TOWARDS BETTER CONVERSATIONS

It's fantastic to discover what the world has to offer in terms of learning material.

As a passionate Learning&Development individual, I've used and still using the 70-20-10 learning model to improve my interactions whether they are personal, private or professional.

Some key words I've just used are:

• Interactions
• Learning
• Development 

Here are some findings I want to share.

INTERACTIONS

While listening or engaging in discussions with peers, mentors, friends, colleagues and so on, I'm always concerned when I see how inefficient discussions are (around 87% of the time), because parties involved forget about the following:

Why am I talking?

• Are you starting a discussion to share your knowledge? Because you're facing a road block? To have other perspectives and point of views? Are you sharing facts or opinions?
• Are you participating in a discussion to share your knowledge? To explore possibilities that haven't been discussed yet? To validate a fact? Share an opinion?
• For a reason known by me only!

I often see discussions turning around who's right and who's wrong, or talks about situations wherein none of the parties are willing to learn from the situation at hand. They either collide if their opinions differ or agree in badmouthing about the boss, colleague, friend, partner or spouse (obviously absent ??).

In those discussions a party assumes its purpose is known by the others, while other parties almost instinctively look for hidden messages or try to guess the “real meaning” of what has just been said.

It looks like they all try to make a point without even knowing why they're all having that discussion.

Having carried my silhouette around the globe to enrich my savoir-faire in the North Americas, Europe, Africa and now in the Middle East, I came to understand that as there are various ways to see a situation, there’s no right or wrong answer to a particular scenario.

All there is, are …FACTS, FEELINGS....and WORDS to convey them!

LEARNING

How would it feel to start a conversation by stating the purpose of the conversation?

“What would you do if you faced that situation? Yesterday at work….”

“I need your help in identifying why this keeps happening to me!…..”

“Would you perceive any learning for me in the following scenario?….”

“That's a funny story I want to share……”

Amusingly, from what I've experienced, we're very good at stating why we're talking when the purpose is distraction but fail to do so when there's a serious outcome at stake.

Setting the purpose of starting a discussion or before intervening in one helps the participants channelizing the inputs towards the mentioned purpose by selecting the words serving that goal. It helps appreciate and learn from the various inputs towards the set objective of the interaction.

It renders the interaction easy to follow and understand without having to guess a meaning or read between the lines of an interlocutor’s words.

It obliges the participants to think before speaking; so they are in line with the purpose previously stated and since we're copycat masters from childhood, it helps participants to reflect on why they will speak and about what, before they actually do.

It cleansed interactions from misunderstandings, judgments, anger and uselessness.

It enriches lives by improving communications.

DEVELOPMENT

Bibop: “Hey I think adding a piano in the music will not sound great, so let's just go ahead with the trumpet only.”

Alex: “Well, I want the piano because it adds color to the soundtrack.”

Bibop: “But I don't think it will sound nice with the electric guitar and the end.”

Alex: “This time around we'll add the piano.”

Bibop (pulling a face): “I don't understand why you always make it so difficult”

Alex: “….”

What do you think will happen to the cooperation between those 2?

I bet it won't last long unless they have a productive discussion around ways to compose an amazing soundtrack with defined areas of expertise for each to enrich the collaboration.

What we usually tend to forget in our interactions is that the foundation of an interaction is about each participant trusting others of being equally, if not better, capable of effectively contribute towards the objective of the discussion.

Do we trust the capacities of the friend, partner, spouse, colleague, boss to provide inputs which will serve the topic of a discussion before embarking them in a project?

What do we want to know?

Have we assessed the real needs of talking? What will then be the topic of discussion? What will be the words used to get the best of each participants to get to an agreed outcome where all participation will be valued?

Have we dedicated ourselves to understand the culture, history, background of the people around us, to measure the reach of our words so we can wisely use them?

Are we aware of who's next to us?

Or are we still learning about our own-self to understand our emotions, cope with them and use them to get the best out of us?

Have we gauged the impact of our words and body language before using them?

Some will call it Emotional Intelligence, encompassing self-awareness, self-regulation, motivation, empathy and social-awareness. Make no mistakes here, it is the core of all interactions and “a wonderful tool allowing people to express themselves and learn at will”.

Here are some tips to improve your daily interactions.

• Ask for clarification when you feel you lean towards an assumption of a person’s state or reaction. Words like “How do you feel?”, “How are you doing?”, “What’s your progress?” are always more appreciated than “You look tired”, “You need to speed up”, “I think you'll be late”….
• Base your conversation on facts and observation. You'll definitely get to understand more about the people around you, if when prompt, you can highlight the faulty behavior by stating “You do this often for me to notice”, “….on those occasions you did this…” Then ask, to clarify the potential impact of those behaviors on project, environment, colleagues, partner, etc…..

No one is “always...” or “never...”.

• Actively listen to what is said. Understand the words used, rephrase to better your understanding, look for the purpose of those words if it wasn't stated before. Ask for clarification if you feel you're leaning towards a misunderstanding.
• “I don't have a strong opinion on the matter, while things to reflect on can be…”, “While I don't know, things you can consider from what I've just heard are ......…”. Using similar sentences when asked about a topic you do not know about, shows that you care, that you've listened, that you're true to yourself and eager to explore possibilities about an unknown topic.
• Acknowledge your mistakes. You need them to improve as long as you do not hide behind the fact that everybody makes mistakes. Express your remorse and compunction, present your sincere apologies, say you're sorry, learn from it and move ahead reassuring people about how you'll manage to avoid the same or similar traps.

It's a topic as wide as the diversity in the world, but the above will oblige you to learn and explore more with great and sound results.