The Conversational Skill We All Need Today…Especially Online
In business, as in politics, our communication has become more polarised. This is possibly a reaction to the stress and uncertainty that we have all endured for a year now. Combine this with the physical disconnection that happens in online conversations and it is easy for our conversations and negotiations to be more difficult than they should be.
Recently, researchers Michael Yeomans, Julia Minson, Hanne Collins, Francesca Gino and Frances Chen have given a name to the skill we all need to develop. They have called it ‘conversational receptiveness’ and, in a nutshell. it involves changes – often very subtle – to how we phrase things.
Emotional negative reactions are very easy to trigger, and when they are, moving forward with agreement instantly becomes more difficult. So, think about how you can phrase what you say in a much more receptive way. Here are three rules you can apply immediately.
- Show You're Listening – Positively!
Many people fall into the trap of becoming competitive in their conversations. They cannot resist an opportunity to catch the other person out for some error or inconsistency because they believe this will put them in the superior position. Use phrases like, “I notice you said…” but, then, rather than challenging them, follow with, “So, can you tell me more about…” This way they will see your statement as a positive reflection of someone trying to understand them, not someone trying to ‘trip them up’ where, after a while they will not tell you anything!
Incorporate some paraphrasing to make sure you really understand: “So, what I think you’re saying is…” or, “So, the way you see it is…”
2. Avoid Ultimatum Words
Words like ‘must’ and ‘should’ generally trigger resistance. Simply rephrasing to sound more receptive and flexible will make them more likely to listen to you. For example: “The way we must approach this is..” could be rephrased, “One way we could approach this is…”
3. Find the Common Points
No matter how far apart you may be on some issues, there will be some points you agree on. Bring some positivity and perspective to the conversation by starting at least one sentence with “One thing I think we agree on is…”
As mentioned earlier, online conversations – even though we might have good video – will always lack the human connection from simply being in the same space. We have to compensate for this and conversational receptiveness is a great way to do that.