Several weeks ago, two board members from the Pre-Law Association at IU came to my office and asked if I could prepare a workshop for the group in late October. I generally say yes to these kinds of things, and I had done one last year for the students about building and maintaining personal networks. Yea, I know that sounds boring, but I deliver it with a great deal of charisma.
This year though, they had a real challenge for me. They wanted me to help them prepare for the inevitable and uncomfortable conversations they were predicting this Thanksgiving. Yes, they know. These are juniors and seniors in college, which means they were primarily juniors and seniors in high school four years ago. Most of them weren’t old enough to vote in 2020, but they remember Thanksgiving that year.
I don’t talk politics with my students. I teach speech, writing and advocacy. Politics is not part of the curriculum of any of my classes and it wouldn’t endear me with students who agree with my viewpoint any way. Further, I wouldn’t want to lose credibility with the students who disagree with my perspective, because contrary to popular belief, I want to teach them advanced communication skills just as much.
That clarification intensifies the request for me. What they needed was help having difficult conversations. Most do. But in my academic work, I am concerned that we aren’t connecting enough at all. This concern comes from my belief that there is no better way to come to know a person than by having a real conversation with them.
Zara Abrams wrote about the research being done in the arena for the American Psychological Association last year. The opening of her article says it well: “Conversations hold immense power. They help us form new connections and deepen existing ones.” That may not inspire a loud, “Amen!” from you, but it does from me.
And being a “loud” listener is one of the keys to a better conversation. Yes, I mean throwing out the occasional “amen” or “preach” to let your conversation partner know you’re listening. But a simple and thoughtful “hmm,” or an encouraging “mm-hmm,” can be just as productive. Those gestures send valuable messages to your talking partner.
The journey
Listening, and showing that you are listening, is the key. And while being a loud listener is helpful, asking questions is gold. Nothing leads to conversational connections better than asking questions.
The problem with questions is that all questions aren’t created equally.
In our workshop this weekend, I asked attendees to prepare three questions they would ask a stranger in the room. Only three. Then I asked them to spend a moment to make sure the questions were in the best, most productive order. The order matters because the answer to the first question could lead the conversation away from the second and third.
The exercise was fascinating, mostly because it helped us all think more deeply about the questions that would help us learn the stranger better. But importantly, it led the discussion toward how better questions will help us learn more about the people at the Thanksgiving table, those we think we already know.
The truth is we can always know a person more deeply, even those we wrongly think we know entirely. I blathered on for ninety minutes, but this ten minute exercise was the point.
On Friday night, my wife and I went to see Mike Birbiglia, who was performing at Butler University. Most think of him as a comedian, but I believe him to be the best stage storyteller alive today. His “Please Stop the Ride” performance reaffirmed this thought for me. It’s a story about his challenge of being a parent of his nine-year-old daughter and dealing with a dying father. His father was a man who was difficult to know, an incredibly common dad description.
Birbiglia’s dad had suffered a stroke, and the slow recovery had caused significant short term memory loss. However, his long term memory was still good. The two men reminisced about war stories and the return home that he and other family members had experienced decades ago.
The stories were both remarkable and new to the 46-year-old Birbiglia. And then he said this: “I wondered why he had never told me about any of this stuff before…and then I wondered why I had never asked him.”
The students in the workshop asked me what my questions would have been if I had been in the exercise. “What brought you here today?” was my only one. Learning a person’s journey is everything to me.
And in any difficult Thanksgiving conversation, if learning that journey is the point, understanding each other is possible.