1. Build up your list of words for conversation. They can be through reading, listening or writing.  Pay attention to new and existing words used in different ways, and learn to use them correctly.  This is done every now and then in your everyday life, before actual conversation.  More often than not, people are lost with the right words then the thoughts.  They lack the ability to express their words in a more vivid manner.  They lack the ability to join, break, make similarities or differences, or interlink their sentences (thoughts) together.  And this can be a problem when you want to express or influence your partner in continuing the conversation.
2. Start with common topics such as the weather, family, job, company, neighbourhood that he is living in, financial market, children, education, hobbies, interests and the recently released movie.  You see, it can be anything!  You may find that these topics are boring! However, not only these topics allow you to understand your partner better, it can also spawn off many more topics for your conversation than you have thought off initially!  Talking about personal stuff can also build trust and open up your partner.  In the event that you run out of topic in a conversation, look back on the list here!  We are sure that you still can continue with the conversation with these everyday topics. J
3. Watch out for break points in the conversation or sentences. Use these break points as junctions for you to inject your sentences or express your thoughts.  Not only can you reciprocate with your partner, by agreeing or disagreeing with a simple nod, you get a chance of swaying the direction of the conversation.  How?  These break points are good for you to switch topic smartly and graciously.  You can use, “By the way, I recently…”, “Anyway, have you watch…” which are some examples to sway the conversation to another direction.  However, do find the correct break points.  By injecting at the wrong time, or commonly known as interrupting, it illustrates your impatience, insensitiveness, lack of interest and courtesy.
4. Finally, watch out for keywords that your partner is using.  These keywords are used by your partner for a certain reason.  Keywords can also be used for you to find avenues to spawn another topic or question.  Two things you should do on keywords: (1) acknowledge it and (2) keep track of it.  By acknowledging, you affirm your understanding of your partners concerns.  This is important as humans “want to be heard”.  By keeping tracking of the keyword, you have a new avenue to spawn a new topic to continue with the conversation.  Example of acknowledgment: “I’m reluctant…” can be responded with “I see that you may not be comfortable with…, however, would it be possible to tell me more about your actual concern?  I like to address it with my capabilities…” Example of tracking keywords: “I love watching TV series” may open a possibility of a topic on movies (through swaying) where you can respond in “What about movies? Do you watch movies too?”

These are just some tricks that can be used for you to keep the conversation going and avoid being in the moment of silence leaving everyone feeling a little uneasy. Share with us if you have other tricks too! J

1. Be open about yourself – The first thing that you should ever do when you want people to talk is to be open about yourself.  Being open about yourself allows people to be comfortable with you.  How?  You give them trust by sharing information about yourself first.  In this way, people respond with theirs.  If you do not start somewhere, then it will be difficult to maintain the conversation for long.
2. Avoid talking too much of yourself – Being open is the first step that you should take too build trust in a conversation.  However, avoid the loophole of talking too much of yourself.  This becomes self-centeredness and attempting to put the focal point of discussion around you.  A right touch (amount) of self information that portrait openness is good.  Too much of it will irritate and bored your partner.  They will only view you as being self-indulging and living in your own world.
3. Be genuine curious and interested about your other partner but – Be genuine interested in finding out more about your partner.  By being curious about your partner, you tend to come out with questions that can relate to your partner.  When your partner finds that you are really interested in them (and after building trust between you and him), he will more likely share more information with you.
4. Give the right balance amount of attention to everyone in a conversation –In a group conversation, usually, there will be one or two “alphas” that lead the conversation.  And usually you are one of them as you are taking the lead to get people talking.  Be it any conversation; give rights to everybody for them to voice their opinion.  If they lack the initiative to speak, ask for their opinion or consensus instead.  Example, “Mary, do you agree with the Joe’s comment about banker’s salary?”  In this way, the introvert Mary will not feel left out in the conversation and you assisted to be brought into the conversation.
5. Bring similarities of topic in a conversation – Another tip in group conversation where there are individuals that lack initiative in voicing their opinion; Assist to bridge similar experiences of different individuals together.  Example, “Joe loves rock climbing.  He does that every weekend!  Hey, Mary, you are a rock climber too right?”  In this way, you bring two experiences (topic) together and a common topic both Joe and Mary can follow through.

