How to have better conversations?

The next time you think you just don’t have time to have meaningful conversations with your team, whether about their role, their careers, or things that matter to them, think again. As you’ll see in our infographic below, there are tangible business benefits from conversations.

We know from research by Gallup that managers and leaders are the biggest factors influencing employee engagement and relationships between employees and team leaders are built one conversation at a time.

What might feel like small talk can have tremendous benefits in the future?

Organisations with top employee engagement ratings see benefits to their performance.

Higher productivity, better customer metrics, and lower rates of absenteeism are just a few of the benefits of an engaged workforce.

We all want to be charming, witty conversationalists who can work a room and give people the comfort that they’ve been truly listened to.

1: What makes a good communicator?

Whether you're an employee or a manager, the importance of communicating well can't be emphasised enough. However, like most skills in life, good communication doesn't come naturally for most people, who must develop the skill through continual practice.

Those who have earned a reputation as excellent communicators share several common traits. These qualities, in turn, focus on one major goal: to make sure that all participants in a conversation feel equally heard, respected and understood.

2: This is what belongs at the start of a conversation

2.1: Active Listener

Active listening is essential for effective communication. Instead of interrupting the other person, frontline workers and managers who master this skill focus on what the other person is telling them.

Good communicators also understand the value of confirming that they're intently listening, whether it's through nods, brief verbal cues or paraphrasing the other person's statements.

These sort of responses keep conversations from turning into monologues, which is crucial to solving a customer's problems or closing a business deal.

2.2: Empathy for Others

At many workplaces, communication is frequently associated with a hard-driving language style, however, that approach often leaves workers talking at each other in stiff, artificial ways.

Instead, good communicators seek opportunities for collaboration and meaningful dialogue, and such possibilities are more likely to happen when you try to understand the other person's concerns about an issue, rather than forcing your views on him.

2.3: Effective communicators seek to understand how others feel about a situation.

Whether you're an employee or a manager, the importance of communicating well can't be emphasized enough. However, like most skills in life, good communication doesn't come naturally for most people, who must develop the skill through continual practice.

Those who have earned a reputation as excellent communicators share several common traits, and these qualities, in turn, focus on one major goal: to make sure that all participants in a conversation feel equally heard, respected and understood.

2.4: Nonverbal Interpreter

Employees and managers often interact without saying a word. If you understand this principle, you already know that body language, eye contact, and tone of voice send powerful cues in workplace relationships.

For example, lack of eye contact or failure to sit upright at a business meeting indicates boredom or disinterest in a speaker's message and skilled communicators strive to avoid giving off these signals, which show how they regard others. Appropriate eye contact communicates respect and interest.

2.5: Open-Minded

Without open-mindedness, good communication is unlikely to occur on a regular basis, it's easy to assume that a co-worker who dominates the office conversation flow is showing off.

However, such assumptions are also a common source of workplace conflicts and good communicators avoid being drawn into these situations by asking clarifying questions and finding common interests. Such actions halt the escalation of future conflicts.

2.5: Positive Thinkers

Good communicators recognize the value of positive thinking when enthusiasm flags around the conference table and this is no easy feat since the human brain is better attuned to negative emotions that require more thinking to process.

Effective communicators try to offset negative feedback with a couple of positive comments and positive corporate leaders focus on rallying others around common goals to teach resiliency in tough business climates.

3: To be a true conversation superstar, try these tips:

• Be attentive and give eye contact and make active and engaged expressions.
• Repeat back what you’ve heard, and follow up with questions. If you notice something you want to say, don’t say it. Challenge it and go back to listening.
• For bonus points: wait an hour to bring up that thing you didn’t say earlier.

Keep in mind that when you say something declarative, seek out the other person’s opinion as well.