How I ruined a conversation

A good planning is still incomplete without the proper execution. That's why in this planning & self-organization blog we want to cover some adjacent topics like productivity, motivation and communication. In this article we try to make your communication productive and goal-oriented.

A few days ago I posted a brief article about who really wins in an argument. My point was, most people think of winning as defeating their opponent, while in fact you can only win if you listen to your opponent and learn or create something new.

You know what? I had no choice but to prove that myself. Yesterday I have spectacularly ruined a conversation with a colleague.

As a background, our company has a prospective client that wants to build a web application and considers using our services. The client asked for a proposal for this upcoming project. So I met with a colleague, Ivan, to discuss the web application and prepare the proposal.

Just to make it clear, I am more a business person and Ivan is more a technical guy. That's why we needed to share our perspectives and then prepare both technical and business parts of the proposal.

As we started our meeting, it turned out Ivan had probably been busy and had no time to read the specs carefully. Well, I took the lead and briefly went through all the features adding my comments here and there.

OK, now we were on the same page. We started picturing what the application would look like but Ivan acted somewhat passive so once again I took the paper sheet and drew a quick diagram of how the app should work. I was quite proud of my job so far, and Ivan seemed to agree with me again and didn't comment much.

After we discussed the general approach and had agreement on that, we started thinking of gaps we had and writing down questions we needed to get answers for. And once again Ivan seemed comfortable with the list of questions I created.

We were done. Great!

Okay, we shook hands and I went back to my workplace. I was thinking what a great conversation that was: I had lots of time to speak, I was in charge, and Ivan agreed with all my ideas!

But as I reviewed the notes, a scaring thought came to my mind: I didn't get any new information from that conversation. I was talking myself all the time, and Ivan barely said a few words.

How could I deem myself a winner if I received zero value from the conversation? Note that I didn't have the specific purpose to beat my opponent. Quite the opposite was true: I thought I was making him more comfortable.

I believe the conversation was a failure. I failed at creating the friendly atmosphere to let Ivan efficiently share his thoughts with me, and therefore I failed at achieving the most important goal: learning something new.

Now, just a few thoughts on what I can do next time to save the conversation:

• Before you start, create a friendly, relaxing atmosphere
• Say if you have something to say, but make sure to let others talk as well
• Listen to others actively: ask questions, paraphrase, support their point
• Remember that you can only learn by listening others

Good luck and no more ruined conversations!