Communication

I have been an Introvert. I was facing issue while communicating with unknown people, which was affecting my career to some extent. After all you can not survive without communicating with anyone in this world.

So, I decided to work on this, I started reading articles, watching videos about effective communication. And trust me Confidence can never be an issue.

So what’s the issue, I am smart, an extensive reader and I can talk on various topics like movies, TV Series, Books or anything. The issue was the Ice-Breaker.

While reading about communication starters, I read that the best way to start communication is by asking “Open Ended Questions”.

So, what is an “Open-Ended Question”?

An open question is a question which can not be answered with one word. A question which makes person think. A question which makes it tough for other person to close the communication. And if you know the person framing an Open-ended questions is a piece of cake.

Here are few examples

If you know that the person likes reading “What kind of books you prefer reading?”

If you don’t know the person at all “My life is boring but you seems to have an interesting one, why don’t you tell me something about it?”

The questions, I mentioned above, can not be answered with one word like Yes, No, May be. And if the person is still answering an open-ended questions in one word, just understand the signal that the person is not interested in talking with you so just beg for pardon and leave.

I had a similar experience, The person I was trying to start communication was a Techie and interested in talking about tech and Artificial Intelligence, So, I just asked him “What do you think about Singularity?”. The person replied, “I don’t know.”. I asked another question and again received a simple response. I realized that, he might not be interested in communication, so I just ask for the permission and left from there. In the evening, I received a phone-call from the same person, he apologized for his rude behavior and we had a long discussion about Artificial Intelligence.

Bonus tip:

My favorite topic is Me, your favorite topic is you. Don’t make communication only “Me Centric”. Allow the other person to talk about them. And be a good listener, while they are talking about their life. Ask questions in between which will make them realize that you are listening and interested in the communication.

If you use above tips in your daily communication, the people around you will be interested in communicating with you.

Thank you for reading…

Live long and Prosper…