Healthy Conversations as a Tool to Build Healthy, Productive Relationships
Most of what happens in life depend on conversations. So, whether you are negotiating with your tax accountant, sharing love and concern for friends and family, or working for a company, your outcomes will depend on your conversational skills. Let’s face it, even while you garden and listen to the news or a talk show, you are listening to a conversation.
Conversations allow us to influence people and allow them to influence us.
Through conversations, we sort out our problems, cooperate, and create new opportunities.
The act of conversing is a root force of our lives, so it makes sense to try and be as good at them as we can.
Improve Your Life at Work and Home
Think of all the conversations you have in a typical day—with both people you are comfortable and familiar with and those you hardly know.
Some are enjoyable and lead to a satisfactory conclusion.
Others go off the rails and go around in circles or finish in an argument. Maybe they fizzle out and never really take you anywhere.
Four Elements to a Good Conversation
To help us have those better conversations, let’s take a look at the four key elements that make up every good conversation:
- It feels like a genuine two-way experience with both of you equally involved and interested.
- You both feel you are heard and understood by the other person, and there is a willingness on both sides to be open.
- The atmosphere in the conversation feels comfortable. So even if what you are talking about is difficult, the important things are said and heard.
- The conversation makes a difference. Something useful or satisfying happens as a result.
Elements to an Uncomfortable Conversation
Conversely, an unsatisfactory conversation feels more like a game of tennis, where the aim is to score points as one person wins at the other’s expense. Conversations like this are about competing rather than cooperating.
When asked what they think has occurred to make a conversation bad, people tend to say they felt they were:
- pressured
- feeling under attack
- patronized
- ignored
- having their opinions or feelings denied
- put down
- threatened
- lectured at
- given unwanted advice
- not getting a chance to speak
- having their views trivialized
The saying, “Sticks and stones may break bones, but words can never harm me,” is wrong. Words cut deep wounds. You may say it offhanded, and they may remember it for decades.
Words can lead to any number of negative emotions that interfere with rectifying a bad outcome.
Use R.E.S.P.E.C.T as your Golden Rule
First, I encourage you to build your conversations around respect.
You do not always have to agree, but you must respect other people’s right to hold different points of view.
Try your best to understand them in the same way that you would like to be understood yourself.
Respect the other person’s feelings. Even when you need to discuss something that may not be pleasant to hear, anticipate how they will feel as a result. Then, you can do your best to make your point in a way that still recognizes and respects their feelings.
If Your Conversation Requires Confrontation – Try to Plan Ahead
Check your emotional level before you begin. If you are charged, angry, hurt, or resentful, I recommend considering the outcome you are seeking. For example, are you prepared to have a conversation, or are you planning to have a diatribe of accusation and conclusions? Confrontational conversations that have no purpose but to vent on the other person without allowing for an actual conversation negatively affect the conversation.
Think about what you want to say, and the best way to say it to move your problem toward a solution.
In confrontations, we tend to be in fight or flight mode, resulting in poor decisions and conversations because we are not thinking straight.
So, make sure to plan out that conversation (think about the purpose of the conversation, what you want to achieve, and how it will happen) before you approach the person.
