You Communicate or Converse?

I find myself to be more of a communicator and less of a conversationalist. Although I have spent a considerable period of my career in the field of Marketing, in the initial period of my career I was always impressed by my colleagues who would meet a stranger and start a conversation with ease. Even now I find it difficult to start a conversation with a stranger. As I progressed in the field of marketing, I learned, that Communication Skills and Conversation Skills are two different skills. Both the skills are important and can be developed over a period of time and go hand in hand. I was able to make better sales than my great conversationalist colleagues when I mixed my communications with the conversations while making sales call.

In this article, I will explain the difference between conversation and communication as I understand. which will help you to identify your strengths and develop the other skill to become a great communicator with good conversationalist skills.

According to Merriam Webster Dictionary:

Communication Means:

"a process by which information is exchanged between individuals through a common system of symbols, signs, or behavior"

Conversation Means:

"oral exchange of sentiments, observations, opinions, or ideas"

The essence of the definition of communication is the word "process" whereas the conversation essentially refers to "oral exchange". But the common factor is the exchange. Essentially according to the definition given in the dictionary, the conversation is oral and the communication need not be oral. The conversation is a part of communication but communication is much larger. Communication is more than talking, it aims at transforming words into action.

In order to understand the fined nuances between communication and conversation merely one parameter oral and non-oral is not sufficient. The communication and conversation should be tested on two other parameters "Purpose" and "Process".

Purpose

Communication is always done with the purpose or with a predefined objective. When you are asking about the weather from a distant friend who you intend to visit soon there is definitely a purpose in the conversation, if you are asking about the weather from your distant friend only to have a dialogue your conversation is devoid of any purpose. The information or idea or opinion or observation shared or exchanged with the intent to use it will qualify as communication.

Process

Communication follows a process which for exchange of idea or information or opinion or observation between sender and receiver. Communication loop is not considered to be complete without a proper feedback or action.

A conversation may have one element of the two elements. But we should not undermine the importance of conversations. You may be a good communicator but to be great you need to improve your conversation skills. It is one of the few qualities of the great leaders who are good communicators but even better conversationists. Conversation started with a purpose and follows the process is ideally a great communication.

Conversation is now a more of a dying art where our social lives are now being restricted to Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. We prefer to text or WhatsApp rather than call, shop online rather than shopping offline. We go to parks for a walk with headphones scaring away people to start the conversation. The etiquettes and finesse in the communication is eroding. Conversation is a art where you communicate with your subordinate, customer,

We are gradually forgetting how to converse and I feel it is a serious challenge for the new managers leading the team of Millennials and Gen Z.

I believe the conversations help to building relationships and relationships help you to get business. It is also important that the conversation has to be meaningful and done with the intent to build the trust. In simple words you have to communicate and use conversation as a medium or tool of communication. It is important for the Managers to develop the skill of conversation to make their communication more effective. I shall try to explain this with an example "A salesperson can communicate the product features to the prospective customers by simply reiterating what is written in the promotional material and explain its benefits to prospective customer, whereas the conversational communication will be more like making the prospective customer understand what he is going to miss out if he is not buying the product and prompt him to act." Apple has probably master this art and their customers make a beeline to get their hands on the new product they launch.

As a Manager, you must learn to converse with your team and make sure they understand to need and importance of the role/ task that is expected of them. Reading out the job responsibilities and instructions to be followed will not get their commitment. As a manager you need to converse with them to understand the bigger picture and align organizational goals with their personal and professional goals. A casual conversation can set the right environment to understand the personal needs of the employee and his professional goals. Then you can fine tune your communication to align them with the organizational goals. I always insist while recruiting any employee you must assess if the professional goals can be aligned with the organizational goals, even if the prospective employee is highly talented and skilled but does not believe in the organizational values he will prove to be a misfit.

More and more organizations are now adopting the casual workspaces to encourage conversation communication with the team. They are moving away from traditional hierarchical culture to a more causal workspaces. Facebook is redesigning their office to accommodate their employees in a single long room. The offices are being designed to lure employees into public spaces and maximize chance encounters, where the engineers, salesperson, finance executives and all can mingle together. The organizations are creating environment for conversational communication to encourage innovation and collaboration.