Improve Your Communication Skills, 2nd Edition

Four types of conversation 
This simple four-stage model can become more sophisticated. In 
this developed model, you hold four conversations, for: 
• relationship; 
• possibility; 
• opportunity; 
• action. 
These four conversations may form part of a single, larger 
conversation; they may also take place separately, at different 
stages of a process or project. 
A conversation for relationship (‘welcome’) 
You hold a conversation for relationship to create or develop 
the relationship you need to achieve your objective. It is an 
exploration. 
( c) 2011 Kogan Page L imited, All Rights Reserved.

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42 Improve your Communication Skills
Conversations for relationship are tentative and sometimes 
awkward. They are often rushed because they can be 
embarrassing. Think of those tricky conversations you have had 
with strangers at parties: they are good examples of 
conversations for relationship. A managerial conversation for 
relationship should move beyond the ‘What do you do? Where do 
you live?’ questions. You are defining your relationship to each 
other, and to the matter in hand. 
A conversation for possibility (‘acquire’) 
A conversation for possibility continues the exploration: it 
develops first-stage thinking. It asks what you 
might
be looking 
at. 
A conversation for possibility is 
not
about whether to do 
something, or what to do. It seeks to find new ways of looking at 
the problem. 
There are a number of ways of doing this.
• Look at it from a new angle. 
• Ask for different interpretations of what’s happening. 
A conversation for relationship: key 
questions 
Who are we? 
How do we relate to the matter in hand? 
What links us? 
How do we see things? 
What do you see that I can’t see? 
What do I see that you don’t see? 
In what ways do we see things similarly, or differently? 
How can we understand each other? 
Where do we stand? 
Can we stand together?
( c) 2011 Kogan Page L imited, All Rights Reserved.

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