The Hindu Business Line : The art of conversation

The art of engaging in a meaningful conversation is a skill that most successful people share. A good conversationalist achieves an objective that goes beyond communicating effectively or transmitting a message clearly. Think back to the time when you met a person for the first time and recall the experience of speaking with them. It would have been a moment of exchange where both information and personality left a strong and lasting impression.

A person’s ability to engage in conversation reflects his or her confidence and intelligence. When you add a seasoning of wittiness, it also imparts a sense of wholeness. People with conversational skills are able to lead the conversational dance by listening, directing and eliciting “topical pressure points”. They understand tempo, provide variety and make sure that YOU are always involved. A good conversation must always be a dialogue and an essentially two-way process instead of turning into a dreary monologue.

Conversation in global Business

Social etiquette and conversational skills are important elements of our cross-cultural training programmes. These skills are relevant to both employees who work virtually as well as for those who travel. In order to provide structure for our students, we approach the topic in the following way:

Conversation using information that you know (culture or otherwise).

Conversation based on themes you know nothing about (small talk).

Conversation that arises from giving or receiving a compliment (social graces).

Our experience has shown that making social conversation is a weak point with most of our students. I believe that the situation becomes especially acute when the interaction involves people from other cultures.

At the beginning of this article, I talked about what a good conversation promotes. Well, along the same lines, an employee who does international business and is a great conversationalist is, in effect, projecting an image of his company and the quality of the people it recruits.

Let us say, for example, that Pascal meets Sanjeev from India Inc in Paris. After a preliminary two-hour meeting in the morning, they break for an hour for lunch. During the course of the meal, the quality of their conversation is stimulating and engaging, and they cover a range of topics excepting work. The meal extends for another hour. At the end of the day when Sanjeev leaves, Pascal does not merely have a broader perspective of his Indian counterpart, but also of India Inc. He sees positive communication, an adaptable culture and quality in the human resources of the Indian company. In other words, Sanjeev’s conversational skills have made him a strong brand ambassador for his company. Based on my on-site training experiences, I have found that difficulties in social conversation are due to some of the following reasons:

Limited information about other cultures (or non-work related knowledge) and not enough information about India that we can share with other cultures.

Lack of listening skills and, therefore, an inability to respond to and adapt in a relevant way during a conversation or while making small talk.

Poor body language to convey sincerity of interest in the conversation and adoption of a “question-answer approach”.

The culture in conversation

Okay, so let’s say you address these issues and are building your conversational skills. You now feel more confident and you’re raring to go — you want to converse!

But before you get going, a note of caution on conversational taboos. Basically, these are things you just don’t mention, with or without a smile.

When I perform an activity on “giving and receiving a compliment”, I ask my students to imagine that they are at a barbecue hosted by their American client and his wife. Each student must then take elements from around this scenario and be able to provide a compliment to initiate a conversation.

A good compliment:

Sanjeev: “John, you have a nice collection of paintings.”

John: “Thank you, my wife loves art. She brings back a painting every time she visits a country.”

Sanjeev: “I see you don’t have anything from India; that’s a good reason for you to plan a trip.”

And the conversation continues...

A bad compliment/taboo:

Sanjeev: “John, what a beautiful painting. How much did you pay for it?”

John: (uncomfortable silence).

Conversation ends.

In the latter, the conversation is much briefer and ends where it started. These examples are actual choices made by students. Though the second example generally elicits laughter in class, in reality it would lead to embarrassment and awkwardness.

Here are some topics you would want to generally avoid in the West: Personal questions that invade privacy (such as asking women if they are married); religion (a private matter); ethnic or gender jokes; controversial and sensitive issues such as Nazism, the Vietnam War or any current political situation. Among the advisable topics are culture, sports, food, your positive observations and questions about current affairs/history.

The art of conversation is a learned skill and represents a key proficiency for the professional development of Indian executives working on the global stage.

With good conversation skills, the individual projects confidence about himself and the company he or she works with. Knowing what to say is your image to opportunities.

(The writer is Senior Manager-Training and Development of Global Adjustments, a company that offers integrated India destination services and cross-cultural education delivered through the portal www.globalindian.com)

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