Small Talk: The Best Way To Improve Your Conversation Skills

Ensuring that you are an effective communicator is one of the most important skills you can develop if you want to excel in both your personal and professional lives.

It's easy to find articles about body language, active listening and maintaining eye contact for example, and honing just these three things alone would indeed help you become a great conversationalist.  

There really are loads of different blog posts out there, offering communication tips across a wide range of interests and social circles. Seriously there are swathes of articles and you'll find an abundance of ideas to develop your ability to communicate. Look out for titles like:

- 10 tips to improve your communication skills in the workplace. 

- How to maintain good eye contact

- Ideas for improving your non-verbal communication.

- How to really understand what a speaker is saying

- 8 tips for improving persuasive communication

- Why asking questions has such an important role in communication. 

- The hidden power of using verbal cues

- Speaking in front of an audience - captivate one, two or more people, all the way up to a hundred or even a thousand!

 I'm sure that each and every blog post like these would be of benefit but I'm going to share one single tip that will make a dramatic difference on it's own.

Effective Communication Skills

As I say there are hundreds and hundreds of different strategies for you to improve your communication skills and all of these tips can help but properly gaining these skills takes time. And because we're all short on time I'm going to give you a shortcut because there's one tip that I think is massively undervalued and it's one that I very rarely see mentioned.

It's one of the very best conversational skills you can employ. I've seen it called a few different names but I call it 'accepting the pass'. It's absolutely brilliant when you want to maintain a positive attitude and keep the other person on board in a conversation. 

Let me give you an example of it in action from a pair of Hollywood action heroes.

Going Extinct: Time To Interrupt The Franchise

Like most people these days we’ve got a bunch of streaming services to watch TV. At various points we’ve enjoyed Prime, Netflix, Disney and Apple. 

We dip in and out of them, cancelling when they’re not being used and re-subscribing when a new film lands or decent series starts up.

At the moment we’ve got NOW TV Movies which is currently promoting the Jurassic Park series of films. The big new blockbuster is Jurassic World Dominion which, in my humble opinion, is not the franchise’s finest outing. 

I’m surprised to realise that it’s thirty years since the first movie came out. Seeing dinosaurs moving en masse in the original Jurassic Park was a proper film ‘moment’. It reminded me of being on safari in Tanzania just the year before, watching the same slow movements of elephants and giraffes. It felt that real. 

Jurassic World: Dominion by contrast is a paint by numbers flick. It’s like a Jurassic Park greatest hits with as many Dino elements crammed in as possible, including both sets of stars from each of the ‘Park’ and ‘World’ films.

That could have been fun but there are so many lead characters it feels like they’re just taking turns to deliver lines, and pull exaggerated facial expressions. 

It’s a dreadful film really. It’s got velociraptors in a high speed motorbike chase speeding through the narrow streets of Malta, with the terrible lizards skidding on the cobbles like they’re in a Tom and Jerry episode. There was actually too much action to keep me interested and engaged. All the whizzes and bangs were a real turn off. The main stars always escape death and because no one's in real jeopardy it's hard to care.

I'm sure others will have their own thoughts and opinions about it but for me it was one of those films that when it ended I felt ashamed with myself for sticking all the way through.

Conversation Skills

What was a lot more fun was a short promotional piece compiling the Jurassic franchise's most iconic scenes.

I really did enjoy watching Sam Neill and Laura Dern reminiscing about the  original 1993 blockbuster. And hearing them gently mocking Jeff Goldblum’s open shirted attempt to ensure his bare chest got to play a significant role and bagged as much screen time as possible was very funny. 

Chris Pratt and Bryce Dallas Howard, the stars of the newer films, referenced an exhilarating scene from the second picture in the World series, where Chris Pratt’s character Owen Grady is in big trouble. 

He’s sprinting headlong down the steep side of an exploding volcano, trying to outrun the eruption, while also dealing with the combined peril of being crushed by huge boulders, scalded by spewing lava and stomped or chomped by fleeing dinosaurs. Oh, and avoiding dropping off the massive cliff edge at the bottom of the slope. 

Chris Pratt self deprecatingly describes his own action bravado and heroic downhill running speed. With a sardonic nod to camera he claims he was running so fast they clocked him at “sixty five miles per hour.”

Bryce Dallas Howard interjects, joining in with the fun, and asks “Wasn’t it seventy two?”

Pratt looks thoughtful. “Ah, yeah,” he agrees, nodding sagely. “It might have been seventy two.”

Building Small Talk

It’s a fun moment (more fun than the latest film) with the two actors willingly laughing at and puncturing Pratt’s action hero image. 

It also introduces for us a really useful technique that can be used in a number of ways to help you become more agreeable, more well liked and a better communicator. This same simple technique helps you to become more open to new ideas, accepting of new opportunities and a better team player.

I’ve been using it and teaching it for years, calling it ‘Accept The Pass’ but I learned recently it’s actually a proper thing and it’s called the ‘Yes, And’ rule.

It turns out it comes from the world of improvisational comedy where you accept and run with whatever your conversation partner is saying. 

Whatever they say you must follow up with agreement by saying “Yes, and . . .”

Those two little words are the key phrase in improving conversation skills and keeping the conversation partnership engaged.

Chris Pratt and Bryce Dallas Howard obey this rule in that little exchange I described. You don’t need to literally use the exact words “Yes, and” and they don’t, but look at how they employ the rule.  

