10 ways to have a better conversation

TED Talks - Most Popular

All right, I want to see a show of hands:

how many of you have

unfriended someone on Facebook

because they said something offensive

about politics or religion,

childcare, food?

(Laughter)

And how many of you

know at least one person that you avoid

because you just don't want

to talk to them?

(Laughter)

You know, it used to be that in order

to have a polite conversation,

we just had to follow the advice

of Henry Higgins in "My Fair Lady":

Stick to the weather and your health.

But these days, with climate change

and anti-vaxxing, those subjects --

(Laughter)

are not safe either.

So this world that we live in,

this world in which every conversation

has the potential

to devolve into an argument,

where our politicians

can't speak to one another

and where even the most trivial of issues

have someone fighting both passionately

for it and against it, it's not normal.

Pew Research did a study

of 10,000 American adults,

and they found that at this moment,

we are more polarized,

we are more divided,

than we ever have been in history.

We're less likely to compromise,

which means we're

not listening to each other.

And we make decisions about where to live,

who to marry and even

who our friends are going to be,

based on what we already believe.

Again, that means

we're not listening to each other.

A conversation requires a balance

between talking and listening,

and somewhere along the way,

we lost that balance.

Now, part of that is due to technology.

The smartphones that you all

either have in your hands

or close enough that you could

grab them really quickly.

According to Pew Research,

about a third of American teenagers

send more than a hundred texts a day.

And many of them, almost most of them,

are more likely to text their friends

than they are to talk

to them face to face.

There's this great piece in The Atlantic.

It was written by a high school teacher

named Paul Barnwell.

And he gave his kids

a communication project.

He wanted to teach them how to speak

on a specific subject without using notes.

And he said this: "I came to realize..."

(Laughter)

"I came to realize

that conversational competence

might be the single

most overlooked skill we fail to teach.

Kids spend hours each day engaging

with ideas and each other through screens,

but rarely do they have an opportunity

to hone their interpersonal

communications skills.

It might sound like a funny question,

but we have to ask ourselves:

Is there any 21st-century skill

more important than being able to sustain

coherent, confident conversation?"

Now, I make my living talking to people:

Nobel Prize winners, truck drivers,

billionaires, kindergarten teachers,

heads of state, plumbers.

I talk to people that I like.

I talk to people that I don't like.

I talk to some people that I disagree with

deeply on a personal level.

But I still have

a great conversation with them.

So I'd like to spend the next 10 minutes

or so teaching you how to talk

and how to listen.

Many of you have already heard

a lot of advice on this,

things like look the person in the eye,

think of interesting topics

to discuss in advance,

look, nod and smile to show

that you're paying attention,

repeat back what you just heard

or summarize it.

So I want you to forget all of that.

It is crap.

(Laughter)

There is no reason to learn

how to show you're paying attention

if you are in fact paying attention.

(Laughter)

(Applause)

Now, I actually use the exact

same skills as a professional interviewer

that I do in regular life.

So, I'm going to teach you

how to interview people,

and that's actually going to help you

learn how to be better conversationalists.

Learn to have a conversation

without wasting your time,

without getting bored,

and, please God,

without offending anybody.

We've all had really great conversations.

We've had them before.

We know what it's like.

The kind of conversation where you

walk away feeling engaged and inspired,

or where you feel

like you've made a real connection

or you've been perfectly understood.

There is no reason

why most of your interactions

can't be like that.

So I have 10 basic rules.

I'm going to walk you through all of them,

but honestly, if you just choose

one of them and master it,

you'll already enjoy better conversations.

Number one: Don't multitask.

And I don't mean

just set down your cell phone

or your tablet or your car keys

or whatever is in your hand.

I mean, be present.

Be in that moment.

Don't think about your argument

you had with your boss.

Don't think about what

you're going to have for dinner.

If you want to get out

of the conversation,

get out of the conversation,

but don't be half in it

and half out of it.

Number two: Don't pontificate.

If you want to state your opinion

without any opportunity for response

or argument or pushback or growth,

write a blog.

(Laughter)

Now, there's a really good reason

why I don't allow pundits on my show:

Because they're really boring.

If they're conservative, they're going to

hate Obama and food stamps and abortion.

If they're liberal, they're going to hate

big banks and oil corporations

and Dick Cheney.

Totally predictable.

And you don't want to be like that.

You need to enter every conversation

assuming that you have something to learn.

The famed therapist M. Scott Peck said

that true listening requires

a setting aside of oneself.

And sometimes that means

setting aside your personal opinion.

He said that sensing this acceptance,

the speaker will become

less and less vulnerable

and more and more likely

to open up the inner recesses

of his or her mind to the listener.

Again, assume that you have

something to learn.

Bill Nye: "Everyone you will ever meet

knows something that you don't."

