Editor’s Note: This is a continuation of our core conversation on “Great Connections Lead to Great Ideas.” Yesterday, Jonathan Fields asked us whether invisible conversations are preventing our success, and today, Shama Kabani lists gives 3 types of conversations to seek out.
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Tune in below for Shama’s description of the three types of conversations she loves having, where she finds them, and how they contribute to great connections and great ideas!
Note: If you’re reading this via email or a feed reader, you’ll need to click through to the post to see the video.
More about Shama: Web and TV personality. Bestselling author. International Speaker. Award winning CEO of The Marketing Zen Group – a global digital marketing firm. Shama Kabani is the face of today’s digital world, and represents the best her generation has to offer. She has aptly been dubbed the “master millennial of the universe” and “an online marketing shaman” by FastCompany.com. Her first book, The Zen of Social Media Marketing (BenBella Books) was released in April, 2010 and was an instant hit.
When not working directly with her clients or shooting her show, Shama travels the world speaking on business, entrepreneurship, and technology. On the web, she can be found on Twitter @Shama.
That is a nice way of putting it. I especially like a conversation where at the beginning we differ from opinions, and at the end we both changed our opinion towards a new one, that we didn’t even thought about initially
Shama,
Thanks for your contribution here. It was great of Charlie to feature your work on his blog.
I think great conversations can occur when you are prepared to listen with empathy. You can lend your ear and then probe the other person’s point of view.
Paraphrasing is one way; Socratic questioning is another way. However, the aim is to establish a dialogue, so it is important not to intimidate the other party.
The conversation you are having is sacred and should not deteriorate into name-calling, personal accusations, slanging matches, etc. This happens only too often when two people disagree about an issue or event.
Each person sticks to his/her point of view rigidly without taking the other’s ideas into consideration. “I am my position” prevents a two way flow of communication. The purpose of having a dialogue is not to win or lose but to explore possibilities: problem identification, problem diagnosis, and hopefully arriving at the “best” solution after having considered numerous potential solutions.
Thus, your attitude is important. Dialogue means that you are an explorer and so is the other person. You are there to brainstorm: it should be a win-win partnership. A great conversation is neither a popularity contest nor a winner-takes-it-all sort of game. Rather, a great conversation leaves you with a good feeling: you want more of it in the future.
However, great conversations can only occur when both parties are mature enough to rise above egocentric attitudes, self-absorption and self-centredness. You have to be able to really open yourself up to the views/opinions of the “others.” It is hard to do, which is why great conversations are rare in our society. Cheers.
I like how you use the idea of cross pollination. That’s how Google+ and Twitter works and how I found this. Thanks
I like how you use the idea of cross pollination. That’s how Google+ and Twitter works and how I found this. Thanks
Great post! Good points in it are much appreciated.
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Thank you, Shama! I had to laugh, because watching this I found myself recalling situations where 1) someone I admired (someone who made me nervous!) 2) asked me for help, and in working with them discovered 3) how different our perceptions were — in really wonderful ways. I loved your breakdown of points here!
Good to see Shama “in person,” and get some food for thought. I agree with Craig, the idea of cross-pollination is important and extremely interesting.
Lots of really fascinating ideas in the past decade (century?) have come from the mating of Biology and Business (for example). And I think that in the future, the success is going to go to those who are effective at not only transferring ideas from one domain to another, but in taking complicated ideas and translating them into Average-joe speech.
Cool beans.
Alex