talking part of talking. This portion of the show is going to depend largely on what goes on with the other two segments.

Both the content and presentation (cadence, tone, delivery, mannerisms, etc.) comprising the words that come out of your mouth carry depth and dimension of meaning to your listener(s). The choices a good conversationalist makes on what to say and how to say it should reflect the situation at hand.

Someone once told me that you can tell anybody in the world anything you want just so long as you figure out the right way to tell them.

Deciding what to say and what you allow to be conveyed through nonverbal means, can be influenced by lots of things--what you hope to accomplish through the conversation, what you think the other person wants to accomplish or expects, how well you know the other person, your perception of how the conversation is going, and the list goes on.

Tying it All Together

The real trick is finding the right balance of everything. A good conversationalist is good at reading people, thoughtful, and knows when to shut up. Each conversation, each dialogue, will always have a dynamic all its own, and adjustments will have to be made, but all these skills can be practiced, developed.

Practice with your friends--work on really listening (read: paying attention) the next time you get into a conversation with your friends. Don't think about what you're going to say while they're still talking. Don't say anything until you have something to say. Ask open ended questions ('open ended question' is just a simple way to say questions which can't be answered with a yes or no (or one word)) to draw them out--people will often surprise you with what they might say.

One of the great things about conversation skills is that there are people all over the place to practice with (whether they realize they're helping you practice or not). Store attendents, waiters and bartenders, friends, family, strangers, strangers on the phone or in the internet tubes. All you have to do is be cognizant of what you're doing. Pay attention when you talk to people.