'Waiting To Talk' Is Not The Same As Listening
The American radio guru, Dan O'Day once told me that there were two halves to a conversation.
"The first half is talking, " he said, "and the other half is?"
Well the obvious answer was "listening" but Dan shook his head.
"No. The other half is 'waiting to talk'."
Now, I'm not sure, but I think he was actually making a point about the poor technique of some radio interviewers. That fear of silence, of dead air, sometimes causes people on the radio to act completely different to the way they would behave in real life. Or as badly as they do in real life.
In normal circumstances, when we meet people and start talking to them, we probably spend a reasonable amount of time listening to what they are saying. They might be telling us an interesting story about how they got stuck in the snow or a not-so-interesting story how they had to call the insurance company about their broken gutters.
Sometimes there are pauses, hesitations, repetitions...real conversations are messy, but we don't worry too much about filling every second of the time available. Entire minutes can go past while we try to remember the name of a mutual friend or particular street.
We seldom tell the other person to hurry up with the story because "the clock has beaten us once again".
If truth be told, though, there might come a point in any conversation when you get fed up listening to the other person and you look for an opportunity to pitch in with your own story about the winter weather...or even change the subject completely.
This is the 'waiting to talk' part and we tolerate it.
Yet here's something I discovered during my years of studying psychology.
Most of us think another person is more interesting if they allow us to do most of the talking.
It's true. Often we don't even realise it, but sometimes we might notice that the other person seemed genuinely interested in what we have to say. If they talked at all it was probably to ask follow-up questions about topics we ourselves had raised.
"Was it the guttering on the front of your house or the back? Which company are you insured with? Did you say it was actually attached with plastic brackets?"
Of course the only way to ask meaningful and relevant questions is to actually listen to what the other person is saying. You have to pay attention. You have to stay in the moment.
You can't just ask random questions that you've prepared beforehand. That would be rude and a bit bizarre. Imagine a first date where you went armed with a questionnaire.
Ok, I did that once, but she noticed the clipboard.
Which brings us back to radio and the difference between a good conversation and a bad one...or indeed the difference between a conversation and an interview. In a radio interview situation the object is often about getting as much information as possible within a limited amount of time...and sometimes involving a person who doesn't want to answer the questions you need to ask.
If you want to hear lots of good conversations then I recommend listening to the new Conversation Zone which we're launching this week. It will be available online as a continuous stream or on demand via the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ iPlayer.
You'll hear presenters like Edi Stark, Clare English, Janice Forsyth, Sally Magnusson, Lorraine Kelly, Susan Calman and many more...each have their own style and technique, but all of them know the difference between listening and waiting to talk.
Now...about those gutters...what's that you say? Oh the clock has beaten you?
Pity.
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