Research suggests that asking questions that show you're listening is a great way to make conversations click.  Since not all questions are equal, here are 3 tips.
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Conversations help us forge and deepen connections.  And they are essential to our well being.  Sometimes, though, we avoid conversations because we fear they may become tedious, awkward, or even confrontational.  

Writing in the Journal of the American Psychological Association, Zara Abrams notes that one of the best ways to make conversations click is to ask questions.  But be conscious of how you do this:

• Avoid answering your own questions: Some people believe that asking a question makes their conversation partner feel included. But not waiting for a reply can actually alienate your listener. 

• Ask follow up questions:  Follow-up questions prove you were paying attention and show your conversation partner that you want to know more.  Speed daters who ask more follow-up questions are more likely to get a second date!  

• A good conversation has a good rhythm: A conversation can be like a dance.  It might speed up or slow down, and there may be pauses—like in a tango.  Effective listening tends to lead to moments of quiet, and that’s linked to higher satisfaction among participants.  When someone responds too quickly to something very thoughtful or personal, or not quickly enough when you were expecting a spirited back-and-forth, they aren’t "dancing" with you in an enjoyable way.

Do you have a go-to conversational style that works for you?  And what do you do to show you're listening?  To join the conversation, click "comments" below.

Learn more about creating a habit around masterful communication with our online learning courses awarded International Gold for Best Hybrid Learning of 2022. 

Neuroscientist Glen Fox has spent his entire adult life studying gratitude. He is convinced that  “grateful people tend to recover faster from trauma and injury, tend to have better and closer personal relationships and may even have improved health overall.”

The study of gratitude is a relatively recent phenomenon, and emerged from the field of positive psychology. Yet the practice of gratitude has consistently been shown to lower stress, reduce pain, boost immunity, and improve blood pressure and heart function. 

To find out, Fox did an experiment using brain-imaging scans to map which circuits in the brain become active when we feel grateful. “We saw that the participants’ ratings of gratitude correlated with activity in a set of brain regions associated with interpersonal bonding and with relief from stress,” he said.

To up your conscious gratitude, Fox suggests keeping a gratitude journal. On a regular basis, write down what you are grateful for, even if those things seem mundane. The positive effect is cumulative so it’s a good idea to make this a habit. He also suggests writing letters of gratitude to those who have helped you along your way. 

Says Fox, “I think that gratitude can be much more like a muscle, like a trained response or a skill that we can develop over time as we’ve learned to recognize abundance and gifts and things that we didn’t previously notice as being important,” he said. “And that itself is its own skill that can be practiced and manifested over time.”

When was the last time you actively expressed gratitude, and how did it make you feel? And what experience have you had when people shared gratitude with you? To join the conversation, click on "comments" below.

Learn more about creating a habit around masterful communication with our online learning courses awarded International Gold for Best Hybrid Learning of 2022.

Gen Z can take criticism, but if you deliver it the wrong way, they might leave to find a workplace that connects with them better.

Gen Z, the generation born between 1997 and 2012, is not composed of the sensitive “snowflakes” some say it is. Writing in The Washington Post, technology reporter Danielle April says, “Your youngest colleagues may be the newest to the workplace, but they have clear expectations about how they would like to receive feedback: It should be timely, collaborative, empathetic and balanced.”

Experts who study the multigenerational workforce say things go awry when managers critique younger workers in ways that unintentionally alienate or discourage them. For example, it is often counterproductive to focus solely on what went wrong, fix their mistakes without a conversation, or deny them a chance to explain. Used to getting information with the speed of a click, a critique without explanation is likely to create self-doubt and engender the kind of burnout that increases turnover.

Gen Zers who spoke to The Washington Post said they view work differently from other generations. They want to be themselves at work, feel that their voice matters, and that their managers are empathetic and will invest in relationships with them.

Gen Z is only going to become a larger part of the workforce — they’re expected to comprise more than 32 percent by 2032, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. And they’re asking employers to respect them.

Have you noticed a difference in the attitudes and preferences of Gen Z workers, and how do you approach them to raise sensitive issues? To join the conversation, click "comments" below.

Learn more about creating a habit around masterful communication with our online learning courses awarded International Gold for Best Hybrid Learning of 2022.