One of the four pillars of good conversation is levity. You needn’t be a comedian, you can but have some fun Tetra Images, LLC/Alamy
Conversation lies at the heart of our relationships 鈥 yet many of us find it surprisingly hard to talk to others. We may feel anxious at the thought of making small talk with strangers and struggle to connect with the people who are closest to us. If that sounds familiar, Alison Wood Brooks hopes to help. She is a professor at Harvard Business School, where she teaches an oversubscribed course called 鈥淭ALK: How to talk gooder in business and life鈥, and the author of a new book, Talk: The science of conversation and the art of being ourselves. Both offer four key principles for more meaningful exchanges. Conversations are inherently unpredictable, says Wood Brooks, but they follow certain rules 鈥 and knowing their architecture makes us more comfortable with what is outside of our control. 最新麻豆视频 asked her about the best ways to apply this research to our own chats.
David Robson: Talking about talking feels quite meta. Do you ever find yourself critiquing your own performance?
Alison Wood Brooks: There are so many levels of 鈥渕eta-ness鈥. I have often felt like I鈥檓 floating over the room, watching conversations unfold, even as I鈥檓 involved in them myself. , and [my students] all get to experience this feeling as well. There can be an uncomfortable period of hypervigilance, but I hope that dissipates over time as they develop better habits. There is a famous quote from Charlie Parker, who was a jazz saxophonist. He said something like, 鈥淧ractise, practise, practise, and then when you get on stage, let it all go and just wail.鈥 I think that鈥檚 my approach to conversation. Even when you鈥檙e hyper-aware of conversation dynamics, you have to remember the true delight of being with another human mind, and never lose the magic of being together. Think ahead, but once you鈥檙e talking, let it all go and just wail.
Reading your book, I learned that a good way to enliven a conversation is to ask someone why they are passionate about what they do. So, where does your passion for conversation come from?
I have two answers to this question. One is professional. Early in my professorship at Harvard, I had been studying emotions by exploring how people talk about their feelings and the balance between what we feel inside and how we express that to others. And I realised I just had this deep, profound interest in figuring out how people talk to each other about everything, not just their feelings. We now have scientific tools that allow us and analyse them at large scale. Natural language processing, machine learning, the advent of AI 鈥 all this allows us to take huge swathes of transcript data and process it much more efficiently.
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The personal answer is that I鈥檓 an identical twin, and I spent my whole life, from the moment I opened my newborn eyes, existing next to a person who鈥檚 an exact copy of myself. It was like observing myself at very close range, interacting with the world, interacting with other people. I could see when she said and did things well, and I could try to do that myself. And I saw when her jokes failed, or she stumbled over her words 鈥 I tried to avoid those mistakes. It was a very fortunate form of feedback that not a lot of people get. And then, as a twin, you鈥檝e got this person sharing a bedroom, sharing all your clothes, going to all the same parties and playing on the same sports teams, so we were just constantly in conversation with each other. You reached this level of shared reality that is so incredible, and I鈥檝e spent the rest of my life trying to help other people get there in their relationships, too.
鈥淭ALK鈥 cleverly captures your framework for better conversations: topics, asking, levity and kindness. Let鈥檚 start at the beginning. How should we decide what to talk about?
My first piece of advice is to prepare. Some people do this naturally. They already think about the things that they should talk about with somebody before they see them. They should lean into this habit. Some of my students, however, think it鈥檚 crazy. They think preparation will make the conversation seem rigid and forced and overly scripted. But just because you鈥檝e thought ahead about what you might talk about doesn鈥檛 mean you have to talk about those things once the conversation is underway. It does mean, however, that you always have an idea waiting for you when you鈥檙e not sure what to talk about next. Having just one topic in your back pocket can help you in those anxiety-ridden moments. , which is important for establishing a connection. Choosing a topic is not only important at the start of a conversation. about whether we should stay on one subject, drift to something else or totally shift gears and go somewhere wildly different.
Sometimes the topic of conversation is obvious. Even then, knowing when to switch to a new one can be tricky Martin Parr/Magnum Photos
What鈥檚 your advice when making these decisions?
There are three very clear signs that suggest that it鈥檚 time to switch topics. The first is longer mutual pauses. The second is more uncomfortable laughter, which we use to fill the space that we would usually fill excitedly with good content. And the third sign is redundancy. Once you start repeating things that have already been said on the topic, it鈥檚 a sign that you should move to something else.
