First, while I believe there is huge potential with conversational intelligence, I have to confess a lot of cynicism in how it is sold and used today. Sometimes, I tend to think conversational intelligence is an oxymoron.
It doesn’t help that some of the “big names” in the field of conversational intelligence give the magic formula for successful sales conversations is to ask 4 questions and swear. This week, following their sage advice, my script on prospecting calls is: “Hi, my name’s Dave, what’s yours? How the hell are you doing? What did you think of the playoff games this weekend? WTF is Tom Brady thinking about with his retirement? According to their advice, I’ve ticked all the boxes for an intelligent, high impact conversation with this prospect.
But I had a brain fart in thinking about conversational intelligence. What if we used these tools to look at our own conversations within our organizations? What if we started applying these tools to increase the effectiveness of conversations we have with each other. For example the amount of talk/listen time, the number of open ended questions in a coaching conversation. Or how our communications styles impact conversations with people internally. Or how well we listen to and deal with differing points of view, or whether we have clear objectives for each meeting and are using our time well.
We see so much data about ineffective internal meetings, wasted time, mis-communication, internal project failures–mostly driven by poor communication and the inability to align internally. What if we could start doing those things more effectively? We would be more productive, be better aligned and far more effective.
It seems if we start having intelligent conversations, internally, we might be better prepared to have intelligent conversations with our customers.
Just a thought…….
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