{"id":114131,"date":"2020-08-10T10:57:06","date_gmt":"2020-08-10T15:57:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.artofmanliness.com\/?p=114131"},"modified":"2026-09-12T20:02:41","modified_gmt":"2026-09-13T01:02:41","slug":"podcast-634-how-to-design-conversations-that-matter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/beta.artofmanliness.com\/social\/social-skills\/podcast-634-how-to-design-conversations-that-matter\/","title":{"rendered":"Podcast #634: How to Design Conversations That Matter"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>We typically don&#8217;t think much about how we structure a conversation. We just sort of wing it and hope for the best. But my guest today argues that all conversations&nbsp;&#8212; even the small and mundane&nbsp;&#8212; can impact&nbsp;our ability to lead, influence, and connect, and ought to be approached with thoughtfulness and intention.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>His name is <a href=\"https:\/\/theconversationfactory.com\/good-talk\">Daniel Stillman<\/a>, he&#8217;s a consultant, author, and podcaster, and in his book <a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/product\/B087G7498G\/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=390957&amp;creativeASIN=B087G7498G&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;tag=stucosuccess&amp;linkId=FSXA3GZUT5SFDAZ4\"><em>Good Talk: How to Design Conversations That Matter<\/em><\/a>, he draws on his background in design to show how we can use the principles of design thinking to improve the quality of our exchanges. Daniel and I kick off our&nbsp;discussion by unpacking the defaults of conversation&nbsp;people often fall back on. Daniel compares the structure of conversation to an operating system, and we turn to how we can improve this conversational OS, beginning with the way we invite people into a conversation with us, and why we shouldn&#8217;t just ask, &#8220;Can we talk?&#8221; We then get into how we can improve&nbsp;the &#8220;interface&#8221; of our conversations, by recognizing the influence&nbsp;that space and place have on them, and choosing the right environment for a&nbsp;particular&nbsp;dialogue. We end our conversation&nbsp;with the options you have for responding&nbsp;when it&#8217;s your turn to talk and how to deal with the gaffes we all make during conversations, and the feelings of regret that frequently follow.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>We typically don&#8217;t think much about how we structure a conversation. We just sort of wing it and hope for the best. But my guest today argues that all conversations&nbsp;&#8212; even the small and mundane&nbsp;&#8212; can impact&nbsp;our ability to lead, influence, and connect, and ought to be approached with thoughtfulness and intention.&nbsp; His name is [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":28,"featured_media":195046,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[156,42379,42293],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-114131","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-podcast","category-social","category-social-skills"],"featured_image_urls":{"large":"https:\/\/beta.artofmanliness.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/634-538x280.png","medium_large":"https:\/\/beta.artofmanliness.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/634-768x432.png","aom":"https:\/\/beta.artofmanliness.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/634-372x230.png","reactor-320":"https:\/\/beta.artofmanliness.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/634-320x180.png","reactor-640":"https:\/\/beta.artofmanliness.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/634-640x360.png"},"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v28.4 (Yoast SEO v28.4) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>How to Have Better Conversations | Art of Manliness<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"We typically don&#039;t think much about how we structure a conversation. We just sort of wing it and hope for the best. Here&#039;s what to do instead.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.artofmanliness.com\/social\/social-skills\/podcast-634-how-to-design-conversations-that-matter\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Podcast #634: How to Design Conversations That Matter | The Art of Manliness\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"We typically don&#039;t think much about how we structure a conversation. We just sort of wing it and hope for the best. 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