Although some of our conversations are with people we will not meet again, the majority are with those who will play a continuing role in our lives. It is useful to appreciate the intimate connection between our relationships with others and the conversations we have with them.
Simply put, we can assess how we relate to someone by the quality and depth of the conversations we have with them. If I think you are trustworthy then I am like to share more in conversations with you and vice versa. If I wish to build a relationship with you then I must take a risk in our conversations and go into topics where I may feel vulnerable.
As a general principle of relationships, we have ongoing conversations with the another person. More likely than not, these will be descriptive conversations where we create shared stories providing the glue holding the relationship together. We tell each other about our lives and build trust with this sharing.
Although, an effective conversation model has been outlined earlier, this can be a little misleading. By their nature, conversations between two people do not naturally follow a path. Rather they can be seen as a dance where each person leads and follows based on their listening. Conversations tend to meander all over the place as each person responds to the other The key to effective conversations to address our breakdowns is not necessarily to force a conversation, but to focus on the overall flow of the conversation. How two people do this will depend on the nature of their relationship and the perceived roles each is playing in the conversation. For instance, in a coaching conversation, the coach would be responsible to lead the flow. In a conversation between established friends, it is likely the conversation will follow some habituals patterns set up through many previous conversations. It all depends on the roles we take and the conversations will point to those roles.
Generally people want their breakdowns and concerns addressed immediately, yet this is often impractical. It is important to appreciate that sometimes we will need to have a series of conversations to resolve an issue. Too often people find themselves in the situation where they have those conversation yet they seem to get nowhere.
Key to overcoming this is the idea of an ongoing conversation where we build bridges between those conversations such that they keep moving forward. Those bridges are built of commitments. If we wish to make progress, it is important that a commitment to some action is created. This may be as simple as reconvening from where you are, but is better served with commitment to actions that will bring you into the next conversation further along than you are now. This might be getting some required information or testing out a possible solution.
In the ensuing conversation, those commitments become a starting point for further progress.
This approach can be seen in coaching. You can expect your coach to ask you for a commitment of some sort that will move your situation forward and be the starting point for the next conversation.
It is important to appreciate we are in constant conversations throughout life. How we have them and what we focus on is a never-ending source of information about how we see ourselves in relationship with others.
