Take the time to prepare, even for one-on-one conversations
If what you are going to talk about is important, prepare ahead of time.
This suggestion is one you’ve heard and most likely take seriously for formal presentations given with slides. For most of us, the prospect of speaking to a larger audience in a formal setting is disturbing enough that we don’t need too much encouragement to plan it out ahead of time!
Preparation is just as important for crucial one-on-one interactions
What can be surprising, however, is how poorly important one-on-one or small group conversations can go without a little preparation ahead of time.
If your conversation is important, it is a safe bet that there is controversy involved. You feel you know what the best approach is to outfitting the new wet labs in the research center, but your boss has all but decided to go another way. There are at least two points of view that have to be reconciled, and you are going to have to sell yours.
You have to be clear, focused, and on message. Hemming and hawing, fumbling for the right words, losing the thread of your point, or missing a key aspect of your argument will all torpedo your chances of communicating your message.
Even if you get through your primary points successfully, but cannot field the first simple question you get asked, you’ll still sink your cause.
Resources to help you prepare
There are lots of great techniques and resources for reasoning out lines of conversation and anticipating questions and alternate points of view, some even in the form of conversation scripts.
One of my favorite techniques for exploring all angles of thorny issues and capturing my ideas for later organization is mind mapping (read up on it at the Wikipedia).
A book that I can recommend is Lifescripts by Pollan and Levine, which you can still find at Amazon along with updated editions for lots of very specific situations.
Whatever technique you choose to help organize your preparation, here are a few tips on getting the most out of the effort you’ll be putting in.
1. Organize around key points.
Organize your message around a few key points that you can cover quickly in review at the wrap-up. Doing this provides your listeners with a predigested take-home message that they don’t have to process themselves.
2. Study other points of view.
You don’t necessarily need to directly address these in your message, but you can structure your conversation or presentation to diffuse or address these points of view.
3. Anticipate questions and plan your answers.
If you had a proposal funded last year but the project got canceled because the research didn’t look promising halfway through, be prepared to answer questions about how you have learned from your previous failure.
Likewise, if you are discussing an employee’s poor performance on a key project, be prepared to answer the question “How can I do better?” Not being prepared to answer these questions swiftly and confidently will seriously degrade the chances of your message being received, at least for the questioner.
4. Avoid winging it when you don’t know an answer.
Everyone gets a question once in a while that they just flat don’t know the answer to. In this situation the safest thing to say is “I don’t know. I will find out and get back to you.”
Practice saying this ahead of time, and get it into your head that you don’t know everything and that it’s OK not to know everything; this phrase can be very difficult to squeeze out when you’re in the hot seat. Just make sure you do follow up.
