Imagine you enter the conference room for a meeting about company goals and how to achieve them. An hour later, you leave the meeting feeling like no progress was made and your time was wasted.
Many of us leave conversations at work feeling disappointed rather than uplifted and motivated.
Whether it’s between employees and/or managers, our dialogue at work should inspire us to be more productive, build stronger working relationships, boost morale, and continue to improve communication. Exchanging feedback, listening to understand, and other key conversational elements often go missing in our day-to-day interactions, making our conversations less than meaningful.
High productivity and motivation can be achievable with consistent effort in making conversations truly meaningful. Yet, it’s easier said than done, so here’s a guide toward having productive conversations at work.
Why Meaningful Conversations Matter, Especially At Work
What makes a conversation meaningful?
Truly impactful and productive conversation goes beyond small talk and reaches a deeper level of vulnerability. When all parties involved in a conversation feel supported to share concerns or important feelings and those feelings are well received and considered, we find meaningfulness in the interaction. According to psychologist Lucy Foulkes at Psyche, there are three components we can harness to foster deeper conversation: self-expression (sharing aspects of who you are), effective listening, and a sense of connection.
However, less than half of conversations are meaningful, often because we are afraid of being awkward, uninteresting, or misunderstood.
How we hold conversations at work lays the foundation for teamwork, collaboration, skill development, customer support, leadership development and so much more. If our dialogue with each other is subpar, we can’t effectively grow in our roles or as an organization.
Growing from peers who participate in casual conversation to allies and trusted partners through intentional dialogue brings benefit to teams in the following ways:
- Identifies strengths and areas for development
- Diversity becomes stronger
- Teamwork increases
- Builds a wider set of skills, especially interpersonal skills
- Stress is reduced due to more support and less pressure around conversations
- Leadership improves
- Creates a culture of open communication
- Turnover decreases
- Employees become happier and more satisfied due to stronger social bonds
- Grows networks
Conversations & Meeting Productivity
If you have productivity issues in meetings, take a good look at how conversation flows, because there’s a good chance it’s the culprit.
Leaders are responsible for how meetings function, meaning keeping conversations on track is their responsibility.
Establishing expectations and objectives for your meetings is the key to having productive sessions. Communicate to participants what the meeting is for, the goals you want to accomplish in the timeframe, and how you would like to see the meeting progress. Defining expectations as the meeting begins helps the team stay focused and contribute meaningfully.
As conversations build and ideas and opinions begin to circulate, encourage team members to go beyond the surface by asking follow-up questions, such as “what else?”
Also, leave lulls in conversations or gently invite reserved participants to have the floor and share their thoughts so that everyone is involved in carrying the conversation.
When mitigating unproductive conversations, get the group back on track by assuming positive intent from everyone and encourage others to do the same. This strategy helps individuals truly consider everyone’s perspectives and brews curiosity rather than instantly shut down misinterpreted ideas.
9 Steps To Making Your Conversations Meaningful
Employees, managers, leaders, and business owners alike can make every conversation count with a handful of tips and guiding principles. Consider the following when engaging in conversation in the workplace.
- Ask helpful questions and phrase them well. Questions should pique the interest of every party in a conversation, so choose topics that everyone is motivated to talk about. Phrasing is also key—ask open-ended questions to encourage people to elaborate rather than simply replying with a “yes” or a “no.” An easy way to practice asking open-ended questions is by starting your questions with who, what, when, why, where, or how.
- Listen with curiosity. Approach every conversation to understand the other parties through curiosity. Ask follow-up questions, listen actively, and show that you’re intrigued by what you’re hearing. If you are a big talker, listening more than you talk is also a good rule of thumb to allow everyone to share their thoughts.
- Find a compliment or common ground. If you are unsure how to start a conversation or keep one going, find similarities between you and your coworkers to evoke excitement and genuine interest. Alternatively, begin a conversation with a compliment to break the ice and get the dialogue going.
- Don’t multitask. Multitasking is a myth—we can’t effectively perform multiple tasks at once. Therefore, make sure your attention is only on your conversation by getting rid of any distractions and avoiding interruptions. Not only does this show your conversation partner that you respect them and the dialogue, but it also allows the conversation to evolve.
- Embrace constructive feedback. Practice receiving and giving praise and suggestions for improvements. Exchanging feedback regularly creates more robust relationships at work, allowing us to eliminate biases, reflect on our work and behavior, and uplift and support our peers.
- Be ready to be vulnerable. The “norm of reciprocity” suggests that sharing something personal with someone will encourage the other person to do the same to keep the interaction balanced. It can be difficult to open up and share personal details when meeting new people or talking to folks we don’t know very well. Keep in mind that we feel more connected when we become more vulnerable, so don’t be afraid to share some personal thoughts as long as they continue to be reciprocated by the other person.
- Show up prepared. Conversations with new peers run much smoother when we take some time to learn about them, their interests, the topic at hand, or their background before being introduced. If possible, do your research so that you can have a well-informed conversation or meeting.
- Be mindful of body language. Engage in conversations by directly facing your peers, putting away your phone or other items you might fidget with, and maintaining eye contact.
- Encourage everyone to participate. Especially in meetings, a few voices can easily take over conversations and drown out reserved team members. If you're leading a meeting or participating in one, elicit thoughts from team members who don’t participate much in the conversation. Ask to hear their experience or expertise on subjects so that conversations remain inclusive.
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