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Listen Up: How to Really Connect with People and Have Fun Doing It


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At Leadership Story Lab, we specialize in helping you learn how to most effectively tell your story, whether you are telling that story during a speech, presentation, or interview. We help you figure out what to say. However, there is a flip side to all of that telling: listening. In social and business settings, asking the right questions and then settling in to listen can be just as important as knowing the right things to say.

Over the next few months, you may be attending your high school and college reunion. Or you might be going to graduation parties and summer get-togethers. At these events, nothing is worse than seeing someone who you only see once or twice a year and having the exact same conversation you had last time, hearing again about work or golf or that one memory of that one great time you had together. Not only is it boring, but by reverting to these stale conversations, you could be missing an opportunity to network and form connections.

In that classic book How to Win Friends and Influence People (which will probably be purchased as a graduation gift for thousands of young men and women in the next few weeks), there is a section entitled “Six Ways to Make People Like You.” Number one is “Become genuinely interested in other people.” Number four is “Be a good listener. Encourage others to talk about themselves.” Number six is “Make the other person feel important and do it sincerely.”

Great. Now, how do you actually do those things? How do you become a good listener or make other people feel important? The key is to ask good questions and then settle in and listen to what the person has to say.

One of the resources we provide on our website is a list of questions you can use to start a dialogue. Questions like:

  • What do you like to do when you are not working?

  • Tell me about your next trip?

  • What do you wish you had learned but didn’t?

  • What do you remember about your very first day at school/work?

These aren’t mind-blowing. In fact, they are just the kinds of questions that you might ask someone who you wanted to know more about. The things is, we often get stuck in a rut, asking the same thing (How’s work? How are the kids?) over and over, leading to the same conversations again and again. This is especially true for people we have known a long time or people we see everyday, like colleagues. Taking a moment to come up with a few alternative questions can lead to surprising new ideas and stories.

It might seem daring at first. Not asking “how’s work” might seem as wacky as wearing lime green. But the truth is, it will make everyone at the reunion or party more at ease. You won’t be bored and the people you’re with will feel like they have been able to actually share something with you.

More on Questions:

This Thursday, April 23 at 5:30pm, Speaking Society with cover the topic That’s a Good Question. The session, held at the University Club of Chicago, will discuss how to use questions to create better presentations and how to deal with questions from the audience. Free and open to the public. Register by e-mailing: Esther@LeadershipStoryLab.com.

Also, Leadership Story Lab’s Esther Choy recently wrote a blog post about using questions to learn more about clients and potential donors entitled How to Make ‘Em Talk: Eliciting Stories from Clients. Check that out for more guidance on using questions for networking and in business settings.

Image by Grim Santo from Creative Commons

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