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People often ask, how do we start a conversation in these unnatural environments? And I always say, start by being curious. When I think about the anatomy of a conversation I think about it in four steps.
1. Ask a question
And step one is ask. Ask a question you actually want to know the answer to, and one that you might be willing to share a little information on, as well. You want to ask an open-ended question to get somebody talking. And when you’re thinking about, well, what do I ask a question about? Well, you can think about the environment you’re in. You can think about the event you’re at. You can think about the geographic region. “Hey, you know any good restaurants in the area?” You can think about what’s in the news right now. Careful with politics, careful with all those topics that they say to be careful with. But you know, if there was an award show recently, if there was a weather event recently, all those things are easy to bring up in conversation, and you never know where they might lead.
2. Listen and probe (or share)
And that’s where part two comes in. Part two is listen and probe, or listen and share. So listen and probe – obviously the key is listen, right? Because if you’re asking a question, you need to not think about what you need to say next. You need to think about what are they saying and where could that conversation take us? They’ve said something that you’re curious about, keep going, probe a little further. Be careful not to interrogate. It’s not machine gun questions at somebody, but it’s a probing question to learn a little bit more.
And then interject with listen and share. So you can create those you too, me too moments of sharing your perspective or your experience or your ideas on whatever that topic might be. So we have ask, part one. Two is to extend the conversation with listen and share or listen and probe.
3. Connect
Three is to look and connect. In connect, we’re looking for those similarities, those commonalities. I always say call out the similarities, not the differences. What makes us say I want to continue this relationship? So do we have common interests? Do we have common values? Do we have common experiences? Do we have common goals? Do we have common needs? And really look for surprise commonalities. They’re not always there and obvious on the surface.
When you are in stage three, this is when you’re thinking about what’s our next point of contact? What did we talk about that I might be able to follow up with? Did they need a plumber for that weather happening? Do they need information about a place they’re going on vacation and I might have a travel agent or a hotel recommendation.
4. Close the conversation
Once we have that next point of contact, we’re ready for step four of the conversation, which is actually the close. When you close the conversation down, be sure to manage the mood memory. Mood memory is how somebody feels. They don’t remember what you said, but they remember how they felt in the conversation with you. And you want to make sure that you don’t ruin that mood memory right at the end when you’re looking at your watch or over the shoulder trying to think about, how do I get out of this?
Think about an exit strategy that maintains that energy that you created in the conversation. Couple of my favorites are asking them to see if they want a drink. “Hey, I’m going to go grab a drink. Would you like one?” They may come with you, they may not. But in that movement, you enable other things to happen within the conversation or natural separation. It could be that you have to do a quick check of a phone call. It could be, “hey, you know, it was great chatting. Looks like somebody over there would like to join our conversation. Let’s go invite them in.” And it wouldn’t be that you’re ending that conversation, is that you’re expanding it. So those are all ways that we can extract ourself and keep that positive mood memory.