How to Have a Good Conversation | Celeste Headlee | TEDxCreativeCoast

Summary

Highlights

• Celeste Headlee shares ten rules for better conversations, from not multitasking to being genuinely interested in others. 🎙️
• Through anecdotes and humor, she underlines the lost art of listening and the power of staying present. 😄
• She criticizes modern habits like texting as a substitute for talking, advocating for face-to-face interactions. 📱
• Headlee challenges common advice on conversation, emphasizing authenticity over performative acts. 🔄
• Her talk encourages us to seek understanding rather than just waiting for our turn to speak. 🤝

Key Takeaways

• Avoid multitasking during conversations to stay present and genuinely engaged. 📵
• Enter conversations with an open mind and the intention to learn something new. 💡
• Use open-ended questions to encourage detailed and thoughtful responses. ❓
• Listen actively; remember that everyone has something unique to offer. 👂
• Keep your answers and stories concise to maintain interest and relevance. 📏

Overview

Chapters

• 00:00 - 00:30: Introduction and Problem Statement A discussion is introduced about the common social behavior of avoiding or unfriending people on social media due to offensive or disagreeable statements, particularly regarding sensitive topics like politics, religion, childcare, and food. This sets the stage for exploring how interpersonal communication is significantly influenced by differing opinions on sensitive issues.
• 00:30 - 01:00: Changing Norms of Conversation In the chapter 'Changing Norms of Conversation', the author humorously points out how traditional advice for polite conversation, as depicted in 'My Fair Lady', which involves sticking to neutral topics like the weather and health, is no longer applicable. This is because topics like climate change and vaccination have become contentious issues. The chapter highlights how modern conversations are often fraught with the potential for disagreements, reflecting broader societal tensions where even trivial matters can lead to discord.
• 01:00 - 01:30: Polarization and Lack of Listening The chapter titled 'Polarization and Lack of Listening' discusses the increasing political and social division among people in the U.S. It references a Pew Research study of 10,000 American adults, highlighting how society is more polarized than ever before. This polarization leads to a decreased willingness to compromise, reflecting a broader issue of individuals not listening to each other. People's choices regarding residence, marriage, and friendships are heavily influenced by pre-existing beliefs, further illustrating the lack of open dialogue and listening on critical issues.
• 01:30 - 02:00: Impact of Technology on Conversations The chapter explores the influence of technology, particularly smartphones, on the dynamics of conversation. It highlights a shift from traditional face-to-face dialogues to texting, supported by statistics from Pew Research. The insights are further emphasized by referring to an article by high school teacher Paul Barnwell in The Atlantic, which discusses similar themes.
• 02:00 - 02:30: The Importance of Conversational Competence The chapter opens with a scene where a father assigns a communication project to his children. He tasks them with speaking on a specific subject without relying on notes, highlighting the importance of developing spoken communication skills.
• 02:30 - 03:00: Personal Experience with Conversations The chapter emphasizes the significance of conversation as a crucial skill in the 21st century. The narrator, whose profession involves extensive communication with a wide range of individuals—from Nobel laureates to everyday workers such as truck drivers and plumbers—highlights their ability to engage in meaningful interactions irrespective of personal feelings towards the individuals, whether they like them or disagree with them on a fundamental level. The chapter illustrates that successful dialogue transcends personal biases and focuses on the value of sustaining coherent and confident discussions.
• 03:00 - 03:30: Introducing Conversation Rules The chapter 'Introducing Conversation Rules' begins with dispelling common advice on communication techniques, such as maintaining eye contact or nodding to show attentiveness. The speaker challenges conventional wisdom by suggesting that traditional methods like repeating what has been heard to demonstrate active listening are unnecessary. Instead, the aim is to redefine effective communication with a more genuine approach, signaling a shift from prescribed practices to more natural interactions.
• 04:00 - 04:30: Rule 1: Don't Multitask Chapter Title: Rule 1: Don't Multitask The chapter emphasizes the importance of focusing on one task at a time and not multitasking. It highlights that even in everyday conversations, the skills used by professional interviewers can be beneficial. The key takeaway is to improve your conversational skills by paying full attention, ensuring productive and engaging interactions without boredom or wasted time.
• 04:30 - 05:00: Rule 2: Don't Pontificate The chapter emphasizes the importance of engaging and meaningful conversations. It suggests that all interactions can be fulfilling if certain basic rules are followed. The author introduces 10 rules aimed at improving conversations, highlighting that mastering even one of these rules can lead to better interactions. The essence is to avoid pontification, allowing conversations to be more engaging and inspiring.
• 05:30 - 06:00: Rule 3: Use Open-ended Questions The chapter emphasizes the importance of using open-ended questions to foster more engaging and meaningful conversations. The first rule highlighted is to avoid multitasking in conversations, suggesting the need for full presence and undivided attention. This entails not thinking about unrelated matters or being distracted by devices. The second rule advises against pontificating, as it discourages dialogue and the exchange of ideas.