I put it this way:

Everybody is an expert in something.

Number three: Use open-ended questions.

In this case, take a cue from journalists.

Start your questions with who,

what, when, where, why or how.

If you put in a complicated question,

you're going to get a simple answer out.

If I ask you, "Were you terrified?"

you're going to respond to the most

powerful word in that sentence,

which is "terrified," and the answer is

"Yes, I was" or "No, I wasn't."

"Were you angry?" "Yes, I was very angry."

Let them describe it.

They're the ones that know.

Try asking them things like,

"What was that like?"

"How did that feel?"

Because then they might have to stop

for a moment and think about it,

and you're going to get

a much more interesting response.

Number four: Go with the flow.

That means thoughts

will come into your mind

and you need to let them

go out of your mind.

We've heard interviews often

in which a guest is talking

for several minutes

and then the host comes back in

and asks a question

which seems like it comes out of nowhere,

or it's already been answered.

That means the host probably

stopped listening two minutes ago

because he thought

of this really clever question,

and he was just bound

and determined to say that.

And we do the exact same thing.

We're sitting there having

a conversation with someone,

and then we remember that time

that we met Hugh Jackman in a coffee shop.

(Laughter)

And we stop listening.

Stories and ideas

are going to come to you.

You need to let them come and let them go.

Number five: If you don't know,

say that you don't know.

Now, people on the radio,

especially on NPR,

are much more aware

that they're going on the record,

and so they're more careful

about what they claim to be an expert in

and what they claim to know for sure.

Do that. Err on the side of caution.

Talk should not be cheap.

Number six: Don't equate

your experience with theirs.

If they're talking

about having lost a family member,

don't start talking about the time

you lost a family member.

If they're talking about the trouble

they're having at work,

don't tell them about

how much you hate your job.

It's not the same. It is never the same.

All experiences are individual.

And, more importantly,

it is not about you.

You don't need to take that moment

to prove how amazing you are

or how much you've suffered.

Somebody asked Stephen Hawking once

what his IQ was, and he said,

"I have no idea. People who brag

about their IQs are losers."

(Laughter)

Conversations are not

a promotional opportunity.

Number seven:

Try not to repeat yourself.

It's condescending,

and it's really boring,

and we tend to do it a lot.

Especially in work conversations

or in conversations with our kids,

we have a point to make,

so we just keep rephrasing it

over and over.

Don't do that.

Number eight: Stay out of the weeds.

Frankly, people don't care

about the years, the names,

the dates, all those details

that you're struggling

to come up with in your mind.

They don't care.

What they care about is you.

They care about what you're like,

what you have in common.

So forget the details. Leave them out.

Number nine:

This is not the last one,

but it is the most important one.

Listen.

I cannot tell you how many

really important people have said

that listening is perhaps the most,

the number one most important skill

that you could develop.

Buddha said, and I'm paraphrasing,

"If your mouth is open,

you're not learning."

And Calvin Coolidge said, "No man

ever listened his way out of a job."

(Laughter)

Why do we not listen to each other?

Number one, we'd rather talk.

When I'm talking, I'm in control.

I don't have to hear anything

I'm not interested in.

I'm the center of attention.

I can bolster my own identity.

But there's another reason:

We get distracted.

The average person talks

at about 225 word per minute,

but we can listen at up to

500 words per minute.

So our minds are filling in

those other 275 words.

And look, I know,

it takes effort and energy

to actually pay attention to someone,

but if you can't do that,

you're not in a conversation.

You're just two people shouting out

barely related sentences

in the same place.

(Laughter)

You have to listen to one another.

Stephen Covey said it very beautifully.

He said, "Most of us don't listen

with the intent to understand.

We listen with the intent to reply."

One more rule, number 10,

and it's this one: Be brief.

[A good conversation is like a miniskirt;

short enough to retain interest,

but long enough to cover

the subject. -- My Sister]

(Laughter)

(Applause)

All of this boils down to the same

basic concept, and it is this one:

Be interested in other people.

You know, I grew up

with a very famous grandfather,

and there was kind of a ritual in my home.

People would come over

to talk to my grandparents,

and after they would leave,

my mother would come over to us,

and she'd say, "Do you know who that was?

She was the runner-up to Miss America.

He was the mayor of Sacramento.

She won a Pulitzer Prize.

He's a Russian ballet dancer."

And I kind of grew up assuming

everyone has some hidden,

amazing thing about them.

And honestly, I think

it's what makes me a better host.

I keep my mouth shut

as often as I possibly can,

I keep my mind open,

and I'm always prepared to be amazed,

and I'm never disappointed.

You do the same thing.

Go out, talk to people,

listen to people,

and, most importantly,

be prepared to be amazed.

Thanks.

(Applause)