I keep reading that generative AI is only as good as its inputs.

Conversations between real people are just like that too.

If you want to have a good conversation – to continue the AI analogy - you need to put into the conversation the right prompts of the other person to get meaningful and useful outcomes for you both.

It might be that the person you are talking to really needs to have a productive conversation that solves a problem for them and leads to some kind of action. Unless this happens, at the end of the conversation, they will leave dissatisfied. This could be something as simple as swapping days on a rota at work or deciding who will be on a project team.

If you approach the same conversation as an emotional one instead of a productive one, you will be looking to share feelings about things or other people. In our example above, you may linger too long on the frustrations of the rota or the personalities of the project team.

If you instead attempt to have a social conversation, you’ll be focused on how you and the other person relate to each other.

Maybe you’ve been in the same situation with the rota or you believe no one else understands the complexity of the project quite like you two do.

Either way – as highlighted in Charles Duhigg’s Supercommunicators – you will be talking at cross purposes.

All good communication begins by focusing on the other person.

What are they looking to get out of the conversation?

How can you help them achieve this?

What are they actually saying?

Then you will be able to make sure that you are having the same type of conversation and at the same time.

Your inputs to the conversation will be aligned with what the other person needs, you will connect and your conversation will be effective.