What are your conversation beliefs?
A while back, I was sitting in a coffee shop with three other people, engaged in an intense and difficult conversation brought about by the misperceptions, silences, and inappropriate actions of the previous two years. I left that conversation with more insight into the difficulties encountered, and yet, I knew that many more conversations would be required if there was to be a resolution of the issues we were attempting to address.
Reflecting on this experience afterward, I was reminded of hearing Jim Knight give an inspiring keynote address about communication at a conference in Sydney, prompting me to walk out and immediately buy a copy of his book, Better Conversations. In this book, Knight suggests that a person must have the following six basic conversation beliefs before they can engage effectively in dialogue. They:
see conversation partners as equals
want to hear what others have to say
believe people should have a lot of autonomy
don’t judge others
understand that conversation should be a back-and-forth
aim for conversations that are life-giving
These beliefs set a context for effective conversation. In that difficult coffee shop meeting, if the four of us had agreed to set an initial context around the six beliefs, then we might have made more positive progress.
Even more, what if we had agreed to test the six better conversation beliefs out on ourselves before we met? Each of us could have asked ourselves:
Do I believe that my contribution to this conversation is of equal value to the contributions of others?
Do I listen to myself?
Am I autonomous? Do I honestly make my own decisions or am I reacting to the pressure of the situation or the various influences in my life?
Do I judge myself?
Can I see my point of view from varying angles?
Do I speak words of life to myself?
If there is an ambiguous answer to even one of these questions, what inner work could be done to clarify my self-awareness?
Growth in self-awareness encourages us to take responsibility for our presence and contribution in conversation with other people.
Reference
Knight, J. (2016) Better Conversations. California: Corwin