Do you wonder how to have better conversations? Do you feel like conversations and social interactions are an unpredictable mystery because they involve other human beings?
In the book The Art of Captivating Conversation, Patrick King shares how to use predictable communication patterns to feel more confident and have better conversations.
When communicating with others, we never know:
- what topic will come up
- how the other person will respond
- what to say next
- when a long silence will make us want to run away as fast as we can
- how much the other person will talk
- what inappropriate questions the other person may ask
- when an awkward silence may come up
- when uncomfortable topics may be brought up
The unpredictability of social situations can be scary and intimidating.
Have Better Conversations by using Conversation Patterns
The first step for having better conversations is to become aware of why people communicate and interact with each other.
Even if we don’t know exactly what the other person will say, conversations have general purposes:
1 – Entertainment and Pleasure
Most people seek entertainment and pleasure when engaging with others. We enjoy talking to others who amuse us and make us feel good.
If you can entertain others and make them feel good, people will like you, want to be friends with you, and enjoy your company.
We enjoy talking to others who share interesting, engaging, shocking, and fascinating information.
This is the opposite of small talk, which just involves predictable and uninteresting topics such as the weather or the weekend.
Ask yourself, what can you do to make your conversations entertaining and pleasurable?
Think about entertaining topics, stories, and questions that you can share with others.
2 – Approval and Validation
We are always seeking understanding, belonging, relatability, and empathy when interacting with other people.
When others provide positive feedback we feel liked and accepted.
We crave an accepting smile from people when they understand our emotions.
If you share a story about how a driver cut you off on your way to the office, you want the other person to sympathize and agree with you that the driver was rude and engaged in dangerous behavior. You also want the other person to focus on you. However, you are instantly less interested if someone responds that they just bought a new car because they are still focusing on themselves and are not providing positive feedback or engaging with what you said.
We all want to feel heard, listened to, and acknowledged.
If you want people to like you, remember to listen intently, provide positive feedback, and acknowledge their emotions.
3 – Make it Easy
People feel motivated to act when they see a benefit on the horizon. This also happens in conversations.
We may not feel like engaging in conversations when we reply with one-word answers, don’t initiate dialogue, or let long silences pass by.
Here are some ways to have enjoyable conversations:
- Ask questions
- Give full, detailed answers
- Take turns exchanging information
- Initiate in the topics of the conversation
- Stay engaged by asking questions and sharing your opinion
Many times we don’t engage in conversations or expect that the other person will do all the talking and keep us entertained.
If you don’t acknowledge your conversational partner’s emotions and don’t allow the other person to share their thoughts, you may realize that they will find their way to the restroom rather quickly.
Find out how to make someone feel engaged and enjoy the conversation.
How to Prepare to Have Better Conversations
Most conversations begin with small talk. You can easily predict that this will be the beginning of most conversations.
Small talk is a social ritual of politeness.
Here are some examples of how small talk begins:
- Hey, how is work?
- How is your day going?
- What do you have planned for the weekend?
- Did you hear about (current event)?
- What do you think about (current event)?
- What have you been up to lately?
- How are you doing?
You already have an idea of the most common question that people ask.
With this knowledge, you can take advantage of the predictability by creating engaging answers and short stories or responses for each of the questions.
This will help you steer the conversation into a more interesting topic for you and the other person.
Having a couple of stories about yourself to share, can also be extremely helpful.
You can also prepare certain topics in advance to turn small talk into entertainment or validation.
On the other side if you just respond to “How are you doing” with “Good, how about you?” you are missing out on an opportunity to have an interesting and fulfilling conversation.
There are times when we are in the middle of some exciting activities that other people would find interesting. However, most of the time our life is full of routines and repetitive activities that are not entertaining or worth sharing.
What should you say if you spent the weekend watching TV and cleaning the house?
Two Easy Strategies to Have Better Conversations
When thinking about a response to small talk, focus on the goals of a conversation such as providing entertainment, making people feel good, letting them enjoy a good story, and passing the time.
The good thing is that people care more about hearing something interesting than an exact response to their question.
How to respond to a boring, small talk, question in an engaging and interesting way:
1- Answer in a Related but More Interesting Way
For example, if someone asks “How was your weekend?”
You could answer the question with any specific information about a weekend. Share what you did on a more interesting weekend.
Jack: How was your weekend?
Sam: It was an uneventful weekend. But did I tell you that a few weeks ago my wife fell and broke three of her ribs?
Instead of sharing details about what you ate and watched on TV, provide a more interesting answer.
There are more interesting weekends than others, so choose to share the ones that the other person would feel more drawn to or entertained with.
You can also create a mini-story by adding more details such as:
Jack: How was your weekend?
Sam: It was an uneventful weekend. But did I tell you that a few weeks ago my wife fell and broke three of her ribs? She stayed in the hospital for three full days but, luckily she is now back home and has fully recovered.
2 – Answer an Unrelated Question
If you don’t have anything interesting to say about your weekend or you want to talk about something else, you can change the topic with a little transition.
Small talk involves easily predictable questions, asking about your weekend is just a ritual question, keep in mind that the purpose of conversations is to entertain, provide validation, and make other people feel good.
If you didn’t do anything interesting during the weekend, share some interesting information by using the word “but”
Jack: How was your weekend?
Sara: It was good, BUT…
- Did your read about… the updates to our health care benefits?
- I just heard…
- Did you know…
- Did you see…
Using the word “but…” allows you to talk about any topic of your interest.
Acknowledge the question and then use the word “but” to talk about something interesting.
You may share something you are excited about or anything that you think is interesting or entertaining.
Now you know how to have better conversations by keeping in mind that people want to be entertained and feel validated. Have a few stories ready to share so that you can confidently interact with others in any situation.
If you enjoyed this post and would like to learn more about how to make better conversations, you may enjoy the book:
