Make this the Week of Conversation
Conversation. Genuine Dialogue.
Relationship-building encounters can’t happen without it.
Make this a week of awareness about conversation. During every interaction – with customers, vendors, partners, colleagues, bosses, direct reports, etc. – keep “The Conversationometer” alive in your mind:
- Are you and the other person engaged, at each moment, in true, genuine dialogue, or is one (or both) of you practicing “monologue disguised as dialogue?”
- How fluid is the conversation? What can you do to make it more fluid?
- How well are both of you listening?
- How relevant are your responses to each other? Are each of your answers and comments based on what came before in the conversation, or on a “pre-approved agenda” you wanted to force into the conversation?
Monologue does not move relationships forward. Conversation is critical.
Make this a week of conversation.
Read
It takes two . . . Would be interested in your comments on how to convert the other party from “monolog mode” to “conversation mode,” during the interaction.
Frank -
Great question. Yes ..it takes two to tango.
I’ve found that patience, and then direct questions (when you find an opening) are good for de-fusing the monologuer. I’ve noticed that many monologuers suffer from “topic drift,” floating from tangent to tangent. The pointed, direct questions can keep them focused.
What works for you? In your business, as a financial advisor, does it sometimes work to your benefit when a prospective customer starts monologuing?
Frank’s question made me think of another problem … the person who is too disengaged to get into a conversation with you.
On this … see pages 57-69 in We for a specific discussion of “inviting your customer into the moment” and also pages 80-88. And, see page 7 and 12-14 in my free ebook, Encounters, which you can download up and to the right on this page.