Conversation is not what it used to be – for me at least. Many years ago I used to take it for granted, as I suspect many still do. I always loved “a good talk”, as my mother used to say, but I never really stopped to look more closely at what goes on between people in a conversation.
Then, towards the end of the 1990s, my whole understanding of conversation started to shift and grow. Beginnings are impossible to pin down, but one important moment was when I met Patricia Shaw at a coaching firm I was working with in London at that time. I knew plenty of consultants but she behaved quite differently from the others. For example, one afternoon, she invited everybody – not just the coaches but also administrative staff and me as a freelancer – into a room to have a conversation. There was no written agenda. Instead we were simply invited to explore the question “What do we think we are doing together?”
I think this meant so much to me partly because I had been missing good conversations in my working life up until then. As a researcher, writer and editor, I was used to sitting at a desk for hours at a time. And, especially when working among management consultants, I had felt pretty isolated. I remember envying a friend who worked in PR and was constantly laughing with her colleagues.
In 2000, partly prompted by these experiences, I took a big step in my working life by joining a new doctoral programme run by Ralph Stacey and colleagues. One of Ralph’s funnier stories was about how he told a group of managers that all they do essentially is “talk”. This infuriated them – presumably they thought they did more important things, like planning, analysing and… managing. But Ralph’s claim that they “just talk” was not an idle provocation. It had in fact emerged from his interest in complexity and emergence.
What "emergence" came to mean for me, in a nutshell, was that interaction usually gives rise to something new and unpredictable. This insight changed me. In my work, I started to think of my meetings with potential clients not just as opportunities to win new projects but as conversations. I trusted that there was little point in over-planning, or trying to predict what they might lead to.
I still think of conversations, meetings and interviews in this way today. Sometimes I am taken aback or disappointed when I realise that the other person views them as purely transactional, to be planned in advance and kept as short as possible. Indeed, I think the default one-hour slot offered by electronic calendars is unfortunate. Some conversations need five minutes, some need two hours...
If we do take conversation seriously, surely it makes sense to pay attention to its quality. For example, what makes a conversation lively? I would probably say now that, above all, it helps if the people involved are curious, listen attentively, are comfortable with difference, and remain unattached to specific outcomes. Why do some conversations or meetings get stuck? How do we unstick them? And what kind of conversation goes on inside our heads when we are talking or listening to another person? What does conversation mean for a writer? I could construct a whole book around that last question alone…
Composer John Cage once said (very slowly):
“I think conversation……………….. works best………… when the second thing that is said……………. is not in the mind of the person who said it………………”
(“Nineteen Questions”, a film by Frank Scheffer)
I take Cage's words to mean that, when we are listening to another person talking, it helps if we resist the temptation to plan what we are going to say next. Just listen - simple but not easy.
Related reading
Patricia Shaw. Changing conversations. Routledge, 2002.
John Shotter. Conversational realities revisited: life language, body and world. Taos Institute Publications, 2008.
Theodore Zeldin. Conversation: how talk can change your life. The Harvill Press, 1998.
Then, towards the end of the 1990s, my whole understanding of conversation started to shift and grow. Beginnings are impossible to pin down, but one important moment was when I met Patricia Shaw at a coaching firm I was working with in London at that time. I knew plenty of consultants but she behaved quite differently from the others. For example, one afternoon, she invited everybody – not just the coaches but also administrative staff and me as a freelancer – into a room to have a conversation. There was no written agenda. Instead we were simply invited to explore the question “What do we think we are doing together?”
I think this meant so much to me partly because I had been missing good conversations in my working life up until then. As a researcher, writer and editor, I was used to sitting at a desk for hours at a time. And, especially when working among management consultants, I had felt pretty isolated. I remember envying a friend who worked in PR and was constantly laughing with her colleagues.
In 2000, partly prompted by these experiences, I took a big step in my working life by joining a new doctoral programme run by Ralph Stacey and colleagues. One of Ralph’s funnier stories was about how he told a group of managers that all they do essentially is “talk”. This infuriated them – presumably they thought they did more important things, like planning, analysing and… managing. But Ralph’s claim that they “just talk” was not an idle provocation. It had in fact emerged from his interest in complexity and emergence.
What "emergence" came to mean for me, in a nutshell, was that interaction usually gives rise to something new and unpredictable. This insight changed me. In my work, I started to think of my meetings with potential clients not just as opportunities to win new projects but as conversations. I trusted that there was little point in over-planning, or trying to predict what they might lead to.
I still think of conversations, meetings and interviews in this way today. Sometimes I am taken aback or disappointed when I realise that the other person views them as purely transactional, to be planned in advance and kept as short as possible. Indeed, I think the default one-hour slot offered by electronic calendars is unfortunate. Some conversations need five minutes, some need two hours...
If we do take conversation seriously, surely it makes sense to pay attention to its quality. For example, what makes a conversation lively? I would probably say now that, above all, it helps if the people involved are curious, listen attentively, are comfortable with difference, and remain unattached to specific outcomes. Why do some conversations or meetings get stuck? How do we unstick them? And what kind of conversation goes on inside our heads when we are talking or listening to another person? What does conversation mean for a writer? I could construct a whole book around that last question alone…
Composer John Cage once said (very slowly):
“I think conversation……………….. works best………… when the second thing that is said……………. is not in the mind of the person who said it………………”
(“Nineteen Questions”, a film by Frank Scheffer)
I take Cage's words to mean that, when we are listening to another person talking, it helps if we resist the temptation to plan what we are going to say next. Just listen - simple but not easy.
Related reading
Patricia Shaw. Changing conversations. Routledge, 2002.
John Shotter. Conversational realities revisited: life language, body and world. Taos Institute Publications, 2008.
Theodore Zeldin. Conversation: how talk can change your life. The Harvill Press, 1998.