Enhancing Conversations and Communication Skills

[Steady Hands]

Introduction

The intention of this thread is to discuss tips, skills, experiences, and intentions relating to conversations and interpersonal communication.

A few questions follow to spark some inspiration:

• What challenges have you faced in conversations, and how did you overcome them and/or how do you continue to manage them?
• What tactics or styles have you seen other people embody that reflect learnable insights?
• How would you like to improve your future interactions?

Personally, my main goal is to continue enhancing my interactions and communication skills in the professional field, especially in conversation. Most of these concepts can be applied to the personal sphere, and many can be extended to the medium of writing and 2D screen-based communications.

Many CiK readers work in jobs that don't require extensive speaking engagements. In general, the most important relationships and interactions across the lifespan still involve verbal conversations - that is, talking with someone in-person or on a phone call / video chat. Nonetheless I'll include a link for consideration to assist in enhancing comms on CiK: Enhancing the Quality of Conversations on CIK and the Retention of Members.

A few related threads include:

• Marketing and Sales Thread - more focused on online marketing.
• The Workplace Thread - involves general chats about experiences at work.
• Daily Interactions With Women - includes tips about engaging women in day-to-day life.

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Communicating in Conversation

Before getting into the many micro-tactics like the rate of speech, I'll start with a broad yet essential concept. This is about learning and can be applied to many domains, especially conversations.

Tip 1: Knowledge is overrated. Use it or lose it.

• There's an everyday cognitive trap that, as a way to preserve our self-confidence, inaccurately shrinks the perceived gap between our beliefs and behaviors. It's extremely easy to identify with an ideal but not embody it.
• Many of us have insatiable appetites for intellectual stimulation. Yet almost everyone including myself overestimates the value of receiving information and knowledge. We often consume data from the external world and think 'I get this'... and then forget about it by the next day.
• Relying on more information to make us feel ready before taking action also reflects a common pattern of immediate self-protection that delays longer term growth. I expanded on this in the Approach Thread.

But what does 'learning' really mean...

• Can we imprint the learning onto others as smoothly as it was given to us?
• Are we effectively implementing the idea in real life?
• Even if we can initiate an action, can we maintain it across time and situations?

Here's a timestamped video primer that relates these questions to communication skills:


Considering the limits of mere consumption and observation, I'll also be using this thread to keep myself accountable with practices to maintain or develop. Please feel free to add your own thoughts, experiences, and insights.

 

[Iakobos]

Great thread idea. I was a language teacher for several years, have extensive experience in media production and more recently have been an instructor/trainer in a high-intensity technical profession so I have thought a loooooot about communication. I 1000% agree with your point about how getting a lot of INPUT doesn't actually add up to much if you can't or won't OUTPUT it. Even better if in the process of outputting you can synthesize or apply the information in a novel way. I've long felt that if you can't succinctly explain an idea or concept (or at least the cliffnotes version) to someone in plain English with important takeaways, you don't actually understand it yourself. For my career change I had to self-study many textbooks worth of information, and explaining to my wife (bless her patience) what I'd learned in layman's terms was what really helped me lock in the knowledge, find my gaps in understanding, and so forth. Highly recommend to anyone who has the objective of deeply understanding and communicating a knowledge base.

In general, if I had to narrow it down, my #1 rule of communication would probably be: Know your audience. Which applies in countless ways to every form of comms.

Personally I do very well with communication in any kind of professional or structured context, or in one-on-ones, but I struggle much more in chaotic group situations, both socially and professionally. Bits of small talk aside, I mostly mind my own business and only pipe up if I'm involved by someone else or I have a particularly relevant insight to a conversation.

I have sometimes thought about behaving with more leadership and initiative in group situations (thinking mostly professionally here) but what holds me back is not really wanting to be someone who bothers other people or makes things about themself. However I wonder if part of that is cope justifying taking the easy road and skating by when developing a more assertive/leaderly professional persona could lead to better opportunities as well as self-actualization down the road. I don't have access to direct promotion in my current situation but I feel there are opportunities to practice and grow.

So I guess I am interested in tips for an introvert on how to develop authentic leadership communication and personality in loosely structured group environments without being overbearing to others.