The Tango of Good Conversation

A conversation is like a dance. Someone leads, someone follows… If both try to lead at the same time, you’ll end up with sore toes.

To simply bop on the dance floor of conversation, one person needs to listen as the other talks. Bopping doesn’t normally involve physical contact, and neither will this sort of conversation necessarily mean connection on any meaningful level. It’s the talk of the weather, or sharing of gossip at the school gate or the work water-cooler.

Don’t knock the weather. If it didn’t change once in a while, nine out of ten people couldn’t start a conversation

~Kin Hubbard

To boost the level of connection, we need to get a little closer and a little more involved.

Take a couple dancing the Tango: watch and you see how these two masterfully communicate non-verbally, synchronise, and simply glide around the dance floor. They create the most wonderful outcomes for all who watch, as well as the dancers themselves.

A good conversation should give you a similar sense of accomplishment and connection.

Good dancers, of course, have trained and practiced for long hours to make the dance seem effortless: just as your core conversation skills will grow and strengthen the more you use them.

Listening

Few are agreeable in conversation, because each thinks more of what he intends to say than of what others are saying, and listens no more when he himself has a chance to speak.

~Francois de La Rochefoucauld

The biggest lesson I had to learn was how to listen well. Listening still challenges me, and I am sure it’s a skill I will work on for the rest of my life.

The ability to switch off that little ego editor in your head that tunes out what the other person is saying and thinks instead about what it is going to say next, is key to being a good listener. If you’re waiting to jump in and have your say the minute the other person takes a breath, you’re missing what they are really saying.

A good conversation is not about taking ‘turns’ to speak, it’s all about really getting what the other person is saying (including what they are not saying). A great conversation is like an unscripted dance where you abandon yourself to the music and the movement and just go with the flow, discarding all agendas.

Talking

If you’re going for real connection in your conversation, then be real. When someone shares with me, I feel honoured if they are real, honest, forthright and even courageous in their sharing.

Of course, crafting great questions is a skill that can strengthen the connection and synchronicity between you. Asking questions that require more than a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ answer is a good place to start (those yes and no questions can really kill a conversation…). Ask to understand more, ask to get to the heart of the person, ask to learn, ask from a place of curiosity and a desire to really hear the other person. Be fascinated in them and what they have to say – and dig deep with your questions to bring the best them forward.

There is no such thing as a worthless conversation, provided you kow what to listen for. And questions are the breath of life for a conversation.

~James Nathan Miller

This month at Challenge Space, we’re asking you to participate in a month long celebration of conversation by sharing a great conversation starter question (and who you would ask it of) – please join in!

Empathy

A couple cannot dance with a wall between them. Neither can we have a meaningful, connecting conversation where there are barriers – real or imaginary – between us. Build a bridge to connect and walk over it to stand beside the other – see the world from their side. To see you in them you need to put aside ego, put aside pride and vanity, and put yourself in their shoes. Just as those leading the dance need to be able to relate to the one doing all the steps backwards.

It gets you nowhere if the other person’s tail is only just in sight for the second half of the conversation

~Pooh’s Little Instruction Book, inspired by A.A. Milne

The Tango of Conversation

We all truly want to be heard. I know I do! In order to hear the music of love, respect, friendship or simple connection, we must first be open to connecting.

Whether it’s a quick chat as we wait in line at the supermarket, a gleeful connection with our best friend over a couple of lattes, or a long fireside heart-to-heart with our beloved, connection is the spark which makes life worthwhile.

There isn’t much better in this life than finding a way to spend a few hours in conversation with people you respect and love. You have to carve this time out of your life because you aren’[t really living without it.

~Real Live Preacher