The Six Actions That Unlock Any Conversation

What do you do that makes conversations click? What are the specific actions that bring brilliant results?

You know it when you hear it: meaning stays intact, people think more clearly, shared understanding emerges.

There’s a hidden mechanism at the heart of conversation. Most people never notice that it’s there.

And increasingly, I’m realising that the way to unlock that mechanism is with a set of actions.

Not skills. Not personality traits. Actions.

None of it works unless you do the things.

Photo by rc.xyz NFT gallery on Unsplash

Cutting Your Key

In preparation for a meeting later this week, I’m thinking hard about how I know when someone has “got” the skills to use Clean Language conversationally.

There are maybe six things I want them to demonstrate:

• Shut up - stop filling the air with their noise

• Echo the person’s words

• Ask Clean or Cleanish questions to check what the person meant

• Explore the person’s unknown knowns by asking more Clean or Cleanish questions

• Add as little of their own interpretation as possible

• Keep listening, and noticing the person’s state.

None of these skills is binary. You’re not “doing it” or “not doing it”.

They’re more like sliders… or perhaps the pins of a Yale-type key.

When you put one or two of these skills to work - maybe you just decide to ask “What kind of support?” every time you hear someone ask for support - you’ll see an improvement to your conversations.

When you use enough of all six, conversations really unlock.

You become a super-communicator. You learn what’s really going on.

And when it’s time, you get yourself heard.