Building Conversation Skills for a Job Setting
00:00:00.000 | (upbeat music)
00:00:02.580 | - First use case I thought about this,
00:00:08.100 | that an average person might be preparing for an interview
00:00:10.720 | is in a job setting, right?
00:00:12.280 | I'm looking for a job, I'm going in.
00:00:14.000 | I know at some point someone's gonna say,
00:00:15.360 | "All right, what questions do you have for me?"
00:00:17.560 | You know, my initial advice after reading your book was,
00:00:19.880 | well, you should try to get to that point at the end
00:00:22.040 | with never having, you know,
00:00:22.880 | you have such a good conversation
00:00:24.040 | that you don't even leave time for the questions.
00:00:26.520 | How would you advise someone thinking about
00:00:28.800 | that kind of professional setting
00:00:30.080 | where they have time to prepare?
00:00:31.640 | - Okay, let me give you one.
00:00:34.000 | What questions do you have for me?
00:00:36.400 | The natural next step might be to say,
00:00:39.400 | how many hours do we work here, right?
00:00:41.760 | Now you're coming across as a needy person
00:00:43.840 | trying to understand, it makes you,
00:00:46.720 | it's hard for me to say this,
00:00:47.600 | but if you keep asking questions,
00:00:49.200 | you come across as an inferior.
00:00:51.080 | Versus saying, now tell me about the hours at work here.
00:00:54.680 | Talk a little bit about what's expected from us
00:00:57.160 | in our off hours.
00:00:58.560 | Talk a little bit about how we connect
00:01:00.880 | to each other in the company instead of,
00:01:02.640 | so how do we connect to each other?
00:01:04.280 | So what you're doing, and this is one example,
00:01:06.840 | is directing the person.
00:01:09.360 | Directing gives them the confidence that you can lead them,
00:01:14.040 | that you could lead them through the conversation
00:01:16.040 | and also that you can lead at the job.
00:01:18.320 | And so that's a good example of me saying,
00:01:20.160 | shouldn't be a question.
00:01:21.120 | Sometimes you just need to make a statement, take control.
00:01:24.400 | In my book, "Stop Asking Questions,"
00:01:26.200 | I gave the example of how Olivia and my wife and my family
00:01:29.760 | went on these tours of national parks.
00:01:32.040 | And if we would ever have a tour guide
00:01:33.360 | who would walk around and go,
00:01:34.520 | do you wanna turn right or left?
00:01:36.000 | What do you like to see?
00:01:36.880 | Do you like to see this track or that?
00:01:38.600 | And it's too much.
00:01:39.840 | You're the expert.
00:01:41.000 | Say, and now we're gonna turn left
00:01:42.360 | because when we turn left,
00:01:43.440 | you're gonna see what the bears have done here.
00:01:45.440 | And if we turn right after that,
00:01:47.400 | you're gonna see what's happened
00:01:48.560 | because we haven't had enough water here in California.
00:01:50.600 | Boom, now you got somebody who knows you,
00:01:52.440 | who you feel confident that they could lead you.
00:01:54.320 | That's the way you need to be as an interviewer,
00:01:56.080 | as a conversationalist.
00:01:57.320 | And yes, like you said,
00:01:58.400 | somebody is about to get a job and they're being asked,
00:02:00.960 | do you have any questions for me?
00:02:02.400 | You don't have to specifically give a question.
00:02:04.640 | Start directing them.
00:02:06.120 | - So if you're not asking as many questions,
00:02:08.200 | talk about how someone should prepare
00:02:10.400 | for kind of conversations when they have advanced notice
00:02:13.040 | of who they're talking about in the topic.
00:02:15.240 | - The best thing is to go deep.
00:02:17.680 | This is gonna be a little bit woo.
00:02:19.160 | Go deep in your heart and say,
00:02:20.240 | what the hell do I need to get out of this person?
00:02:22.160 | What do I need to get out of this conversation?
00:02:23.960 | Not, what does some imaginary audience member need to know
00:02:27.160 | and I need to get?
00:02:28.520 | We don't need that imaginary audience member anymore.
00:02:30.800 | It's, I have a problem.
00:02:32.960 | What do I want to understand from this person
00:02:36.040 | that I can't get from anywhere else?
00:02:38.320 | Go deep and say, ah, that's the thing that I need.
00:02:41.400 | That's the thing that I need.
00:02:43.240 | And if it's for your audience,
00:02:45.640 | the only way I think to get to your audience
00:02:47.480 | is to have a drink with your audience members
00:02:49.920 | or a meal or dinner with a few of them.
00:02:53.640 | One at a time, ideally.
00:02:54.960 | In small groups, if you can, do one at a time
00:02:57.080 | and as often as you can
00:02:58.840 | and then have them tell you their problems.
00:03:00.720 | Let them find ways to get it out.
00:03:02.840 | Have them tell you their problems
00:03:05.200 | and specifically the ones you can't answer.
00:03:07.680 | Feel that pain of having somebody come to you
00:03:10.240 | as the expert interviewer or as the expert business person,
00:03:13.520 | as the expert whatever.
00:03:15.080 | And they're asking you a question
00:03:16.240 | you don't have the answer.
00:03:17.080 | And then you say, be humble.
00:03:19.680 | I don't know.
00:03:21.000 | I'm gonna do interviews and now I'm gonna find out.
00:03:22.760 | And now when you ask that question of somebody else,
00:03:25.920 | you're gonna have a deep need to get the answer
00:03:29.360 | because you couldn't answer it.
00:03:30.360 | Because somebody you cared about
00:03:31.400 | who you had a meal with or a drink with
00:03:33.320 | asked you a question that you can't answer.
00:03:35.760 | That's where it comes from.
00:03:37.160 | And so the first thing to do is not to do research.
00:03:39.760 | And I believe in doing research and I know you do too.
00:03:41.840 | The first thing to do is not to write out a list of questions
00:03:44.240 | and a lot of interviewers do that.
00:03:45.640 | We don't wanna do that.
00:03:46.840 | The first thing is to say, what do I need?
00:03:50.360 | - I just thought of an idea of what you just said,
00:03:53.480 | which is, let's say I'm using this job interview example,
00:03:56.440 | but start asking, talking to your friend,
00:03:59.160 | talking to your spouse,
00:04:00.000 | talking to your family members about this job you're getting
00:04:02.920 | and see which questions that they have for you
00:04:04.720 | about the company that you can't answer
00:04:06.920 | and you wish you knew as a way to kind of generate ideas
00:04:10.320 | of what could be interesting.