At the heart of any relationship, business or personal, is our ability to communicate. Our best communicative platform has always been in the form of live conversations. Fewer and fewer conversations take place these days in part because of the expediency and efficiency of things like email, texting and other forms of social media. “It’s just easier and quicker.” We are being engaged in sound bites. These online forms of communicating are akin to fast food, they keep you moving, fill an immediate hunger but are not always effective if what you really want is nourishment and fulfillment.
Staying with the food analogy, a good meal is memorable and complex in that there is more to the taste than what can be seen on the plate. Good food is to be savored and so should a good conversation, they both have the ability to transform our thinking, our careers and our lives.
Ingredients of a good conversation:
- thoughtfulness
listening- silence
- nuance
- diversity
- ideas
- challenges
- mutual respect
- learning
- freedom
- an open mind
- fullness/completion
- authenticity
- harmony between the words, the body language and the tone of voice.
Conversations add to our understanding and appreciation of what it takes to be able to make good decisions and build better relationships. For high performing teams, knowing how to have a conversation, a form of “committed communication”, that includes the above characteristics is one of the core ingredients behind what makes their team successful.
A good conversation, like a good meal, can be complex when there is more to the taste than what can be seen on the plate.
