We’ve been practicing the art of good conversation since toddlerhood, so you’d think we’d all be experts—or at least proficient.
But the truth is, we aren’t. Most of us, at some point, have been guilty of habits that can kill a conversation before it can even develop. Whether it’s because of clueless interruption, domination, unwanted advice or simply a mind-numbing inability to sustain small talk, you may walk away from most of your social exchanges more frustrated than inspired.
Is it you? Or is it the other person? The answer is often “both”—and there’s always room for improvement.
Why talking is so tough
Even the most brilliant conversationalists can succumb to bad habit. But this shouldn’t be surprising, according to Alison Wood Brooks, a professor at Harvard Business School and the author of Talk: The Science of Conversation and the Art of Being Ourselves.
“When you look under the hood of what’s going on during a conversation, it’s so much more complex than how it appears,” Brooks says. With multiple people “trying to take turns speaking and listening and trying to land on a shared understanding in an unfolding, cascading pattern of turns over time, it’s pretty miraculous that humans can communicate in this way at all,” she adds.
In her course, “TALK,” Brooks starts off with a quiz to help students identify their conversational styles. The quiz has 13 negative habits and 13 positive habits, and students must choose at least a couple from both groups that apply to them. They then participate in numerous role-playing exercises throughout the semester that are designed to help them identify and improve their own conversational skill set.
“[When you’re] teaching 200 people at once, you realize, ‘Wow, people’s strengths and weaknesses are really all over the map,’” Brooks says. “Some people are really funny, some people really aren’t. Some people are great at asking questions, some are really bad. Some people are so self-centered, and some are, almost problematically, people pleasers. And so that’s just a cross section of high-achieving humans who have made their way to Harvard.”
What are you talking about?
There are many, many different kinds of conversations—and not all of them are meant to be fabulous, life-changing experiences.
In “The Neuroscience of Conversations,” Nicklas Balboa and Richard D. Glaser, Ph.D., describe three levels of conversation: transactional, positional and transformational.
Many of our everyday conversations are at that first level. We simply give and receive information in a transactional way—nothing fancy here. But the next level, positional, is one that helps us advance in our work. It includes advocating, influencing, presenting arguments and persuading.
It’s the third level, transformational, where conversation reaches its highest potential. These are the moments of connection, discovery and deep emotional bonding between human beings. You never know when they’ll happen, but you can make a transformational conversation more likely if you heighten your awareness of what nurtures a conversation—and what damages it.
The five worst conversation killers
Ask a few people what their pet peeve is about talking to each other, and you’ll get a few different responses. Most of them, however, involve imbalance.
When the conversation is out of balance—too many talkers, too few talkers or no listeners—it not only alienates one or more of the participants, but it’s also more likely to die on the vine.
Imbalance typically occurs in the following five situations:
Off-topic interruption
In this situation—which might be dubbed a “squirrel!” moment—the off-topic interrupter feels sufficiently distanced from the conversation to abruptly throw in a comment that has absolutely nothing to do with what’s being discussed. This can completely derail the other person’s train of thought. The interrupter may also wield ego-centric talking patterns during the course of the conversation to direct topics back to themselves.
This type of imbalance is different from on-topic interruption, which takes the form of verbal affirmations like “yes,” “uh-huh” and “oh no, really?” as the other person speaks. These “back-channel” interruptions are natural and supportive and, on the whole, do not offend. On-topic interruption can also be your conversation partner’s blurted questions when they’re too eager to wait until you’ve finished a thought. These can be annoying but typically indicate a high level of interest in what you are saying.
Topic dominance
Imagine you’re in a conversation with two or three people. You long to contribute because you’re interested in a specific topic and have stories to relate—but you can’t because the dominator won’t shut up and let the conversation move on.
Conversations actually thrive when topics change. So when a conversation is held hostage by a singular topic, it can get stale, and people might walk away or tune out as a result.
It’s not impossible to salvage the situation, however. In every conversation, there are leaders and followers. Leaders introduce topics and, ideally, should ensure that everyone is getting a chance to contribute, while followers listen attentively and can contribute in meaningful ways when appropriate. Balancing these two roles—and taking back the steering wheel from a boor—requires diplomacy and determination.
Unwanted explaining, advice-giving or critiquing
Both men and women are guilty of overexplaining, which sometimes shows itself in a pedantic, condescending discourse. It could involve discussing how to do something better, how not to do something or an advice-driven stream of “you shoulds.”
Brooks suggests that this bad habit is common in people who are in leadership positions—which is why white males, who have historically dominated the majority of high-status positions in business, might be accused of “mansplaining.”
“Women do it too,” Brooks adds. “We’re just less likely to be in high-status positions.”
Swapping ideas and offering tips—or maybe delivering an intelligent (and entertaining) crash course, if you truly are an expert and have been requested to—are exceptions to this conversation killer. In fact, discovery and learning are two of the biggest rewards that come from a satisfying conversation. If you’re the explainer, just remember to read the room first and pass on the baton when it’s time.
One-upmanship
The person you’re talking to may ask you a question or two, but they might immediately turn the conversation back to themselves after. Sometimes they don’t even bother making it look like they care about your life or ideas—they only need your ears.
One-upmanship involves “two forces working against us,” Brooks explains. “One is [that] we are very often reminded of our own experiences when we hear people talking about theirs…. We [also] just have this embarrassing need to prop ourselves up in the eyes of others…. In one-upping, we fail to affirm the other person enough.”
The yawning void
This is the awkward situation when you’re not sure that the person you’re trying to have a conversation with is fully conscious. They respond to questions with one-word answers, don’t volunteer anything themselves, and seem to be fine with long periods of utter silence between your sputtering attempts at conversing.
At the foundation of any conversation is a healthy, balanced flow of information and ideas. Sometimes, Brooks says, it could be that you simply haven’t found the right topic.
And for those who walk away from a conversation feeling like no one cared about their stories, Brooks says it might be your own habits that need adjustment. “It’s easy to blame other people and say, ‘Well, they really didn’t ask me anything,’ but you know you can also just volunteer it,” she notes. “For high question askers, it can be easy to get into the habit… of not sharing yourself enough.”
The rewards of a good, meaningful conversation are high. They can bring you new friends, land you a great job and teach you about people, personalities and customs that will expand your world. If you approach the art of conversation by remembering that it is a skill worth developing, you will improve—with practice.
Photo by Iryna Inshyna/Shutterstock.com
