How To Start A Conversation
Landscape professionals take the time in the winter months to develop their professional interests, knowledge, and skills by taking continuing education opportunities and networking among their peers. This means, there are A LOT of events happening within the industry and across the province.
This post from Monte Penderson on LinkedIn reminds us of the importance of communication in these face-to-face interactions:
How well do you make small talk? Starting a conversation may seem easy to do and not of much consequence to anything important. However, when you read this, you may want to reconsider the value of doing it.
As part of a 20-year study, Thomas Harell, Professor of Applied Psychology at Stanford University, followed that school’s MBA program's most accomplished graduates to determine what contributed most to their business success.
Interestingly, grade point average was the one item he found to be of least importance and had no bearing on these graduates' success. Couple that finding with the one thing he found most important to the group's success: their "verbal fluency."
Which was the ability to talk and communicate with others.
Harell’s study confirmed that the greater one's ability to communicate and master the language, the faster the individual gets ahead. In learning and considering this information, is it possible that the ability to make "small talk" or "to start a conversation" is perhaps the most important form of communication that we will ever engage in?
Keith Ferrazzi, master networker, connector, entrepreneur, speaker, and author of the book, "Never Eat Alone" (Crown Publishing, 2004, 2014) believes so. He shares that "language is the most direct and effective method for communicating our objectives" and “it's a skill that can be learned, that one need not be blessed from birth with this ability.”
There is strong evidence that the growing demand for more human skills, like simple communication between two people, ultimately drives our success in the workplace.
The top human skills (several lists confirm these traits) that we are all familiar with include:
1. Listening, Listening. Listening
2. Non-Verbal Communication
3. Clarity and Being Concise
4. Friendliness
5. Confidence
6. Empathy
7. Open-Mindedness
8. Showing Respect
9. Giving Feedback
10. Communicating through the Right Medium
All these involve the ability to talk and communicate or influence others to share our objectives. Ferrazzi calls it "small talk" but describes it as a simple goal; to start up a conversation with someone, create a bond, and leave them thinking, "I dig that person and want to talk to them more."
Now you know.
Maybe it's time to work on starting conversations and exercising our "verbal fluency?"
Remember it this way; it's how we get to our objectives.
