INTRODUCTION

The art of Conversation is a must-required interpersonal skill nowadays. Be it working in the workplace, in family, or in normal discussions, it is needed so as to maintain and improve healthy social, personal, and work relationships. Besides this, it is essential to deal with conflicts arising at the workplace, and home and to encourage teamwork by discussing new ideas and thoughts with each other.

So let us discuss in detail regarding its need in our lives and how we can inculcate and improve that skill for interpersonal growth and well-being.

NEED OF IMPROVING CONVERSATION SKILLS

Before knowing tips to improve conversation skills, let us first understand the need of improving conversation skills:

1. To improve social, personal, and work relationships

Conversation skills are required for a person to maintain relationships at the workplace, in society, and at a personal level. There are often many situations where you have to share and listen to each other's viewpoints and ideas to come to a conclusion regarding any topic. So having good conversation skills helps in having a fruitful conversation and maintaining healthy relationships.

2. Reduces chances of diversion from the topic

It happens in various situations where while having a discussion, unnecessary and useless details are discussed and there is a diversion of the topic. So having good conversation skills can help reduce the chances of topic diversion. Also, it makes you a mature and humble person while sharing specific and point-to-point ideas and thoughts in a discussion.

3. To avoid conflicts and enhances teamwork

Having good conversation skills increases the chances of more involvement of employees, reduces conflicts, and encourages teamwork. All these factors collectively help in enhancing productivity at the workplace.

4. Essential Interpersonal skill

Good conversational skills are essential interpersonal skill because it helps in personality development. It improves personal growth and makes us friendly, humble, and positive people. This is required along with other interpersonal skills like leadership, emotional intelligence, teamwork, soft skills, and problem-solving abilities.

DIFFERENCE BETWEEN COMMUNICATION AND CONVERSATION

Before moving forward and knowing about the tips for improving “Art of conversation”, let us first understand the difference between “Communication and Conversation”.

The above-mentioned two words Communication and Conversation are often used interchangeably but there is a vast difference between the two of them.

Communication is generally a one-sided exchange of words which doesn’t require or command any response or feedback and is mostly a form of dictating your words to others which others must follow. In other words, it can be considered as one-sided which involves the least or no interaction at all. Listening to other people or understanding their viewpoints is not covered in the communication process.

But Conversation is totally the opposite of communication. Communication means a process in which the first-person exchanges views, ideas, and thoughts with the motive of discussion. It involves two-sided interaction and listening with a view to having feedback and understanding the other person’s viewpoint on the topic being discussed. So Conversation is more of a sort of leadership than dictatorship.

TIPS ON HOW TO IMPROVE YOUR ART OF CONVERSATION

Now let us know about some of the tips to improve your conversation skills:

1. Good selection of topic

Conversation can be fruitful and knowledgeable if it involves a good topic. This is because a good topic increases the chances of having more ideas, and thoughts and can lead to much better discussion. So try to select more trending, useful, knowledgeable topics for discussion.

2. Encourage Interaction

Be it a workplace discussion regarding the introduction of any new policy or any general discussion, interaction must be encouraged. Without interaction, the discussion would become very boring and reduce the chance of having a better conclusion. So it is advised that the speaker must provide chances for the audience to share their views regarding the topic.

3. Involve Listening in the discussion

Listening is another prerequisite to improving conversation skills. You must actively listen to the other person and react proactively to the ideas and thoughts being shared by them. This will help in improving conversation and also enhances knowledge on both sides.

4. Try to be a Curious one

While having a discussion, you must try to be a curious personality. This tip would help you understand other person’s perspectives and encourage another person to share his ideas and thoughts freely without hesitation.

5. Apply a balanced approach in formal conversation

Discussions at the workplace are much more formal than general discussions. So there you must apply a balanced approach where you should allow others to speak but set a limit so that no nuisance is created in a formal discussion. It is the next important tip to improve conversation skills.

6. Try to be specific and to the point while speaking

If you want to share your ideas and thoughts while having a conversation, you must make sure to be at a point and not share useless and unnecessary details regarding the topic being discussed. This is because it would unnecessarily waste time and can even defeat the purpose of discussion.

7. Use an understandable tone and language

The next useful tip to improve conversation skills is the use of language and tone while taking part in a discussion. Here by understandable tone, I want to say that you must use a language in which you are comfortable speaking so that others can understand your viewpoints and ideas.

Secondly, you must use a soft tone and don’t be in a rush while expressing your views and ideas about the topic. Besides this, you must avoid using offensive and wrong words while having a discussion since it can create a nuisance.

8. Think before you speak

Lastly, try to understand the topic of the discussion wisely and think of the views and ideas you want to share, and then speak. It means processing ideas and thoughts in your mind on the said topic before sharing it. This tip would help you to exchange more useful ideas and reduce the chances of being diverted from the topic of discussion.

CONCLUSION

Now concluding my article, I would suggest and recommend you all follow the above-mentioned tips so as to improve your conversation skills and have a healthy and fruitful conversation. Also, these tips would help in improving the growth process and maintaining healthy personal and workplace relationships.  

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