5 Ways to Reach the Outcomes You Want in Conversations
As a conversation trainer, I’m often asked, “How do I get my viewpoint heard in a conversation?” With the rise of hybrid working, many of my clients struggle to achieve their desired outcomes in meetings and create the success they want.
A trend I have noticed among my clients is that virtual meetings can feel more formal than in-person ones. This makes it harder to interject easily into the conversation and, therefore, harder to reach decisions and outcomes. Many also tend to shy away from challenging conversations rather than engage in them.
In this article, I aim to give you tangle takeaways to try in your next conversation. They are all about setting ourselves up for success, working with the other party/parties rather than against them, and thinking about our language to achieve the best results.
Here are some practical ways to increase your influence in conversations and achieve the outcomes you desire:
1. Set Up the Rules of the Game
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- We often move from meeting to meeting without pause and without thinking how we could set up the conversation for success. Spend a few minutes at the start of a call outlining how you’d like the discussion to proceed and how you want to engage. This clarity can significantly improve the conversation’s effectiveness.
- It’s best to establish these guidelines upfront when no challenges or emotions are involved. If issues arise later, you can refer back to these initial agreements.
2. Share Your Intentions Openly and Revisit Them
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- It might feel pushy to share your intentions openly, but it helps others understand your aim. Communicate your goals clearly and kindly while remaining open to collaboration. This isn’t about clinging to your intention but about being upfront so others can better grasp what you seek.
3. Listen Actively and Build
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- Conversations often falter when someone focuses solely on their own outcome and stops listening to the other person. And when people don’t feel listened to, they can get defensive and shut down easily. Deep listening can help people to feel seen, and reveal insights you might otherwise miss, resulting in a richer outcome. Watch out, though, as multitasking during virtual meetings can hinder this, so stay focused to avoid breaking the conversation.
Of all the skills of leadership, listening is the most valuable — and one of the least understood. Most captains of industry listen only sometimes, and they remain ordinary leaders. But a few, the great ones, never stop listening. That's how they get word before anyone else of unseen problems and opportunities. ~ Peter Nulty, Fortune Magazine
4. Watch Your Language
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- The words we use profoundly impact the conversation’s outcome, as you would imagine. A very simple one to be aware of is the use of ‘but’ in a conversation. ‘But’ essentially means everything I have just said is less important than what is about to follow and is often used in conversation when both parts of the sentence can be equally important. ‘But’ has a naturally antagonistic feel to it and often can be simply replaced by hand. Obviously, this is not true in all cases, and I would encourage readers to experiment with how different conversations feel with this simple change.
5. Use Silence Effectively
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- Ever left a conversation thinking, “I wish I had said that”? Adding pauses and moments of silence allows your brain time to catch up and formulate your thoughts. You may find choosing a phrase you repeat in your head helps you get into this, for example, “Oh yeah, that’s interesting; what do I think about that?”. Anything that can help you to slow down your response and, therefore help you respond more thoughtfully.
I hope these techniques provide tangible ways to enhance your conversations and achieve more impactful outcomes.
Jess Rogers I help you have better conversations that build better relationships. Opinions Expressed by She Makes Her Contributors are their own