Let's Talk: How to Have Better Conversations

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Oh, that's a fantastic story. And you certainly don't want to be someone who ends up becoming CEO and does interviews and you end up looking like a Muppet in your interviews when you're furious. So, I'm going to remove all the identifiers from here, but I think one of the biggest...early on, when I was very first becoming a leader, and almost nobody actually trains people in leadership. They send them to leadership school, but actually giving them the nuts and bolts of how to be a coach as opposed to managing people, that's very rare.

Based on research that went into the app, as well as on ongoing exploration since, Heyman also has some general tips for talking to others better. What Deeyah Khan said was ultimately I want one less racist in the world and I’m not going to get that by shouting ‘You’re a racist’ at them but I might get that if I sit down and talk to them and let them understand I am not who they think I am, and I try to understand they are not who I think they are. I think I might start all my business conversations now with, "Do you have a tattoo somewhere that's interesting?"

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Something can be considered a good conversation if it does what the people involved want it to do,” Heyman said. “People have a wide variety of goals in conversations, and in some cases the goals are strategic, such as convincing someone to agree with you or getting them to realize that you exist. These kinds of conversations are important, but they don’t interest me all that much. Nihal interviews a range of people for whom communication is a key part of their life and business, whilst blending in some of his own stories and experiences along the way, to highlight his key recommendations for the importance of open and varied communication, and how we need to improve in ‘the art of conversation’. I like that he uses the final chapter to summarise the majority of the key points from his interviewees. Unfortunately, we are in an age now when we tend to wholly define someone by one thing – you know, you’re Catholic, you’re Protestant, you’re a Leaver, you’re a Remainer, you’re woke, you’re racist, but that’s not all of who someone is. And one of the book’s aims is to encourage people to be a little bit more introspective about who you are, and look at your own prejudices and biases. If we do that more effectively, we can connect with others more openly.”

That's so interesting. It's that, I'm thinking of when you lay awake at night and you're replaying this conversation in your head and you're like, "I said everything wrong. I've totally embarrassed myself," especially when it comes to a work situation. So maybe the other person isn't noticing some of these things, but there are a few things maybe we're doing where we do come off worse than we want to be perceived. So where do a lot of people go wrong in their conversations? How do we mess this up? Absolutely. So with regards to having sort of bonus conversations, which is a much nicer phrase, I know that I’d much rather be having bonus conversations than performance management conversations. Would you see that almost on a monthly basis, or adopted by organisations and teams on a weekly basis, monthly basis? annual basis? What What was the cadence of those conversations look like?

I'm just happy they didn't say, "Nope, we didn't lose a submarine. Nobody look at it." So at least they started with actually trying to find it. So, the last question I'll ask you, Celeste, is one that I do ask everyone on the show, but can you tell me about a moment of leadership in your life that changed your perspective? So, whether it's something that was positive, and you said, "Hey, this inspires me to go further," or even something negative of a moment of leadership that you're like, "Okay, I'm going to do something different in the future than that." A moment of leadership that changed your life. If all of your conversations are fulfilling and none are ever fraught, you can stop reading now — this story isn’t for you. If you’re like the rest of us and sometimes find yourself wishing you could have better conversations, however, then you’re in the right place. And I remember I got really angry because my team had missed an important deadline, and I'm sitting there berating them, and one of the people on my team said, they started laughing, and I was like, "I'm super angry right now." And he's like, "Celeste, you shouldn't lead by fear. You are not very convincing angry. No offense, but you are going to have to find another way." And it was an eye-opener for me in terms of how different the perception of us is outside our bodies as opposed to in. And that, you know, I could have taken offense, I suppose it was a negative insult, but I just laughed and was like, "Oh God, I had no idea." He's like, "You kind of look like a Muppet when you're mad." And you know-

I love that approach of you've got to be the person who says, "I didn't know that. Thank you for telling me. I honestly had no idea, or I wasn't aware when I used it. It slipped out. That was a mistake, I shouldn't have done it-" If you haven't seen it, about 34 million of your peers have so go Google it after this podcast. Celeste is also an internationally recognized journalist and radio host, professional speaker, and author of several bestselling books, including We Need to Talk: How to Have Conversations That Matter, Do Nothing: How to Break Away from Overworking, Overdoing, and Underliving, as well as books on race and sexism. So, she is such a wonderful guest to have. Celeste, welcome to the Leadership 480 podcast.One fix to this conundrum is to try and have more meaningful conversations with the people around us — striving to really learn about them and understand the experiences that shaped who they are and what they care about. If you do hit a minefield, it is often best for everyone to step away for a little while before deciding how to proceed. When everyone really wants to get along, it may require little more than a genuine apology or making fun of yourself. If every single conversation is directed, that's how you end up with group think. That's how you're like, "Well, this is what I need to know, don't tell me anything else but what I need to know." But there may be things you don't realize that you need to know until suddenly it's a crisis. So yeah, you have to see these conversations and bring with them a certain amount of curiosity, just curiosity to learn interesting stuff. Read this fascinating book and you'll become a better listener, a better conversationalist and better company' Adam Kay