Making just one person the star

Tom Antion has just put up a great post: Public Speaking: Make 'Em The Stars. I love audience participation too, and frequently I like to create presentations and lectures where it's not "audience participation" but just "participation"--where the boundary between me actively talking and they passively watching is paper-thin, where the "audience" is guided in ways that allow them to come to the ideas themselves, with only a little prompting.

Making the audience the stars of your speech is excellent. Public Speaking: Make 'Em The Stars makes me think about how making the other person the star applies to everyday speech, too. Specifically, I'm interested in how it applies to one-on-one conversation.

The best conversationalist in the room is the one who makes the person he's talking to believe that she's the best conversationalist in the room.

How do you make your conversation partner believe that he or she is the most interesting person in the room--and thus, that he or she feels that you bring out interesting things?

Ask engaged, interesting questions. Try to make them specific and tailored to what you already know. This is good for personal questions to existing acquaintances, because it shows that you're invested in the other person. If your coworker has a kindergarten-aged child, don't just ask about the family--ask how the five-year-old is enjoying school. If you're talking about work things or cultural knowledge, don't be afraid that asking questions will make you seem ignorant. If someone you've just met tells you she's just seen Verdi's Rigoletto and you're not well acquainted with opera--let alone Verdi--ask her to tell you about it. Try to ask specific, but open-ended questions. You can ask her to "play the teacher"--many people enjoy sharing their knowledge with others--by asking her to explain the story to you, or to tell you whether there are well-known arias in it, or by asking what makes Verdi's operas different from others. Or, you could push her to make evaluative statements--always a great way to get a conversation going--by asking whether she found the performance better or less good than other operas performed by the same company, or whether she prefers Verdi to other composers. You could ask questions that get at her personal preferences in other ways, too: for example, does she often see opera, or was this unusual for her?

Show that you're interested. Sometimes we get so involved in a conversation that we forget to signal to the other person that we're interested. Lean forward. Nod. Let your face show expressions, as is appropriate. Interject short encouraging statements: "Go on," "Of course," "And then what happened?" Asking questions helps, too!

Take turns. Although it's great to bring out the good conversationalist in others, make sure you're not just interviewing them! Hold up your end of the conversation, too. Elaborate on your conversation partner's comments. Improv performance rests on the technique of accepting the points established by your scene partners and building on them--a technique nicknamed "Yes, And..." This is a good technique for conversation, too. Acknowledge the point the other person has just made, and build on it. You can take it in a new, branching direction. You can add a piece of information, or refer to a related blog or article or book you just read. Although in improv you have to agree when you're building a scene, in conversation that's not true. You can acknowledge the other person's point and add to it by introducing a contrasting perspective. Disagreement can really spice up a conversation, but like any spice it needs to be used with care.

Reveal yourself slowly. Burlesque was born of striptease, not of disrobe-in-thirty-seconds contests. Don't blurt out everything at once--whether it's your elevator pitch at a networking event or your story of where you grew up that you tell on every first date. Instead of inserting a prepared point into the conversation, slip in bits of information about your pitch or yourself where they seem appropriate. And when you tell people about yourself, or your project, or your company, always leave the story open for them to ask interesting, engaged questions that let you unveil another layer.

All these tips hold true for many conversation situations--both conversation just for fun, and when you're conversing with an express purpose, like when you're networking. Ask engaged, intelligent questions, and you'll come across as a clever and interesting thinker. Respond with encouragement by listening actively, and you'll seem like a nice, collegial person. Hold up your end of the conversation by contributing elaborations and new information on points you discuss--information about topics that interest you, which can include or point at the project you want to promote--and you'll seem like a creative, busy, and independent mind. Slowly and deftly, reveal bits of knowledge about yourself, inserting them naturally into the conversation, and you'll seem complex and charming. I'd want to know that kind of person better, and if I were building a team, I'd want that kind of person around. Often, even the best elevator pitch won't be quite as effective as an intelligent and freewheeling conversation.