Components of a Conversation

PRACTICE GUIDE – Relating

What is Conversation?

The way we make sense of ourselves and others are through speaking and listening. We owe our existence to language and our identity to conversations. We are our Way of Being which combines language, emotions/moods and body. All three are involved in our conversations.

So What does this mean?

We connect face-to-face and electronically in different mediums to continuously produce our reality, moment-to-moment, in conversations and stories. This makes conversation:

• an action of living
• a way of being
• a medium for connecting
• a coordinator of actions
• a communicator of our thoughts and feelings

Conversations are used to nourish our souls, create life movies from memories and give meaning to our senses.

• We are always listening to interpret what we are hearing and feeling
• We speak using a variety of Linguistic Acts
• We are in moods that are always present as emotional states
• We hold ourselves in postures that embody our moods and attitudes to life, as well as how we physically speak and listen

What’s happening here is that we are observers of what we are observing, a process that is known as “second-order learning”. We can do this by paying attention to our Way of Being – our ontology. We question what is happening in our language, emotions, moods and body to explain how we observe ourselves, others and our world the way we do. This means our Way of Being shapes our conversational behaviour and consequently the results we get from the actions we take and our interactions.

For example, when I discovered I was diabetic it altered my lifestyle.  It changed the conversations I had with myself about food and exercise, and with my wife about diet and injection regimes. The change in eating habits initially made me feel depressed. Eventually, I came around to value the change and found more profound levels of peace and acceptance in adopting a healthier lifestyle. I was effectively producing a new Life Movie for myself and directing those around me.

Now What? 

Consider which life experiences you need to change to generate positive shifts in your Way of Being, and the changes in how you speak to yourself and converse with others.

• In what ways did conversation change to enable or frustrate the shift?
• What other challenges did you face in shifting your Way of Being?
• How did you shift your mood state to change your attitude?
• Did a change in posture enable you to have new conversations?

As well as using conversations to get action (Linguistic Acts) you also use them for making personal assessments (Stories)

Practices

Conversations can be used in many ways to fit different situations and purposes.  When would you use the following types of conversation and for what purpose?  For example, as a coach, I often have conversations which are designed to help my coachee ask questions for them to gain clarity in their own thinking

1. Coordinating actions with others (connecting with possible collaborators) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
2. Making sense and generating meaning (understanding what is going on) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
3. Inventing the future  (creating and exploring possibilities) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
4. Producing opportunities (new ways to take action) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
5. Creating a shared understanding (finding common ground) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
6. Becoming a possibility for others (being a listener) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
7. Improving relationships (to belong, feel appreciated, etc.)  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

References

Coaching to the Human Soul Vol 1 by Alan Sieler.  Newfield Institute 2003
Shifting the Patterns by If Price & Ray Shaw. Management Books 2008
The Innovator’s Way by Peter Denning & Bob Dunham. MIT 2010