Talking is Important Too

I received this comment on a post I did about listening:

"Hi, I am a student of Business Administration, and recently, we have been taking courses on effective communication. There seems to be so much emphasis put on listening, but what about talking? Shouldn't speaking also be regarded as a major part of communication? Which is more difficult and why? Thanks"

I knew I had written about how to create great dialogue and thought I would just quickly point the commentor to the post in response to her inquiry. I looked and looked and could not find it. I guess I did not post it!

Well, we need to fix that.

YES - Talk is critical. Talk is the lifeblood of management. It is our vehicle for progress. Here are six elements of great dialogue.

• Relevance
• Inquiry
• Freedom
• Connectedness
• Reception
• Empowerment
• Play

Relevance: The topic of discussion is one that people care about and that makes a difference to their lives. If people are not engaged, then maybe the topic is not relevant enough or you are not approaching in a way that is appealing or interesting. Key point: while attendance is mandatory, listening and engagement is optional! While you might need to bring up topics that others would prefer to avoid, if you ask the right provocative or evocative questions, you should be able to grab their interest.

Inquiry: Questions are being asked that move the topic forward. Questions are both provocative and evocative. Inquiry is at the core of dialogue. Asking questions is a great way to jumpstart inquiry. There are several types of questions and they are not all treated equally. To create effective inquiry, you need to look deeper than whether the question is open or closed-ended. Both types can be poor or excellent questions, although open-ended tend to involve people more. As a coach/manager/facilitator, you want to make sure that your questions are either provocative or evocative.

• Provocative questions: Excite and stimulate conversation. “What would happen if...?”
• Evocative questions: Pull in participants and help brings things to mind. “What kind of work makes you feel most engaged and satisfied?”

Freedom: Participants feel free to share their ideas and thoughts, even those on the fringe. The effectiveness of your meetings can be crippled if attendees do not feel comfortable being open and candid. In a small group situation, you will want to establish good conversation habits and encourage participation. You may need to be the one to bring up a sensitive topic first to help break the ice for the rest of the group.  Ensure that you diplomatically deal with over participators or comments that squash the group’s creativity and engagement.

Connectedness: There is a sense of shared purpose or interest. The participants feel connected to one another. Managers walk a fine line between being directly involved and delegation and partnership. In all these situations, you can be very connected in that you take ownership of enabling effectiveness.  Show an interest in progress and participate directly as appropriate to the situation.

Reception: Participants listen well, interpret the information, provide feedback, and reinforce contribution. There are many things that get in the way of dialogue reception. Miscommunications, censored feedback and poor listening can wreck a conversation. You may not hear what the person is trying to tell you even if you hear the words he or she is speaking. Communication between two people goes through each person’s filters (mindset, biases, opinions).

Empowerment: People feel as though they can have some impact on the topic being discussed. This would ideally mean they can move the problem or opportunity forward, but could also mean they can move the intellectual debate further. If conversations are focused on the goals or development areas that are most important, then achieving topic empowerment should not be a problem. If people do not feel as though they can have impact on the goals, then another problem exists. Sometimes people will not see the full breadth of influence and impact they have and you may need to help them broaden their perceptions.

Play: The conversation is fun and full of energy. The dialogue has an energy to it that flows and can be playful. You can do a lot of things that will help your dialogue be playful. A playful conversation does not need to lack seriousness. In this context, playfulness means playing with ideas, concepts, and information such that the conversations energy level is high. Here are several ways you can improve conversation playfulness:

• Ask people to read one or more interesting and provocative articles prior to your meeting.
• Change the context of the meeting to a place that is intellectually stimulating.
• Mindmap the conversation.
• Share a success story of someone with a similar goal.
• Use idea generation techniques.
• Make homework assignments that are unconventional and intriguing. Change one behavior for one week. Suggest a movie or performance that will be thought provoking.

To make conversations more playful, you want to have a variety of contexts and types of information coming together. Tap into the interests and needs of attendees and offer information that will stretch and broaden their perspectives.

Managers should be master conversationalists.

Comments

[laurence haughton]

What a great answer Lisa. Conversation is very different than the communication model most B schools teach.

Almost 2,500 years ago a sage observed, "Those who speak don't know. Those who know don't speak." I think one thing that maxim means is the confident talkers get by so easily on their ability to yak, they don't bother knowing very much. Case in point - media pundits.

[Lisa Haneberg]

LH: This is an area that is very interesting to me and it pops up in a variety of places. I am working with a group of people to write a book and I keep thinking about how we can facilitate great conversation versus wax poetic.

I need to reorder my business cards...I want to change the "title" I put under my name. Right now is says Management and Leadership Expert. Yuck! I want to put something like "Facilitating Leadership, Management, and Organizational success" but this is too long and not quite right.

