Last Wednesday, Denver Rotarian, Debra Fine, “zoomed” us through a talk entitled “Cultivating Connections: Making the Most of Conversation Opportunities in These Changing Times”. Her presentation was informal and interactive, maybe even “conversational”. She began by briefly describing her personal transition from introverted engineer to busy speaker and successful author. Today she gave FCRC simple and useful conversation tips to make the most of our conversation opportunities and to avoid “conversation killers”.Frequently our conversations end prematurely as we ask “How are you?” (in other words – hello) or lead to a brief back and forth exchange when we start with “What do you do?” or “Where are you from?” The first tip is to ask questions that build rapport and connection and use what we know about that person to proceed with questions such as ”What do you do outside Rotary” or “What do you do outside of being a dad?” Questions like “Are you married?” or “Do you have kids?” should be avoided and may lead to short and awkward interchanges.
So, best to stay on topic, ask open-ended questions and avoid questions that may lead to an abrupt end to the conversation. Questions like “What’s new?” and “Catch me up” require a factoid and tell the listener you have time and interest in their response.
Questions such as “How’s your day?” and “What’s been going on?” are part of the “conversation game” and more productive than those commonly used in casual conversation that are often rhetorical, lead to short answers and, again, just “mean hello” and might imply “not that interested” or “don’t share too much”.
Sometimes our exchanges become “matches” or contests. “You think you got it bad, listen to my story” or” “My kid went to an even more prestigious university”. Worse yet, one person becomes the “monopolizer” and the conversation becomes a monologue. Focusing on listening and displaying empathy is another way to put it; something we need in abundance in these troubled times.
Debra ended with a poem from one of her books which applied these principles to Rotary meetings - how to make new members feel welcome by engaging with them before we withdraw to the comfort of those we know well. Maybe an especially useful tip as we seek to expand our membership.