Imagine, you’ve just met someone new . . .
Maybe a woman at a bar. Maybe a senior VP at a networking event.
Conversation rolls for the first few minutes. But then a familiar roadblock: you both feel like you’re running out of things to say. So you implement a tactic you’ve heard before: To be interesting, be interested. Get them talking about themselves.
You unleash your probing questions.
Good, incisive questions. They’re clever and you are obviously listening to the other person’s answers. But as time ticks on, you sense they want to speak less and less. After a few minutes, they excuse themselves to mingle with others. Or to go to the bathroom (riiiiight).
What the heck happened? Isn’t showing a genuine interest in people supposed to be a conversational cure-all?
Not exactly.
Because the conventional wisdom of: “get them talking about themselves” is incomplete. Sure, people like to talk about themselves. But not with everyone.
People only want to talk about themselves with people they have some reason to care about. It’s not perfectly nice, but it’s the truth. When people we don’t respect or know start barraging us with questions, we often just want them to scram. And that phenomenon is especially pronounced in locations where there are lots of other people to meet (like networking events and bars).
So what should I do to have a good conversation, if not ask questions? Start with this principle: People admire, respect, and want to talk to those with non-judgmental conviction in their own values.
If ALL you do is ask questions, you’re not showing any conviction in your values. You’re not even showing your values. But if you make statements about your values or follow your questions up with those kinds of statements, it is a whole ‘nother ballgame.
Take the example of the senior VP at the networking event. Say you’ve gotten on the conversation of his interests:
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