The great historian and author Theodore Zeldin once said

“Conversation is a meeting of minds with different memories and habits. When minds meet, they don’t just exchange facts: they transform them, reshape them, draw different implications from them, engage in new trains of thought. Conversation doesn’t just reshuffle the cards: it creates new cards.”

Effective conversation is an essential part in our relations with other people. It has helped many to create new cards in their personal or professional life. Good talk gets a lot of relationships started. The discovery of common interests, experiences, values and dreams through conversation have fueled many new relationships. It has convinced several couples to take the plunge into commitment to build a successful life together.

The quality and effectiveness of our business skills as well as our social skills in personal relations is also highly determined by the way conversations are carried on. Watching ‘Larry King show’ or BBC’s ‘Hard Talk’ can instruct us the intricacies of this lively art.

Making conversation with someone you have just met doesn’t have to be awkward or difficult. Whether you are in a professional or social setting, the key is to ask engaging questions… pay attention to what the other person is saying… and respond to what’s being said to keep the conversation going

In today’s business world, we will be involved in many conversations with clients, suppliers, authorities, community leaders, etc. Making a good and positive impact on them requires some conversational skills that can and should be learned.

As Francis Bacon rightly said-“Reading maketh a full man, conference a ready man, and writing an exact man”. Here are some conversation techniques that will help us to be a ‘ready man’ in effectively communicating with others. These conversation techniques will make us much stronger in communicating with others. They will also help us to see and to know the humanity in other people and empathize their needs.

• Break the ice with a warm topic.

Saying a warm Hello is a great starter. Open with a cliché and don’t worry that it might sound dull. Clichés are terrific conversation starters, because they are subjects to which everyone can relate.

You cannot go wrong if you pick topics like the weather, sports, politics, movies or any subject that interests most people.

• Ask Open-ended questions
Philosopher Montaigne once said “There is no conversation more boring than the one where everybody agrees.” The goal of conversation is to get more specific and better-refined information. To do so, you will have to ask questions that will help you to uncover your counterpart’s needs and wants.
The thing that most people want to hear in a conversation is their own voice. You can use this to your advantage by asking opinion type questions. Leave the other person a way to elaborate. After you ask, shut up and listen. Open-ended questions are questions that open up the counterpart and give you the opportunity to continue the conversation. They can make you a hero. An example: “How do you feel about blogging….? What is your opinion about rescheduling meeting hours….?, Do you believe that….?. These are questions that can’t be answered with a “yes” or a “no”. This type of question prompts discussion, because it can’t be answered with a simple yes or no. Since answers will be longer, you will have an opportunity to notice other things that are being said to keep the conversation going.
• Be a good Listener and show undivided attention

La Rochefoucauld, the wry French philosopher who wrote the book ‘Maxim’ said – “The extreme pleasure we take in talking of ourselves should make us fear that we give very little to those who listen to us.”

Statistics indicate that the normal, untrained listener is likely to understand and retain only about 50 percent of a conversation. This relatively poor percentage drops to an even less impressive 25 percent retention rate 48 hours later. This means that recall of particular conversations will usually be inaccurate and incomplete.

Many communication problems are attributable to poor listening skills. When someone else is speaking, most people spend that time planning what they themselves are going to say next. This is not only impolite; it can cause you to miss important information.

Listening is just as important to good conversation as talking-maybe even more important. I have never met a good conversationalist who wasn’t a good listener … and I have never learned much while I was talking.

Instead of rehearsing your next clever line while the other person is talking, focus on your genuine response to what he is saying. Challenge yourself to come up with questions about the points the person has raised.

Listening is also a way to show respect for others. Your goal is to create a win/win outcome so that your counterpart will be willing to converse with you again. Thus, your counterpart needs to think you are a fair, honest, and a decent person. This will give him courage to open up further.

• Be interested and not lifeless
Conversation is like a tennis game. It needs two players who have to give and take. No game is fun if one player is lifeless or half-hearted about it. This is harder to do than most people realize. Let other people know that you are paying attention to what they are saying by making eye contact frequently. When there are people moving all about, it is easy to let your eyes drift around the room. But doing that gives the impression that you are looking for someone more interesting to talk to, or that what is being said is not holding your interest.
Let your gaze move from eye to eye. Pick out the person who hasn’t said much, who looks ill at ease, and make a special point of talking to him.

