1: David Brooks asks this question in his book How to Know a Person: The Art of Seeing Others Deeply and Being Deeply Seen.
His answer: “Not by a long shot.”
David shares the story of a call with a government official “who was lecturing me about something or other.”
Suddenly, the call dropped.
“I expected he’d call me right back,” David writes. “Five minutes passed. Seven. Finally, I called his office. His assistant said he couldn’t talk because he was on the phone.”
Awkward.
“You don’t understand,” he told her. “He’s on the phone with me! He doesn’t realize that our call dropped ten minutes ago. He’s just blathering on!”
David’s insight: “Maybe I bring this out in people, but I often find myself on the receiving end of what the journalist Calvin Trillin calls bore bombs—people who think conversation is them giving you a lecture.”
2: Being a mediocre conversationalist is relatively simple. Being a good conversationalist is much more difficult.
“As I’ve tried to understand how to become a better conversationalist,” David notes, “I’ve found that I’ve had to overcome weird ideas about what a good conversationalist is like.
“A lot of people think a good conversationalist is someone who can tell funny stories. That’s a raconteur, but it’s not a conversationalist.
“A lot of people think a good conversationalist is someone who can offer piercing insights on a range of topics. That’s a lecturer, but not a conversationalist.”
What, then, makes someone a good conversationalist?
“Leading people on a mutual expedition toward understanding,” he writes.
To do this well, we must learn how to ask good questions and listen well.
“If a person is a point of view,” David notes, “then to know them well we have to ask them how they see things. And it doesn’t work to try to imagine what’s going on in their head. We have to ask them. We have to have a conversation.”
A good conversation is not about people talking at each other. Actually, that’s a bad conversation.
“A good conversation is an act of joint exploration,” David observes. “Somebody floats a half-formed idea. Somebody else seizes on the nub of the idea, plays with it, offers her own perspective based on her own memories, and floats it back so the other person can respond.
“A good conversation sparks you to have thoughts you never had before. A good conversation starts in one place and ends up in another.”
3: Former British Arthur Balfour was described as “the best talker I have ever known,” David Brooks quotes Arthur’s friend John Buchan.
Arthur’s specific skill was not about delivering brilliant monologues. Instead, he created “a communal effort which quickened and elevated the whole discussion and brought out the best in other people,” John notes.
He would,” John writes, “take the hesitating remark of a shy man and discover in it unexpected possibilities, would probe it and expand it until its author felt he had really made some contribution to human wisdom. . .
“I remember with what admiration I watched him feel his way with guests, seize on some chance word and make it the pivot of speculations until the speaker was not only encouraged to give his best, but that best was infinitely enlarged by his host’s contribution.”
How did Arthur make his guests feel? They “would leave walking on air,” John remembers.
That’s what it means to be a good conversationalist.
More tomorrow!
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Reflection: What actions could I take to become a better conversationalist?
Action: Experiment with one of David’s ideas. Today!
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