Leahey.org

Introduction

This self improvement article — or should I say, series of articles, will cover various conversational pointers I have found to be helpful. Skills of conversation are useful in all facets of life; be it relationships, friendships, or business discussions. A good conversationalist will always be understood, while remaining a good listener. He or she will add something to the conversation, and allow others to as well. They will always leave you wanting more.

This particuliar article covers holding a conversation that will leave the other party positively impressed. It implies some sort of superiority (in your mind) from the other party. I.e. A job interview, a conversation with the boss, or approaching a member of the opposite sex.

It may be construed as not being your ‘true self’, or being manipulative. If you feel it is, feel free not to use these techniques. Being opinionated while not being a jerk will be covered in a future article.

(The following examples are rather crude, I know, but they are the best way of illustrating my points.)

Maintain eye contact

The most….most….MOST important part of holding a good conversation is MAINTAINING EYE CONTACT. If you read nothing else in this article, and take away nothing else from this site, take this. At all times, in all situations, it is best to maintain eye contact and ignore distractions when holding a conversation with another party. They are it. They are the only thing interesting in the room, the building, the entire world. Pick an eye, stare at it. You can move your head so that you don’t look like a psycho, maybe sniffle from time to time or pretend to take something out of your eye. But maintain. eye. contact.

Eye contact shows the other party many things. Not the least of which is self assurance. You are self confident. You have no problem looking directly in to someones eyes and telling them your opinion. You are interested. The traffic outside, the waiter that drops the dishes, none of these things are interesting to you. The conversation, is interesting.

Ask leading and clarifying questions

Look at it this way, if you have to choose between being considered too quiet or too talkative, you will always want to be too quiet. Not to the point of appearing shy or nervous, but just respectfully reserved. The best way to remain reserved while actually maintaining a conversation, is to ask leading questions that allow the other party to say what they’ve basically wanted to say anyway.

An example would be Fred telling you he’s looking forward to going out on his new boat for the first time this weekend. Fred obviously wants to tell you about his boat, he is not interested in hearing about that one time you went sailing when you were 13. The best way to handle conversations such as these is to ask a question that allows the Fred to tell you about his boat.

The first thing you would do is adjust your body language to indicate interest. Be it raising your eyebrows or taking a step closer to him. You would then ask your leading question. “New boat?” From this point, its pretty much self explanatory. When Fred seems to be running out of steam, you ask him another question that allows him to avoid stalling. “Planning on doing any fishing?”

Paraphrase

Asking leading questions and asking for clarification is good to get the other party to tell you about themselves. Inevitably, though, you will have to tell them about you. The best way of handling this is to paraphrase what they have said. If they comment that the Mets are having a ‘terrible year’, your reply might be something like ‘…yeah, what happened to their pitching?’. Be careful to avoid parrot syndrome. You don’t want to just refeed the other party everything they say with synonymous adjectives. Use paraphrasing sparingly.