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1、10 ways to have a better conversationAll right, I want to see a show of hands: how many of you have unfriended someone on Facebook because they said something offensive about politics or religion, childcare, food?And how many of you know at least one person that you avoid because you just dont want
2、to talk to them?You know, it used to be that in order to have a polite conversation, we just had to follow the advice of Henry Higgins in My Fair Lady: Stick to the weather and your health. But these days, with climate change and anti-vaxxing, those subjects -are not safe either. So this world that
3、we live in, this world in which every conversation has the potential to devolve into an argument, where our politicians cant speak to one another and where even the most trivial of issues have someone fighting both passionately for it and against it, its not normal. Pew Research did a study of 10,00
4、0 American adults, and they found that at this moment, we are more polarized, we are more divided, than we ever have been in history. Were less likely to compromise, which means were not listening to each other. And we make decisions about where to live, who to marry and even who our friends are goi
5、ng to be, based on what we already believe. Again, that means were not listening to each other. A conversation requires a balance between talking and listening, and somewhere along the way, we lost that balance.Now, part of that is due to technology. The smart phones that you all either have in your
6、 hands or close enough that you could grab them really quickly. According to Pew Research,about a third of American teenagers send more than a hundred texts a day. And many of them, almost most of them, are more likely to text their friends than they are to talk to them face to face. Theres this gre
7、at piece in The Atlantic. It was written by a high school teacher named Paul Barnwell. And he gave his kids a communication project. He wanted to teach them how to speak on a specific subject without using notes. And he said this: I came to realize.I came to realize that conversational competence mi
8、ght be the single most overlooked skill we fail to teach. Kids spend hours each day engaging with ideas and each other through screens, but rarely do they have an opportunity to hone their interpersonal communications skills. It might sound like a funny question, but we have to ask ourselves: Is the
9、re any 21st-century skill more important than being able to sustain coherent, confident conversation?Now, I make my living talking to people: Nobel Prize winners, truck drivers, billionaires, kindergarten teachers, heads of state, plumbers. I talk to people that I like. I talk to people that I dont
10、like. I talk to some people that I disagree with deeply on a personal level. But I still have a great conversation with them. So Id like to spend the next 10 minutes or so teaching you how to talk and how to listen.Many of you have already heard a lot of advice on this, things like look the person i
11、n the eye, think of interesting topics to discuss in advance, look, nod and smile to show that youre paying attention, repeat back what you just heard or summarize it. So I want you to forget all of that. It is crap.There is no reason to learn how to show youre paying attention if you are in fact pa
12、ying attention.Now, I actually use the exact same skills as a professional interviewer that I do in regular life. So, Im going to teach you how to interview people, and thats actually going to help you learn how to be better conversationalists. Learn to have a conversation without wasting your time,
13、 without getting bored, and, please God, without offending anybody.Weve all had really great conversations. Weve had them before. We know what its like. The kind of conversation where you walk away feeling engaged and inspired, or where you feel like youve made a real connection or youve been perfec
14、tly understood. There is no reason why most of your interactions cant be like that.So I have 10 basic rules. Im going to walk you through all of them, but honestly, if you just choose one of them and master it, youll already enjoy better conversations.Number one: Dont multitask. And I dont mean just
15、 set down your cell phone or your tablet or your car keys or whatever is in your hand. I mean, be present. Be in that moment. Dont think about your argument you had with your boss. Dont think about what youre going to have for dinner. If you want to get out of the conversation, get out of the conver
16、sation, but dont be half in it and half out of it.Number two: Dont pontificate. If you want to state your opinion without any opportunity for response or argument or pushback or growth, write a blog.Now, theres a really good reason why I dont allow pundits on my show: Because theyre really boring. I
17、f theyre conservative, theyre going to hate Obama and food stamps and abortion. If theyre liberal, theyre going to hate big banks and oil corporations and Dick Cheney. Totally predictable. And you dont want to be like that. You need to enter every conversation assuming that you have something to lea
18、rn. The famed therapist M. Scott Peck said that true listening requires a setting aside of oneself. And sometimes that means setting aside your personal opinion. He said that sensing this acceptance, the speaker will become less and less vulnerable and more and more likely to open up the inner reces
19、ses of his or her mind to the listener. Again, assume that you have something to learn.Bill Nye: Everyone you will ever meet knows something that you dont. I put it this way: Everybody is an expert in something.Number three: Use open-ended questions. In this case, take a cue from journalists. Start
20、your questions with who, what, when, where, why or how. If you put in a complicated question, youre going to get a simple answer out. If I ask you, Were you terrified? youre going to respond to the most powerful word in that sentence, which is terrified, and the answer is Yes, I was or No, I wasnt.
