You Talking To Me?
Are We Having A Conversation?
Being a patient fellow I give people the benefit of the doubt when we start talking. A lot of the time they seem to be set to transmit. I ask myself — do they want me to engage with what they are saying? Do I just let them give forth? I listen — increasingly I just listen.
I’m shocked when they ask for an opinion.
Wow, a question! I’ve been hit by a train – it’s so fucking rare. They stopped giving me their stuff for a second and wanted to discuss.
They cared enough to turn it into a conversation.
What’s In A Conversation?
Call me old fashioned but for something to qualify as ‘conversation’ it has to be two way. It’s not a one sided tirade or a sequence of fixed opinions set within some fancy words. Some have the ability to make their statements appear to be open to conversation but (a few attempts to engage and understand later) the door stays shut.
“Long gone are the days when genuine, warm and open opportunity existed to just discuss something — anything. Small wonder then that the world appears beyond stupid — out of anyone’s control…”
Shall We Talk?
I made a deliberate attempt, a few weeks ago. to do some research. I wrote shit down. I recorded a week or two of meetings and calls. Out of ~40 such interactions I noted 2 that turned into actual conversation. I defined the other 38 as opinion tennis.
We hear a lot about being good at listening. I infer that that should encourage better dialogue as a result. The constant challenge in an exponentially complicated world is gaining greater attention/engagement. That rarely happens.
How can we expect to solve anything in society at large, at work or at home, without respectful conversation?
A Definition Of A Conversation
How About This?
We start with a question —
- “Hey, what do think about this…” The opening sentences about whatever ‘this thing’ is gets laid out.
- Then there’s the space for the response. This encourages the conversation — the agreement or/and alignment. But most likely there will be questions around differences.
- The questions get discussed in an open and collaborative way. Without once closing down the idea that more questions and conversations might come.
That sounds reasonable doesn’t it?
Then we may better understand the other person — that they may have something of value. We might learn something. It would make for a more interesting life?
“Once heard, what do people do with the fresh ideas? In my experience little. The process of cogitation seems to be in short supply — we’re screwed…”
Wishful Thinking?
An Exchange Of Words — That’s Not Enough
Yep, words get exchanged — people smile and nod. They agree with the words they heard but it still adds nothing to the experience of either party. The words change nothing — they move nothing on. No progress. Yes the language we use is an easy target and important but it’s only a part.
Context and mindsets surround it all. A Political Multiplicity
“There is no language in itself. Nor are there any linguistic universals. There’s only a throng of dialects, patois, viperslangs, and specialized languages. There’s no mother tongue. There’s only a power takeover by a dominant language within political multiplicity. Language stabilizes around a parish, a bishopric, a capital. It forms a bulb. Language evolves by subterranean stems and flows, along river valleys or train tracks. It spreads like a patch of oil.” — Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari.
To Coin A Phrase
Words form into ideas and concepts. that’s how humans make progress. Being good with dialogue in the new world is crucial. Telling stories, engaging people, debating the points and exchanging value. It’s all done with language. But language relies on being willing and open and knowing the context we are each in. Language can form an inspiring and unencumbered contract between humans.
Or It Can Kill Them
What Means Understanding?
Language is important. But unless we recognise each others contexts and our mindset shifts the words we use go back and forth doing zero. So, the meaning of them lays shivering in the void. Our discussions fall into a bottomless crevice.
The result is a collaborative lack of progress.
“The reason why we don’t find solutions to our problems is because the answers to our questions interfere with our concepts.” — Eric Hoffer
Read That Twice
It’s all because the concepts we use are stuck in place. Held there by impervious scaffolding — that we’ve erected over time. They are in by definition our mindsets. Like I say, I’m an optimist. I think all we need are repeated electric shocks to the brain to fix things — it’s worth doing.
“Our spirits have their own private way of understanding each other, of becoming intimate. Our external persons are still trapped in the commerce of ordinary words. Trapped in the slavery of social rules.” — Luigi Pirandello
Other Than That…
The Belligerence Of Our Mindsets
Mindsets are terrifying things. Given to humanity by Satan. Harder than Kevlar — almost impossible to shift. But that’s the job.
“Change the frame through which you see the world or suffer the consequences of being 100% wrong*. You will appear to the world, and those closest to you, as plain stupid…”
* An extreme view perhaps but I’m trying hard to make a point here. That’s the point.
With a positive frame everything can be different. From this second forward everything can change for the better.
Mind Set?
Mindsets stick us firmly into place — drugged by the familiar comfort of the past. They reinforce the good and the bad habits we have developed. It’s why change sometimes never happens. If your mindset says — ‘I’ve listened but it hasn’t changed my mind’. It’s likely you had no intention of changing it anyway. Whatever it was you heard didn’t interfere with your preconception.
There’s also a good chance you didn’t process what you heard. You didn’t compare it to anything except your current frame. You had better be damn sure that existing frame is faultless.
It Won’t Be
Shifting The Sands
A set of things you can do right now to start thinking differently — to get yourself ready for more rewarding conversations and — to create an appropriate or new mindset.
