Improve Your Conversational Skills With The Right Balance Of Questions And Statements

Improve Your Conversational Skills With The Right Balance Of Questions And Statements

Asking questions is a great way to start an engaging conversation. Ask too many questions, however, and your conversation starts to feel more like an interrogation. To avoid this, author Ramit Sethi suggests the “question, question, statement” method.

Women having a conversation image from Shutterstock

It’s pretty much what it sounds like: for every couple of questions you ask in a conversation, follow up with a statement to show you’re actually engaged in the conversation, too. Here’s how Sethi puts it:

You’re not adding any value to the conversation if you’re just asking questions. A good rule of thumb is to ask two to three questions and then make a statement.

Bad example:
“Where are you from? How long have you been there? Oh, do you like it? What brought you here?”

Good example:
“Where are you from?” “I’m from Michigan.” “Oh, I’ve been to Michigan before. I actually grew up in Phoenix, but I live in Chicago now, pretty close by.” “Oh, really? So how long have you been there?”

Instead of acting like an interrogator, you’ve engaged this other person. You very subtly made a connection.

This may seem like common sense to some, but charismatic conversation doesn’t come easy for all of us. If you get nervous, this is a great rule to keep in mind. For more tips, head to Sethi’s full post below.

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