Improve Conversational Skills
I run a special event called Casual Icebreaker Conversations for my social Meetup group GTA Free Spirits. It was geared towards new members as well as those who are a bit on the shy side.
One of the things I did was present a quick primer on conversational skills based on my training from my past corporate life. My past career depended highly on top notch conversational skills since I was in pharmaceutical sales and marketing where I had to converse with top level medical specialists all the time.
Many of the skills I learned through my corporate training can easily apply to people’s social lives as well.
Most People Are Not Good Listeners
What you will find out there among most people regardless of their formal educational level or career fields, is that people in general are usually much better talkers than listeners. This is even true with those who are shy.
If you give them a chance, most people will gladly spend 30 minutes or more talking about themselves, their families, their jobs, their issues, etc. What you won’t find much is having people showing any interest in others.
This is very common out there. People will gladly talk about themselves and their lives but if you notice carefully as you listen to them, they will not often ask you about your life, or at least not to the same level compared to when they are talking about themselves.
I even have friends and relatives I would slot into this category. Each time I get together with them, it’s the same thing. They will be very enthusiastic about telling me what’s happening in their lives but will do very little to find out what’s happening in mine – yes, sometimes I wonder why I’m still friends with them!
This type of conversation is therefore very unbalanced and we all grow very tired of listening to such people, even if we do this ourselves all the time!
Less Talking, More Listening
So for good conversational skills resulting in having people actually enjoying your company, you have to do less talking about yourself and more listening. Showing more interest in others will result in people liking you more.
Asking questions about their lives and interests also show that you are eager to listen. However, this must be genuine.
If you throw in a quick question and do not really listen to other people’s responses because your mind is busy thinking about the next thing you want to say about yourself, then people will be able to see through this quite easily. Your listening therefore will not be geniune and the end result is really no better than if you were doing all the talking in the first place.
Show Genuine Interest In Others
So to be a good conversationalist, you must show genuine interest in other people. Now if it turns out that by having you listen more to others which results in them doing all the talking, that’s okay. Throw out some points of your own to make the conversation more balanced since you probably have the better conversational skills now.
A good idea is from time to time, repeat what the other person is saying or ask certain questions about the points he or she has made. This shows that you are actually listening to the other person.
If the conversation starts to become a bore because the other person is now too much of a talker and not a listener, then you have every right to excuse yourself and move onto another person.