Use these conversational tips to get people talking!  Are there other tips that you used to get people talking in a conversation or to break the silence?

1. Capitalize your strengths! – By delegating your tasks out.  Those mandate, boring and those that you feel unhappy about, you get to focus on those tasks that are strategic, exciting and you feel a sense of achievement doing it.  Why?  You are actually working on things that capitalize on your strengths!  When you are capitalizing on your strength, you feel good as you learn faster and complete work faster.  This creates a “always winning” feeling!  The more you win, the more you likely to be productive doing it!
2. You feel great! – Let’s be honest with each other, nobody will be happy working on something that they dislike.  When something that you dislike is being delegated out (especially those that can dragged for days), you would not feel bore down thinking that a pending (boring) task is your to-do list.  However, given that you had delegated out the boring tasks (those that you feel boring working at), now you are left with tasks that you like to do, and you will feel great with these tasks!
3. Boosts team communication! – This is the time to communicate with your colleagues.  Find out what they are doing AND what they are doing best. Find out if they like to work on something else or alternative work options instead of what they are currently too.  You be surprised!  They may be your answer to your problems.  Why?  They may want to take on those tasks that you are not keen working on but they are unsure how to approach you.  They may want to have a share of your work to boost their career profile!  Furthermore, through this communication, you get to know your colleagues and they get to know you better too!
4. You are not the right person to do it – Sometimes, you may not be the right authority to perform the assigned task.  You may not be in the right department to handle the task too.  The problem here is you do not know how to say “no” and pass on to someone else.  You blindly accept the task and handle it alone.  That is not the correct way to approach the task.  Find out if you should be doing it in the first place.  Hand it to someone that has the capability to handle it or the right position to handle it.

With all these reasons (and those mentioned in Achieve Personal Productivity Through Delegation!), it is really beneficial to start delegating tasks to your colleagues.  It will be unwise to put a boundary on delegation.  You never know how much benefit you can reap off through delegation. Keep options opened if tasks are assigned to you.  You will be surprise that your colleagues may want to have a share of your work to help them boost their career profile.  You never know too! J

Again, they may not absorb information fully for various reasons such as the unclear presentation objectives and poor speech that may result in less attention span on what you are saying.  Their mind is floating somewhere else.  They do not find the topic interesting.  How do we get them paying attention to us and absorb the relevant information?

1. Present in diagrams and illustrations – Refrain from being wordy in your presentation slides and speech.  It takes more effort to pay attention through the ears then the eyes.  Seldom have we seen people with their eyes shut and putting full attention through the ears.  Studies have also shown that most people absorb information visually instead of the other senses (hear and touch).  With all these reasons, there is no doubt that it will be more effective for your presentation to be in diagrams and illustrations to allow better absorbing of information.
2. Repeat – By repeating the information that you are delivering, you are emphasizing the importance of the information.  Repeating also allow attendees that have missed your initial information delivered to be absorbed again.  They may not have understood it initially too and repeating the information allows them to re-think, and re-focus the information you are saying.  However, do not abuse repeat methods that may end up counter-productive.  It will in fact becoming a form of nagging than repetition of information.
3. Get people to think – A one-way communication from the presenter does not guarantee that your attendees are listening to what you are saying.  That means, that isn’t any guarantee if they absorb and understand the information fully as well.  Design presentations that get people to think.  Spur their thoughts in the presentation.  This is done through relating their life experiences.  The pain they are experiencing.  The benefits that they can reap by doing what you are saying.  When the attendees are engage with information that is in their context, they will be generally more attentive to what you say and absorb information in the presentation.
4. Get people to take action based on the information they had absorbed – To complete the entire presentation and get people to absorb information, you will need them to take action based on the information they had absorbed.  Not only it gets them to think on the absorbed information, they become experience by putting what they have learnt into use.

These are some methods you can use to get people absorb the information you intended them to receive.  There are also other methods available too.  What works for you may not be for somebody else.  What are your techniques in getting people to absorb information?

