There is a real business benefit in learning how to create trust within workplaces through the Art of Conversation. Most good conversation is based on stories, and this applies to business as much as to the personal.
With genuine conversation, not only is the work experience improved, decisions and the agreed directions become clearer because conversation creates understanding.
Lofty instructions do not do it, nor do those exhausting and lengthy quizzing sessions that pass for meetings in many offices.
There are six ways to create workplace trust through the Art of Conversation.
1. Be a good host • If colleagues are early, be sure they feel welcome and comfortable. This includes offering them refreshment and reading material. You might briefly say hello, even if you can’t meet with them just yet.
• Have a plan for the meeting, and share this with them.
• Monitor the time, keep it moving in a businesslike and friendly way. If meetings often go overtime, allocate more time. Don’t think the length of the meeting is a measure of quality.
• Allow for short breaks if needed, a few moments of stretching the legs can make the second half as active as the first.
• Reduce interruptions because you have nothing better to do right now than meet with them, giving them your complete attention.
• If you genuinely “like” people and look forward to catching up, this attitude will show through in your eyes and your body language.
2. Extract information painlessly • If you ask too many questions or produce too many forms, people will suffer fatigue and their recollections become confused. Short term you might get a result, but long term problems are on the way.
• When you need staff to spend some time giving information, be sympathetic and explain the importance of it.
• Try to extract information in the flow of the conversation, rather than having a set list of questions. This makes it less of an interrogation and more a shared experience.
3. Listen • The words “listen” and “silent” have the same letters, for much the same reason that we have two ears and one mouth.
• Only through listening can you judge a level of understanding and potential for confusion and worry. That way you can plant the seeds of confidence instead of fuelling the fires of fear.
• We listen to people we like and talk over people we think are not as smart as us. How do you rate?
4. Become a story-teller • The best leaders gain followers by telling stories, not by listing features, promoting benefits or issuing orders. We love to hear stories. Think about the conference speaker you really liked; chances are they were telling you stories about their life.
• Making complexity simple is a way of thinking and a challenge for everyone.
• Avoid becoming an habitual “qualifier”, the kind who makes a nice simple statement about a direction and instead of waiting to hear a response launches into difficulties and side issues.
• Make sure that your firm has its stories do, for these define your brand.
5. Give people space • If you see staff as “things” to be manipulated and controlled, by all means use your authority or high pressure techniques, but don’t pretend you are a leader.
• Giving space is like giving respect and like showing that you care. Remember, nobody cares how much you know until they know how much you care.
• Leave space for people to put your course of action into their own words. Encourage this, and they will often bring it to a conclusion.
6. Evaluate and improve • Take a course; create a “conversational” office culture.
• After each meeting, make a few notes on what you did well, where you missed and how to improve. This makes you mindful of communication, and that makes you better at the art of conversation.
To learn more about this author, visit Stephen Manallack's Website.
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