Let’s talk

I’ve recently finished reading Nihal Arthanayake’s thought-provoking book ‘Let’s Talk: How to have better conversations’.

He explores the art of conversation, sharing the history of dialogue, personal experiences as well as interviewing some fascinating conversational authorities, from a former Irish president to a hostage negotiator and talkshow host. He talks about conversations being in crisis in an increasingly fractured world, and wants to understand how we can better connect with each other and have better conversations again.

There were a few elements that really resonated:

• We’ve forgotten how to truly listen, often either not wanting to hear what the other person is saying because we don’t agree, or too busy thinking about what we’re going to say next. The Chinese symbol for listening, ‘ting’, is divided into four quadrants - the ears, the eyes, the heart and the mind. We can learn a lot from this.

• If we focus more on what connects us rather than what divides us, finding common ground to move forward with, we will have more meaningful conversations.

• We need to spend physical time together rather than time hiding behind technology, to truly connect again.

I’m going to make a real effort to have better conversations from now on. If you fancy a chat, get in touch and we can have a 30 minute call, or organise a coffee. I guarantee there’s something we will have in common.