• 06:30 - 07:00: Rule 4: Go with the Flow The chapter emphasizes the importance of having an open mindset and being willing to learn from every conversation. It highlights the predictability of pundits who align strictly with conservative or liberal ideologies, noting how this limits their perspectives. Instead, individuals should strive to be flexible and open, similar to 'going with the flow' in conversations, thereby allowing for broader understanding and learning.
• 07:30 - 08:00: Rule 5: Say You Don't Know The chapter discusses the concept of true listening as described by M. Scott Peck, emphasizing the need to set aside one's personal opinions to fully understand the speaker. This acceptance helps the speaker become less vulnerable and more open. The idea is reinforced by Bill Nye's quote that emphasizes that everyone has something to teach you.
• 08:00 - 08:30: Rule 6: Don't Equate Experiences The chapter discusses the importance of recognizing that everyone is an expert in their own experiences. It recommends using open-ended questions, akin to those used by journalists, to gain deeper insights. By starting questions with who, what, when, where, why, or how, one can elicit more informative responses. The chapter warns against using complex questions, which tend to yield simple answers focused on strong words like 'terrified' or 'angry.'
• 08:30 - 09:00: Rule 7: Avoid Repetition This chapter emphasizes the importance of avoiding repetition in conversations or interviews to maintain engagement and generate authentic responses. One key strategy is encouraging the other person to describe their experiences by asking reflective questions such as 'What was that like?' or 'How did that feel?'. This approach prompts deeper thinking and yields more insightful answers. Additionally, maintaining the natural flow of conversation is critical. This means letting thoughts come and go without interruption, as constant back-and-forth can disrupt the natural rhythm and depth of the dialogue. The chapter also critiques common interview practices where interviewers disrupt long, thoughtful responses with unrelated questions, breaking the flow of the conversation.
• 09:00 - 09:30: Rule 8: Stay Out of the Weeds This chapter emphasizes the importance of being present and attentive during conversations rather than being preoccupied with one's own stories or thoughts. It illustrates how people often stop listening because they are eager to share their anecdotes, like a story about meeting Hugh Jackman in a coffee shop. The chapter suggests that such distractions detract from meaningful communication.
• 09:30 - 10:00: Rule 9: Listen The chapter titled 'Rule 9: Listen' discusses the importance of allowing stories and ideas to come to you and the necessity of letting them pass if needed. It emphasizes the importance of acknowledging when you don't know something and suggests being cautious about claiming expertise, particularly in public forums like radio. The text advises against making talk cheap and warns against the tendency to equate your personal experiences with others'.
• 10:30 - 11:00: Rule 10: Be Brief The chapter emphasizes the importance of being brief and not making conversations about oneself. It stresses that personal experiences are unique and not comparable. The chapter advises against turning discussions into competitions about who has suffered more or who is more amazing, highlighting the need to listen and empathize rather than boast about one's own experiences. An anecdote of Stephen Hawking illustrates that bragging about intelligence, such as IQ, is unnecessary and perceived negatively.
• 11:00 - 12:00: Conclusion The chapter emphasizes the importance of genuine conversations, rather than treating them as promotional opportunities. It highlights the tendency in modern conversations, particularly in professional or parental contexts, to repeat oneself excessively. This repetition can be perceived as condescending and boring. The advice is to avoid going in circles and to stay concise and relevant in discussions.

How to Have a Good Conversation | Celeste Headlee | TEDxCreativeCoast Transcription

• 00:00 - 00:30 Translator: Joseph Geni Reviewer: Ivana Korom 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?
• 00:30 - 01:00 (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
• 01:00 - 01:30 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.
• 01:30 - 02:00 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.
• 02:00 - 02:30 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:
• 02:30 - 03:00 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.
• 03:00 - 03:30 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
• 03:30 - 04:00 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,
• 04:00 - 04:30 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.
• 04:30 - 05:00 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,
• 05:00 - 05:30 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.
• 05:30 - 06:00 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."
• 06:00 - 06:30 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."
• 06:30 - 07:00 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
• 07:00 - 07:30 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. We're just waiting for a moment to interject our story about Hugh Jackman and coffee.
• 07:30 - 08:00 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.
• 08:00 - 08:30 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."
• 08:30 - 09:00 (Laughter) Conversations are not a promotional opportunity. [Conversation in the 21st century] [How are you today? Read my blog!] 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.
• 09:00 - 09:30 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
• 09:30 - 10:00 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:
• 10:00 - 10:30 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.
• 10:30 - 11:00 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)
• 11:00 - 11:30 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
• 11:30 - 12:00 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)