Right — let’s assume you agree that some aspects of your life are pretty rubbish right now. It could be about how you see the world. You may be pissed by the global meltdown of political systems. The recent dumb ass decisions in the UK or the USA. It could be your view of deliberate inequity, fraud and corruption by an elite few. It could be how your business is working out — or the state of your relationships with others.
Something like this might be the question you should be asking as you embark.
“How do I make more sense of it all. (Achieve better experiences for myself, have richer conversations — help myself and wider society do better — so that we can all live more meaningful/valuable lives…?”
- First — The Space. Find a place where you know you can just think. It will be a place/space where no other ideas interfere. That will be hard to do but it’s worth it.
- Then — The Time. You have to be there long enough to appreciate the need to shift the frame. To remove all the noise in your life for a few minutes/hours. (You will need to do this repeatedly until 3, 4 and 5 below start to emerge). Try stopping that sound — the sound of being too important or busy to chill the fuck out.
- Get — To Realise. With luck you will find the answers to the questions. If I want better experiences/conversations/results I probably need to have a few. I need to get out and live. I need to be far more open to people who are more knowledgable or who may at least help me increase the value.
- Climb — Over Yourself. Stop thinking you are always right or wrong. If you’ve got a lot on decide to only tackle the main challenges of today. Don’t melt your head by adding in everything else — defeating your capacity to even think
- Be — Real. Remind yourself of your actual experience in life. Remember all the occasions where everything you said would never change or improve — did. Even though you hate admitting it.
The Challenges Of The Above
Overcoming The Defensive Default. Stop Thinking You Are The Victim
You will be surprised how much your story so far will dictate the future you will carve out. OK so you’ve been ignored, denied, passed over. You have been defeated, betrayed, challenged and discouraged. This abuse has built over time. It’s not surprising that you’ve created defences.
That stuff is in the past — it doesn’t mean anything now. It doesn’t mean that the situation will arise or exist again or from now on. That idea doesn’t quite make it into your mind right now.
But just imagine.
“If you didn’t start your conversation from the position of a coiled spring. If you weren’t a slave to your high walled defensiveness . What could you see?…”
Change Your Tune
Imagine if you used previous experiences as ‘experience’ to be explored rather than de facto evidence of anything to come? Imagine, your process from now on is one of validation. Make your ‘things’ some thing to be proven rather than the fixed ‘truth’ you’ve already created for it. A hypothesis — nothing more.
Starting a new conversation — as if it’s brand new with no history, bias or side to it — changes everything.
Put A Smile On.
What? Yes smile as the new debate begins.
Smiling makes you FEEL chemically different. It opens up your mind to the possibility of fresh and inspiring potential. It has an amazing effect on others. It signals that you care and are open. A human being. It shows that you’ve got the confidence of experience but also that you are ready and prepared to create yet more value together with others.
“What’s experience anyway? — It’s the result of all our experiences. We know that in the end — it’s never the end. How boring if it were and we knew everything…”
Not seeking new experiences would be a sure sign we’re not interested in adding new value. And in this world never be afraid to say you just don’t know. Never apologise for that. We spend far too much time saying sorry we didn’t know something. Instead we should say ‘I’m pleased — I don’t know’.
Our fellow travellers would be inspired. They would join us on the journey and help us to find out.
Flying With Excess Baggage
Thinking about our own problems is inevitable. Mixing that with our conversations is asking for trouble. Everyone we meet can see it — and feel it. The effect is written all over our actions and tattooed on our faces. They can be seen in our stances and the positions we take* in discussions.
They poorly inform our mindset.
“We don’t realise it but our journeys invade every pore of our bodies. They can trigger the strangest conversations — for good or ill. It’s a habit that’s hard to break. Partly because we don’t recognise we are doing it. That’s how mind-set we are…”
* Those who read the books; those that ONLY study a narrow topic all their lives are often the best example. They epitomise the very challenge they are trying to defeat. They only have the conversation that they can have. And that’s only based on what they’ve learned — that’s the position they have.
A fixed mindset makes for one dimensional exchanges.
In Summary
Our inability to converse is life and death. It’s brought wars and long term pain for society. 2016 has been the high water mark of how bad we’ve got at understanding because there’s no real conversation anymore.
We’ve abdicated our need to discuss things properly to others. Or we’ve just given up. We believe leaders and politicians are doing our talking and thinking for us. They are not.
“Smart people, experts can be the most disappointing. They fail to see how their lifelong thesis lands with their audiences. I’ve used the word audience on purpose. They think of other people as their subjects. Never their peers or just other humans…”
If this teaches us anything about conversations it’s that we should have them. And about mindsets it’s that we shouldn’t. But because that’s impossible — treat them as muscles that needs exercising in real time — every minute of the day.
And Remember:
“Watch the sunrise at least once a year, put a lot of marshmallows in your hot chocolate, lie on your back and look at the stars, never buy a coffee table you can’t put your feet on, never pass up a chance to jump on a trampoline, don’t overlook life’s small joys while searching for the big ones.” — H. Jackson Brown, Jr.