After an average conversation, most people feel like they鈥檝e covered the right number of topics. But if you ask people after conversations that didn鈥檛 go well, they鈥檒l more often say that they didn鈥檛 talk about enough things, rather than that they talked about too many things. This suggests that a common mistake is lingering too long on a topic after you鈥檝e squeezed all the juice out of it.
The second element of TALK is asking questions. I think a lot of us have heard the advice to ask more questions, yet many people don鈥檛 apply it. Why do you think that is?
Many years of research have shown that the . Often, we are so focused on our own perspective that we forget to even ask someone else to share what鈥檚 in their mind. Another reason is fear. You鈥檙e interested in the other person, and you know you should ask them questions, but you鈥檙e afraid of being too intrusive, or that you will reveal your own incompetence, because you feel you should know the answer already.
What kinds of questions should we be asking 鈥 and avoiding?
In the book, I talk about the that build on anything that your partner has just said. It shows that you heard them, that you care and that you want to know more. Even one follow-up question can springboard us away from shallow talk into something deeper and more meaningful.
There are, however, some bad patterns of question asking, such as 鈥渂oomerasking鈥. [at Imperial College London] and I have a , and oh my gosh, it鈥檚 been such fun to study. It鈥檚 a play on the word boomerang: it comes back to the person who threw it. If I ask you what you had for breakfast, and you tell me you had Special K and banana, and then I say, 鈥淲ell, let me tell you about my breakfast, because, boy, was it delicious鈥 鈥 that鈥檚 boomerasking. Sometimes it鈥檚 a thinly veiled way of bragging or complaining, but sometimes I think people are genuinely interested to hear from their partner, but then the partner鈥檚 answer reminds them so much of their own life that they can鈥檛 help but start sharing their perspective. In our research, we have found that this makes your partner feel like you weren鈥檛 interested in their perspective, so it seems very insincere. Sharing your own perspective is important. It鈥檚 okay at some point to . But don鈥檛 do it so soon that it makes your partner feel like you didn鈥檛 hear their answer or care about it.
Research by Alison Wood Brooks includes a recent study on “boomerasking”, a pitfall you should avoid to make conversations flow Janelle Bruno
What are the benefits of levity?
When we think of conversations that haven鈥檛 gone well, we often think of moments of hostility, anger or disagreement, but a quiet killer of conversation is boredom. Levity is the antidote. These small moments of sparkle or fizz can pull us back in and make us feel engaged with each other again.
Our research has shown that to people who make us feel good, so much so that in a group of people, a person who can land even one appropriate joke is more likely to be voted as the leader. And the joke doesn鈥檛 even need to be very funny! It鈥檚 the fact that they were confident enough to try it and competent enough to read the room.
Do you have any practical steps that people can apply to generate levity, even if they鈥檙e not a natural comedian?
Levity is not just about being funny. In fact, aiming to be a comedian is not the right goal. When we watch stand-up on Netflix, comedians have rehearsed those jokes and honed them and practised them for a long time, and they鈥檙e delivering them in a monologue to an audience. It鈥檚 a completely different task from a live conversation. In real dialogue, what everybody is looking for is to feel engaged, and that doesn’t require particularly funny jokes or elaborate stories. When you see opportunities to make it fun or lighten the mood, that鈥檚 what you need to grab. It can come through a change to a new, fresh topic, or calling back to things that you talked about earlier in the conversation or earlier in your relationship. These callbacks 鈥 which sometimes do refer to something funny 鈥 are such a nice way of showing that . A levity move could also involve to other people. When you think nice things, when you admire someone, make sure you say it out loud.
This brings us to the last element of TALK: kindness. Why do we so often fail to be as kind as we would like?
Wobbles in kindness often come back to our egocentrism. Research shows that we underestimate how much from our own, and we forget that we have the tools to ask other people directly in conversation for their perspective. Being a kinder conversationalist is about trying to focus on your partner鈥檚 perspective and then figuring what they need and helping them to get it.
Finally, what is your number one tip for readers to have a better conversation the next time they speak to someone?
Every conversation is surprisingly tricky and complex. When things don鈥檛 go perfectly, give yourself and others more grace. There will be trips and stumbles and then a little grace can go very, very far.
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