1. Communicate effectively – Be clear and concise of the things you are communicating.  This way you avoid misalignment and misinterpretation of goals and objectives
2. Be approachable – Allow your customer to approach you.  Your customers want to be involved and be updated of the progress of their deals.  What they do not want is his sales person is unapproachable and not revealing anything after the sales deal is done. J
3. Get them involved – Get your customers involved in the things that you do.  Keep them in the loop.  They want to know what they are getting along the way and not just the end product.
4. Build a seasoned team – Your customer wants to be confident in your team.  To do that, you will need to have a strong experienced team that delivers consistent results.  Their confidence may be slightly shaken if they see your team comprising of young inexperienced staff.
5. Anticipate their needs and wants – Be always ready of their new needs and wants.  Your customers will be delighted to know that you are always looking out in their interest.
6. Ensure good work – Nobody wants to accept a crap piece of work.  Deliver something worthwhile that both you and your customer can agreed that it is good work!
7. Keep your promises – Whatever promises you made to the customer should be honoured.  What customers are looking up in you is your integrity.  Once you broken the promises made over and over again.  They loose confidence in you and will be considering another company to address their needs in future.
8. Exceed expectations – Deliver more than what you had initially promised to your customer.  They will be delighted and will be keener to further any new businesses with you.  Not exceeding expectations will put you like any other competitor in the market.  Eventually, your customer will look for better alternatives in future if you are not able to win their heart!
9. Meet their goals – Last but not least, deliver what they want and meet their goals!

1. Forgetting to follow-up – You forgotten to follow-up with the recipient after he requested for you to follow-up either through the email again or through a phone call. Honestly, you will not look good if you are doing this all the time.  Your recipient will feel that you are always not contactable, irresponsible or not interested in attending to their emails (which usually they feel this way).  Remember to follow-up promptly.  Set a flag to follow-up if you cannot do it on the spot.  At least, it’s now in your to-do-list.
2. Sending to the wrong person – Ensure that you are sending to the right person.  Email programs are often too smart and recognize the wrong similar name in the staff directory.  Review your list of recipients before you send out to avoid confusion in them.
3. Sending mass emails – Ensure that you are not sending email to the entire organisation.  Similar to sending the wrong person, you create confusion to the entire organisation.  You are also become the “careless clown” for sending emails to recipients not intended to receive it.  And hopefully it is nothing sensitive and personal that can put you in a really embarrassing situation.
4. Forgetting the attachment – A common mistake made by most of us.  We completed the content of the email and send it out.  Later to realize that you have forgotten to attaché the document relevant to the email.  Either you follow-up with an additional email apologizing about the blunder and include the attachments or you wait for your recipient to write back asking about the missing attachments.  Therefore, review your emails before you send!
5. Not leaving contact information when you asked your recipients to contact you – Your recipient will be feeling, “DUH!” You forgotten to include your contact information such as phone number for them to get back to you after requesting them to get back to you over the phone.  One small careless mistake illustrates your carelessness in emailing and rushing to send the email out.
6. Clicking “Send” too fast – Another common mistake made by many of us.  Often we rush in our content of the email and attempt to send it in the shortest time we can.  In this way, you may fail to review your email and commit the above mentioned mistakes such as sending to the wrong person and forgetting to attach the relevant documents to the email.  Slow down cow-boy!  Review your email before you move your mouse over to the “Send” button!

1. Improve your vocabulary – The problem most of us face is our limited vocabulary of words.  We do not understand the words used when they are used in the communication.  We may even misinterpret its meaning to something we think it should be.  This is problematic!  When we misinterpret words, we risk the chance of misinterpreting the objective of what the other party wants to achieve!  To avoid such problem, the only way is to improve our vocabulary.  By improving our vocabulary, we know more words; our arsenal of words that can be used in communication also increases.  It becomes easier to communicate as we are flexible in our available of words to use.  We can use different words to convey the same meaning to another party when they have difficulty understanding it.  On another view point, the arsenal of words allows you to better understand messages convey to you too!
2. Ask when in doubt – Do not feel embarrassed to ask what a word means even if you’re in the middle of a conversation.  Obviously, it would be pretty difficult to complete the building the list of words in our arsenal.  Clarify with that person on the meaning of the word.  Loosen up on the egoism.  Break free from fear of being mock at.  You benefit more than you know you can loose more by clarifying the meaning of the words.
3. Speak more – You become more effective by practising what you learn.  This greatly applies to communication.  The more you speak and use the new learned words (and phrases), the more proficient and confident you are in using them.  You will be also more comfortable when someone communicates to you using the same word and phrases.
4. Listen more – Same with taking time to speak more.  You get more confident in the new words.  You learn how the new words are being used in different context.  Through listening more, you become more aware of its proper usage and also wrong usage of the words.

