Shut up about 'You' for a second!

I’m training an Active Listening course this afternoon and thoroughly looking forward to it. I enjoy the soft skills aspect of training and Active Listening really makes a difference to people.

What I wanted to share with you was a concept I use to help cover off the ‘shift response tendency’ that people do whilst having conversations.. Simply put, it’s when someone shows a form of conversational narcissism and tries to constantly re-focus the conversation towards themselves and their own agenda.

Sounds excellent right, but if I were to explain it like that I’d probably end up putting the trainees to sleep. Especially given the concept is very simple at its core.

As a result I deliver a section of the training on what I call ‘Me Me’ conversations, ‘Me You’ conversations and ‘You You’ conversations and I thought it would be nice to share with you what these are.

It’s definitely worth pointing out that there is a lot more to Active Listening, but these conversation types should start to steer you in the right direction, and if anything, they’ll prove to be a nice thing to think about next time your chewing someone’s ear off.

Me Me conversations

So a Me Me conversation is the typical friend to friend convo, the discussion you have with a family member (typically a sibling) or with your bestie over a glass of wine.

You can recognise this type of conversation from the constant ‘stealing’ of the limelight and the speed at which the topic switches as participants attempt to hijack it throughout..

they often look like this..

Person A: sorry I'm late I got stuck in traffic

Person B: Yeah I got stuck in traffic as well, it was bonkers..

Person A: Mine was a huge queue on the way out of town..

Person B: yeah mine was near the park, I wasn’t bothered as I have a new car..

Person A: really? I was thinking of a new car, what did you go for?

The constant switching in these conversations is rarely noticed and because it’s typically a friendly chat you give leeway to each other as it progresses and rarely will either of you get annoyed about it. When was the last time you had a Me Me conversation? My only warning here is to make sure that if you do recognise you are talking like this, it’s not at work!

Me You conversations

These are normal conversations, the ones you have everyday. They aren’t particularly situational and they work in most circumstances.

The conversation you had this morning with your colleagues about your commute in to work, what you did the previous evening and the terrible new vending machine was almost certainly a Me You conversation.

There isn’t anything wrong with these types of conversations. You share these equally and whilst you don’t seek to manipulate or hijack it in any way, you do also take your fair share of conversation time.

The example conversation here would be fairly boring, if you talk about a TV show at lunch tomorrow you’ll be having a Me You conversation.

The only thing you’ll need to be aware of here, is to consciously avoid slipping into a Me Me conversation without realising it and risk alienating most of your colleagues.

You You conversations

Let’s finish then with an Active Listening approach to conversations OR a You You approach to speaking to someone.

A You You approach describes the way in which, as a person who is seeking to listen actively, you focus on the other person and only seek to interrupt them to draw more information out. Or, seek clarification or make confirmatory noises or gestures to encourage them.

The same conversation about the traffic from earlier would look remarkably different in a You You approach:

Person A: sorry I'm late, I got stuck in traffic

Person B: Oh really, that’s not good, where?

Person A: There was a huge queue on the way out of town..

Person B: oh right..?

Person A: Yeah, I was stuck in the queue for over 30 minutes, hardly moved once!

Person B: Do you know what the hold up was?

…and so on. With person B only ever seeking to draw out information and clarify.

This approach is an Active Listening approach and when teamed with other aspects of Active Listening makes for a powerful combination.

In a work context, this type of conversation lends itself well to one-to-ones, feedback meetings and coaching sessions (among others). In these situations you end up getting much more out of the person you are talking too!

So, next time you are having a conversation with someone, have a think!

What type of conversation am I having right now?

What type of conversation should I be having right now?