21、Were you angry? Yes, I was very angry. Let them describe it. Theyre the ones that know. Try asking them things like, What was that like? How did that feel? Because then they might have to stop for a moment and think about it, and youre going to get a much more interesting response.Number four: Go wi
22、th the flow. That means thoughts will come into your mind and you need to let them go out of your mind. Weve heard interviews often in which a guest is talking for several minutes and then the host comes back in and asks a question which seems like it comes out of nowhere, or its already been answer
23、ed. That means the host probably stopped listening two minutes ago because he thought of this really clever question, and he was just bound and determined to say that. And we do the exact same thing. Were sitting there having a conversation with someone, and then we remember that time that we met Hu
24、gh Jackman in a coffee shop.And we stop listening. Stories and ideas are going to come to you. You need to let them come and let them go.Number five: If you dont know, say that you dont know. Now, people on the radio, especially on NPR, are much more aware that theyre going on the record, and so the
25、yre more careful about what they claim to be an expert in and what they claim to know for sure. Do that. Err on the side of caution. Talk should not be cheap.Number six: Dont equate your experience with theirs. If theyre talking about having lost a family member, dont start talking about the time yo
26、u lost a family member. If theyre talking about the trouble theyre having at work, dont tell them about how much you hate your job. Its not the same. It is never the same. All experiences are individual. And, more importantly, it is not about you. You dont need to take that moment to prove how amazi
27、ng you are or how much youve suffered. Somebody asked Stephen Hawking once what his IQ was, and he said, I have no idea. People who brag about their IQs are losers.Conversations are not a promotional opportunity.Number seven: Try not to repeat yourself. Its condescending, and its really boring, and
28、we tend to do it a lot. Especially in work conversations or in conversations with our kids, we have a point to make, so we just keep rephrasing it over and over. Dont do that.Number eight: Stay out of the weeds. Frankly, people dont care about the years, the names, the dates, all those details that
29、youre struggling to come up with in your mind. They dont care. What they care about is you.They care about what youre like, what you have in common. So forget the details. Leave them out.Number nine: This is not the last one, but it is the most important one. Listen. I cannot tell you how many reall
30、y important people have said that listening is perhaps the most, the number one most important skill that you could develop. Buddha said, and Im paraphrasing, If your mouth is open, youre not learning. And Calvin Coolidge said, No man ever listened his way out of a job.Why do we not listen to each o
31、ther? Number one, wed rather talk.When Im talking, Im in control. I dont have to hear anything Im not interested in. Im the center of attention. I can bolster my own identity. But theres another reason: We get distracted. The average person talks at about 225 word per minute, but we can listen at up
32、 to 500 words per minute. So our minds are filling in those other 275 words. And look, I know, it takes effort and energy to actually pay attention to someone, but if you cant do that, youre not in a conversation. Youre just two people shouting out barely related sentences in the same place.You have
33、 to listen to one another. Stephen Covey said it very beautifully. He said, Most of us dont listen with the intent to understand. We listen with the intent to reply.One more rule, number 10, and its this one: Be brief.A good conversation is like a miniskirt; short enough to retain interest, but long
34、 enough to cover the subject. - My Sister(Applause) All of this boils down to the same basic concept, and it is this one: Be interested in other people.You know, I grew up with a very famous grandfather, and there was kind of a ritual in my home. People would come over to talk to my grandparents, an
35、d after they would leave, my mother would come over to us, and shed say, Do you know who that was? She was the runner-up to Miss America. He was the mayor of Sacramento. She won a Pulitzer Prize. Hes a Russian ballet dancer. And I kind of grew up assuming everyone has some hidden, amazing thing abou
36、t them. And honestly, I think its what makes me a better host. I keep my mouth shut as often as I possibly can, I keep my mind open, and Im always prepared to be amazed, and Im never disappointed.You do the same thing. Go out, talk to people, listen to people, and, most importantly, be prepared to be amazed.