To sum up, it is critical to improve communication skills by increasing our vocabulary.  An improved vocabulary allows you to understand and convey message better to another party.  However, building a complete set of vocabulary may take ages to do so.  Therefore, learn from different available channels as much as you can.  Such as clarifying when you are in doubt in the middle of the conversation, taking chance to speak more and listen more.  All these, will help you beef up your communication skills and avoid any misinterpretation.

1. Generalize your opponent proposition – Or even exaggerate it.  The more general your opponent’s proposition becomes, the more loop holes you can find against it.  On the other end, the more narrow the propositions become, the more easier they can defend.
2. Use different meanings of the words – Be attentive and focus on key words that is vulnerable in his defense.  Play with the words used.  Derive a different meaning of the key word to refute his argument.
3. Ignore your opponent’s proposition – Understand it first before refuting it.  Determine things that is out of the current proposition and attack from there.
4. Do not reveal your conclusion until the end – Mingle with all your propositions and direct your opponent to agree with them.  There is no need to have a definite order.  Till all major agreements of your proposition are on your side, then you reveal the conclusion.
5. Use your opponent’s beliefs to contradict him – If your opponent does not agree with what you proposed, find loop holes in his beliefs (that contradicts to what he proposed) to support your proposition.
6. Confuse the issue by changing words.
7. Give facts – Show the truth of your proposition by asking the opponent questions that they cannot deny.  Cold hard facts does not allow any room for discussion!
8. Drive your opponent mad – Studies have shown that an angered individual loose his judgement for a few seconds.  Therefore, but angering him, his level of judgment or logical calculations may deplete which is advantageous to you.
9. Use your opponent’s answer to reach different conclusions – Make multiple conclusions of your opponent’s answer.  The intend is to confuse of what your opponent meant.
10. Confuse your opponent by asking them to concede the opposite of your propositions.  Then work backwards on the loopholes after he concede the opposite side of your proposition.

It will the best scenario that you are not in an argument with anyone.  If you do, you can use these tips to your advantage as a preemptive measure against angered individuals at work.  Remember, do not start any argument unless really really necessary.  If you do, you might be the angered individual in your office.

1. Develop your voice – Have a voice that is authoritative and firm. When you are pitching at a high voice, it makes you sound whinney. It maybe even perceived as acting “cute”. Your voice gives assurance of what you can deliver and who you are.
2. Slow down – You maybe unaware that you are speaking faster than usual. Are you excited? Are you nervous or unsure? Whatever the case, it may differ in different person. However, the key thing is you must speak at the speed your listener is comfortable with for them to absorb what you are speaking.
3. Animate your voice – Give life to your voice. We know you may sound cool with a monotone. Be dynamic. Your tone should go up and down. Your volume should change on emphasis of important things. People will be drawn by your speech.
4. Don’t mumble – Speak clearly. Don’t mumble. You are not talking to yourself!
5. Use appropriate volume – Use the correct volume for the context. You may want to lower your volume when you are alone, close and want to express concern. You may want to speak louder when you are addressing a large group of people.
6. Pronounce your words correctly – Be sure of what you say. People associate your intelligence with your vocabulary. If you are not sure how to say a word, our advice is do not even use it.
7. Use the right words – Similarly with pronunciation, if you are unsure of the meaning of a word or phrase, don’t use it. It makes you look silly. Learn a new word everyday to build up your vocabulary.
8. Make eye contact – Have eye contact with the person you are talking to. Show your interest that you are and like talking to the person. Just imagine that you are talking to someone that is always looking elsewhere except you.
9. Use gestures – Use every part of your body to talk. Gestures inject more life to the conversation. However, use gestures appropriately and avoid those negative ones. You do not want to be seen scratching your forehead most of the time, right?
10. Don’t send mixed messages – Your volume, message, facial expressions, gesture and tone must be consistent. Unless you have agenda to send mixed messages to the one you are talking to.