We Need to Talk

We need to talk, Celeste Headlee tells us, we need to have conversations that matter.

Do we ever?!

I don't set myself apart from anyone else in our broad American culture; I'm as much at fault as anyone else.

I think we all know that we need to do better. Headlee has done some research about good conversations and she shares some important ideas here. I'm trying to practice these:

Keep it short. The average attention span when a person is engaged in a task, like a conversation, has dropped from three minutes in 2004 to 59.5 seconds in 2014. A conversation isn't a monologue. “Conversation is a game of catch,” Headlee says, “both parties want to play.”

”Think about solutions instead of focusing only on what you don't like.””Be willing to let the other person win.”

Ask open-ended questions.Stay out of the weeks; avoid too much detail and too much unnecessary information.

*Don't respond to stories of loss and struggle with stories of your own experiences. Instead, try to ask questions that encourage the other person to continue.