Chris Pratt’s joke about running at 65 miles per hour is obviously an untruth but Howard doesn’t call him out on it. She doesn’t say “Oh come on that’s ridiculous, it was never that fast” or “Really? Is that true?” either of which would have spoiled the joke. 

First of all she accepts it, agrees with it and then builds on it, keeping Pratt engaged in the conversation, expanding the knowingness and further exaggerating the joke. 

Nonverbal Communication

The two of them seem to get on well and have good rapport, a sure sign of effective communication. Their body language is open and welcoming to each other and appears genuine and natural. I mean they’re actors so maybe they’re just pretending to like each other but it seemed that way to me, because of their ability to communicate effectively and openly. 

If they didn’t get on, however, then conceivably Pratt could have seen her "seventy two" miles per hour line as stealing his joke and disagreed with her. But no, he decides to consider it a cue, and after a comedy pause, uses the rule again, agrees with her, validates the comment and keeps the conversation going. 

That’s it. That’s the rule in action. They both accept the pass and keep the play moving.

Eye Contact

When it comes to conversation skills accepting the pass and running with it, saying “Yes, and”, will take you a long way.

You’ll see it in action in lots of places but mainly comedy where it is vital to keep the flow going.

If you’ve ever watched a panel show you’ll have seen it in action. Panelists won’t ever refuse the line that’s just gone by.

What they do instead is establish eye contact, nod their agreement, pick up the line or theme and run with it. They build on what's just been said, using the concept of “Yes, and . . .”

Be Actively Approachable

In her autobiography comedy goddess Tina Fey explains

The first rule of improvisation is AGREE. Always agree and SAY YES. When you’re improvising, this means you are required to agree with whatever your partner has created. 

So if we’re improvising and I say, "Freeze, I have a gun," and you say, "That’s not a gun. It’s your finger. You’re pointing your finger at me," our improvised scene has ground to a halt. 

But if I say, "Freeze, I have a gun!" and you say, "The gun I gave you for Christmas! You bastard!" then we have started a scene because we have AGREED that my finger is in fact a Christmas gun.

Start with a yes, build from there and guide the conversation flow.

Practice Active Listening Skills

It works really well in the real world in so many ways because automatically agreeing with someone validates them. Listen carefully and then agree. (As well as agreeing if you're looking to improve your communication skills active listening is a crucial step to master.)

Every conversation con be improved if you show the other person that what they're saying is important. You’re showing you’re a good listener and that the other person’s opinion has value. People will like you for that!

Accepting the pass gives you an opportunity to find out something new. You’ve agreed with someone else’s thought and now you’re going to have to be creative to make it go further. If you’re doing this as part of a team then this is good because you’re building something together. 

The opposite of this is obviously saying “No.” I’m pretty solution focused and so I find people who do this, especially as an automatic reflex, incredibly draining. Always blocking ideas and opportunities and draining the life out of possibilities. They end up in my mental ‘to be avoided’ box very quickly.

It doesn’t always work but I find as a rule saying “Yes” first is a great start. Don't even think about it, just agree and say yes. Especially when you don’t yet know how the ‘yes’ can happen. Ninety nine times out of a hundred, there’s always a way to make it work. Especially if you’re willing to search for the solution.

Improve Your Conversation Skills

For it to work you need to make an effort to try to understand what's being said and perhaps ask open-ended questions to encourage the other person. You steer the conversation onwards a new destination. You give the other person an opportunity to keep talking and leave the conversation running, ignoring any misunderstanding and avoiding potential dead ends.

Often saying “Yes” on its own isn’t enough. It has to be “Yes, And.” The extra word is especially important because it allows you to let the other person have their last sentence be validated.  It means you are now going to say something to firm up and build on your immediate "Yes."

Some people offer up a “Yes, But.” Well, really this is just a disguised “No” and it’s always followed up with negativity, which is a barrier to effective communication. And it really is usually just negativity rather than a useful and considered “Yes, but have you forgotten there’s a crocodile in the river?”

Accepting the pass or the “Yes, And” rule is a really simple idea that can enhance social situations, but it can take a long time to adopt, especially if your current default model, however is to do the opposite.

This is one of the best strategies to improve your verbal communication prowess. It will help you to become more comfortable, be a better conversationalist. You'll have more enjoyable conversations! 

A Yes Can Go A Long Way

I’m sure you know certain people whose automatic response is to say no. I'm sure that they're not purposefully working on bad communication it's just that they have an habitual reflex that means their initial action is to turn something down or reject it. 

Sometimes they'll do it by overtly shutting down a conversation by replying negatively and other times they'll refuse the pass with negative nonverbal cues, perhaps displaying crossed arms, avoiding open body language or refusing to make eye contact.

They might consider whether it’s a good idea or not at a later point, but the moment may have already passed by then. 

Tips For Improving

Mastering effective communication skills takes practice so as a fun exercise I want you to listen out for your own response to other people’s set up lines. Whether they’re jokes, ideas or opinions, try to determine what your standard response is and how it contributes to improving your conversational skills.

If you want to improve your communication habits and develop good conversation skills then first understanding your own communication is key. Become mindful of your tone when you're talking and remind yourself that listening is as important as speaking, if not more so and then of course really listen to what the person is saying.

Following tips like this is the secret to becoming a better communicator and that's why that list of articles I mentioned at the start is always going to help you develop. Choose a tip to embrace and practice. And if it’s not already “Yes, And” then have fun putting that rule into action and enjoying better conversations.