On the other hand, staring relentlessly into someone’s eyes will also make him uncomfortable. It is fine to take your eyes off the person briefly when it’s your turn to talk.
• Do not interrupt when your counterpart is speaking.
Interrupting a speaker is not a good business for two reasons. First, it is rude. Second, you may be cutting off valuable information that will help you at a later point. Even if your counterpart is saying something that is inaccurate; let him or her finish. Interruptions can frustrate the speaker and thrash his train of thoughts.
• Fight off distractions.
When you are conversing, try to create a situation in which you can think clearly and avoid interruptions. Interruptions and distractions tend to prevent conversation from proceeding smoothly or may even cause a setback. Switch off the TV and Music and look at the face of your counterpart. Employees, peers, children, animals, and phones can all distract you and force your eye off the goal. If you can, create a good listening environment.
• Be Tactful and Diplomatic.
Follow the old adage “Think before you speak” if you want your counterpart want to converse with you again. It is important not only to say the right thing in the right place, but far more difficult is to leave unsaid the wrong thing at the tempting moment.
This won’t happen if you avoid offending his or her dignity. When we converse meaningfully, we are trying to exchange a relationship. If you want to react, attack the message and not your counterpart personally.
• Don’t get angry.
We have often seen some people even trying to hold another by the button or the hand in anger in order to be heard out. The truth is, if people are unwilling to hear you, you had better hold your tongue than them
When you become angry, your counterpart has gained control in triggering your response. In the angry mode, you are probably not in the best frame of mind to make the best decisions. Emotions of any kind hinder the listening process. Anger especially interferes with the problem solving process involved in good conversations. When you are angry, you tend to shut out your counterpart. Nothing lowers the level on conversation more than raising the voice.
If you are going to get angry, do it for the effect, but retain control of your emotions so you can keep control of the conversation. Remember Nikita Khrushchev, the president of USSR, who pounded his shoe on the table in the United Nations and the effect worked well for him.
• Be animated and alert to nonverbal clues.
What message are the eyes sending? What message is his or her nonverbal behavior sending? Many experienced conversationalists have found that with careful attention they can tell what their counterpart is really thinking and feeling. Is he or she lying or telling the truth? While the person’s verbal message may convey honesty and conviction, his or her gestures, facial expressions, and tone of voice may convey doubt. Be animated while you talk. Avoiding eye contact may cause what you say to be taken as untruthful.
• Be Flexible
Topics change, and People, and moods. A good conversationalist change with them.
• Be cheerful, relaxed and good humored
Have a sincere, friendly smile on your face. Humor can be a wonderful humanizer in conversations. Good conversation is soothing and relaxing. Do not make it strained and stressful. Many can argue, not many converse. The first ingredient in conversation is truth, the next good sense, the third good humor, and the fourth wit. Remember, humor is worth more than wit and easiness more than knowledge
• Learn to pause in conversation.
Pauses in conversation usually will cause the other person to speak. They will do so because the other person feels awkward and unnatural if you stop saying anything. This technique will cause the person to expand on what he has said or sometimes to recant or rephrase his statement. This is a very powerful tool of conversation. And, if you are in control of the conversation, you can make the pause as long as is necessary. You will also see when someone is using pauses on you.
• Avoid being dogmatic and insincere
Avoid generalizations such as “All politicians are corrupt”. Moderate your statement. Avoid ‘all’ and ‘always’. Swing over to ‘some’ and ‘sometimes’. Also be sincere in your comments and praising of others. Don’t overdo it
• Avert a verbal bashing
What some people do in conversation is batter one another with facts and theories gleaned from superficial readings of newspapers, magazines and digests. That will turn a dialogue into an intersecting monologue.
• Don’t Monopolize the Conversation
There is nothing that exasperates people more than a display of superior ability or brilliance in conversation. They seem pleased at the time, but their envy makes them curse the conversationalist in their heart. Conversation is the art of never seeming bored, of touching everything with interest, of pleasing with trifles, of being fascinating with nothing at all. It is a lively art of darting about with words, of hitting them back and forth, a sort of brief smile at ideas from everyone that makes a conversation memorable
• Develop a broad outlook

Good conversationalists keep to the subject, do not repeat themselves, and do not talk of themselves; such men do not listen to their own voice, are cultivated enough not to lose themselves in commonplaces, and possess tact and good taste enough not to elevate their own persons above their subjects. All the best talkers have this characteristic in common.

• Conclude a conversation gracefully.

Breaking away from a conversation is often more difficult that starting one. After bonding with someone, most people hesitate to interrupt when they need to move on because they feel it will hurt the other person’s feelings.

The fact is that there will come a point in any conversation when you have to end it-either to see other people or simply because you have run out of things to say. Making such a move doesn’t have to be hard. You just need a great excuse.

The key to leaving a great impression while leaving a conversation is to make the excuse in a polite, friendly and unapologetic way… and then leave.
Good Conversation

Finally, there are three things in conversation that ought to be considered before some things are spoken–the manner, the place and the time. He, who sedulously attends, pointedly asks, calmly speaks, coolly answers, and concludes when he has no more to say, is in possession of some of the best requisites for carrying on a good conversation.

As Water Scott said “The pith of conversation does not consist in exhibiting your own superior knowledge on matters of small consequence, but in enlarging, improving and correcting the information you possess by the authority of others”