Some people are born with the gift of gab, which has been defined as “the ability to speak easily and confidently in a way that makes people want to listen to and believe you.” The rest of us have to work at being good conversationalists.
The first thing to remember is that a conversation is not a monologue. Motor-mouths who make it difficult for others to get a word in edgewise will never be considered good conversationalists, and neither will know-it-alls. It’s always better to ask some of the questions than to be providing all the answers; indeed, it’s often a good idea to pretend to learn things we already know. In some situations all that’s needed to be considered a good conversationalist is to be a good listener.
We always have to guard against a slip of the tongue, which is an unintentional faux pas that often gets people in trouble. As some wag once put it, “the tongue, being wet, is prone to slip.” This usually happens when we’re talking to people we don’t know well. Until we get to really know people we should be circumspect in our comments, especially if the topic is politics or religion.
Overly clever remarks can also be a problem. A clever retort should always be sacrificed for the sake of someone’s feelings. Real wit (a very rare skill) should be just the seasoning of a conversation, not the main course.
Some people do just fine once a conversation gets going, but find it difficult to initiate one. Asking a question is the best way to start a conversation, even if it’s only “Have you ever seen such lousy weather?” Asking questions is also a good way to keep a conversation going, and it’s often better to ask a question than to make a statement. For example, it’s a lot better to ask, “Why do you support that candidate?” than saying, “I don’t understand how you can vote for such a jerk.”
But a few words of caution here. Good conversationalists ask the kind of questions people are happy to answer, not ones that make them uncomfortable or antagonistic. We also need to contribute to the conversation, and we’re not going to contribute much by sounding like a lawyer cross-examining a witness.
How we say something can be as important as the words we use. Always use a friendly tone of voice; it’s a conversations, not a debate. A lot of the friction of daily living is caused by the wrong tone of voice. It sometimes takes a lot of will power to control our tone of voice, but it’s always worth the effort. It’s a lot easier to swallow angry words now than to eat them later. Two useful techniques in this respect are to consider even hostile questions as simply requests for information, and when receiving a complaint, treat it as legitimate.
One of the most important rules in Dale Carnegie’s timeless book How to Win Friends and Influence People is to become genuinely interested in other people, which is also a key component in becoming a good conversationalist. Regardless of how unimportant it may seem to us, people like to talk about what’s important to them, which is whatever happens to be going on in their lives at the particular time. A person’s toothache can be more important to them than someone else’s broken arm.
Although we shouldn’t take it to the point where people think we have no ideas, convictions, or interesting experiences of our own, it’s usually better to talk about things other people want to talk about than talking about ourselves. As someone once aptly put it, there’s no need to talk about yourself, others will do that when you leave the room.
The above suggestions won’t always guarantee an engaging conversation. There may be times when we’re saying all the right things in the right way, but the other person, for whatever reason, simply isn’t interested, so we shouldn’t become disheartened when our best efforts fall short.
When all else fails, ask about the dog.