Great conversations lead to great thinking and action. Speaking, while a skill and art, will not make a damn bit of difference if it does not improve the conversation.

How do we articulate this? What's the conversation for conversation? Ironic question, really.....

[laurence haughton]

For one-on-one conversations there's only two things you need to know - how to really get someone talking and then how to listen.

For group conversations I am looking for the answers. I think it may start by knowing how to keep dominating people from dominating and how to get those who really know to talk (see above). I'm just not sure how to do that, without getting all rule bound and PC. Any ideas?

[Lisa Haneberg]

Laurence - you have gotten to the heart of it - how do we enrigh the conversation without over-managing it? That's what interests me and what I have been working on, and what the six elements seek to support.

Here are some of the things I do that helps, too:

I help the dominating (usually bosses) folks create and articulate their end goals (of which their domineering does not support although they do not know this).

I set the expectation upfront that I will be seeking to get open engagement from those that have the information, ideas, and crucial concerns. And then in the meeting/conversation, I put on my courageous hat and make sure this happens.

Crafting GREAT questions is key - and is half the battle in my mind.

Prepping people to come to the conversation ready to open up is another. I set the expectations high and don't let the group get away with wasting each other's time.

I find that being tough is important. Being insanely interested is important. Being generous and helpful is important. Acknowledging people's special contribution and using the Peter Principle to our advantage is important. Timing of questions can make or break the conversation.

There is an art to a great conversation. It's something that I find fascinating and I can see that those who are great at it produce vastly different results.

[Rosa Say]

Hmmm. Lisa and Laurence, I am enjoying listening in on this conversation! Terrific post Lisa, I too like the way you’ve broken talk down to these elements.

The two that strike me most are freedom and play; freedom from the need for people in so many organizations to feel safe so they can be more inhibited and free, and play because conversations at work generally do need to be so much more joyful and un-boring. I also think these two elements are the ones that boost energies; when I enter a workplace to coach that is usually the first task at hand for me, injecting some life into any complacency and mediocrity, which include the conversational ruts teams have fallen into. We spend some time talking about our ‘rules of engagement’ to expose bad habits for the villains they are, and immediately set the expectation that not engaging is not an option any longer.

Gotta say, this is half the fun of coaching! We jump in, stir things up, and don’t follow the existing “rules” we don’t know about existing for them! “Well, why not?” always ends up to be my favorite question. I relish the thought that my ‘ignorance’ can turn out to be our bliss.

[Lisa Haneberg]

Rosa - I like the way you said that - facilitator "ignorance" can be a great catalyst for the conversation. and I agree that conversation facilitation is organic - we have to see where things are going and nudge them along.

I might even go so far as saying that facilitation is more art than science.

[Jeremy Varo-Haub]

I love all of this, because I love good dialogue, in and out of the office.

I've got one question related to the "six elements of great dialogue," Lisa. Does every meeting, every conversation, every interaction I have at work *need* to include all six of those elements? Are there times when any of them can be counter-productive?

My background is almost entirely creative: web development, design work, literature, writing, "professional learning." I'm really good at that side of things, and I've worked for a lot of highly creative, very fun, very productive organizations. We were producing things that had broad appeal, and our internal structures and atmosphere reflected our products.

It was productive for us to play together, and quite easy for us to establish "six-element" dialogue. (I just made that up . . . but i like it!).

But I've worked at a few (thank God, just a few) places where the products weren't broadly appealing. It was very difficult, in those environments, to have "six-element" dialogue. My question is, in those kinds of environments, is it possible to hit all six elements in dialogue? Is it optimal? Is it worth the trouble it takes to get your people there?

Innately, I want to answer, YES to all three of those questions. I want to find the owners of those business that are bored with what they do and tell them that if they can't find a way to make what they do exciting to their employees, they should get out while they still can.

Or maybe they should hire a coach?

[Lisa Haneberg]

Jeremy - I think that all six elements do not need to be present to have a great conversation - but the more the better. As you state - "six-element" dialogue is significantly better and more stimulating and productive than talk that does not meet this standard.

Most business conversations fall short. I think there are many reasons for this. People not "in love" with their business and product is certainly one problem. Leaders and managers who squelch great dialogue is another. Not knowing how to converse is also a challenge for some and easy to correct.

Coaches can help if there is the desire to create change and create great dialogue. If someone is not interested in coaching, it is likely a waste of time.

Thanks for the thoughts!

[runescape gold]

Coaches can help if there is the desire to create change and create great dialogue. If someone is not interested in coaching, it is likely a waste of time.

Thanks for the thoughts!

[detox extreme]

st I did about listening:

"Hi, I am a student of Business Administration, and recently, we have been taking courses on effective communication. There seems to be so much emphasis put on listening, but what about talking? Shouldn't speaking also be regarded as a major part of communicati