Elevated Conversation Model: Interpersonal

Responding is how we engage our Better Listening. When we reflect back what we hear, ask quality questions, or reveal ourselves, the conversation becomes a cooperative, co-creative work.

Listening is not solely about the internal, intrapersonal stage in which we quietly absorb and process content. Half of the equation is the dynamic interaction between conversation partners that enables them to discover more clarity in their narratives and develop deeper connections!

Better Listeners encourage others to elaborate, ask insightful questions that show interest and concern, and support the speaker by creating a safe place to express with as little judgment, criticism, or invalidation as they can possibly muster!

While there are dozens of tools and guides you could possibly use to help you in the Interpersonal Stage, we’ve selected a few that illustrate the most vital points in keeping a conversation full of discovery, love, and curiosity. In the “Interpersonal Stage Summary” you’ll find a list of additional tools.

To be clear: Interpersonal Stage = Responding. This includes “RRV,” “Quality Questions,” and “Revealing.”

There are also a few extra tools that can be helpful:

Two tools for general Responding: “Active Constructive Responding,” and, yep, Silence!

• Active Constructive Responding is a useful tool for conceptualizing how Better Listeners can engage with those they’re listening to.  The work of professor Shelly Gable, Active Constructive Responding is based on how people can respond to positive news from another person.  She divided options into passive, active, constructive and destructive.

Active Constructive Responding keeps the focus on the speaker, encourages elaboration, and shows genuine interest. This is an excellent (albeit simple) formula for engaging with others in a loving manner! We want to avoid dismissing people, not demonstrating concern or interest, and redirecting attention onto ourselves or other negativity.

• Silence CAN BE a powerful response when used appropriately.
  Remember that sometimes responding can look like Silence. We are silent when something needs space for reverence, processing, or feeling. This silence can also create space for people to think through what they want to say more thoroughly and allow them to continue if they choose. If we respond instantly everytime there is a break in the conversation we run the risk of cutting off opportunities for continued sharing. Instead of saying something, respond to the person with your undivided attention, genuine interest, and full presence.

“People may forget what you said — but they will never forget how you made them feel.” — Carl W. Buehner

Quality questions are those that encourage insight and discovery. Talking and being listened to helps us affirm and develop the personal narrative that makes sense of our lives and experiences, so being asked quality questions that enhance this process tends to feel wonderful. 

When was the last time you told someone about something you were experiencing and they asked insightful questions that caused you to rethink how you were approaching the situation? Having the additional perspective of others in our lives gives us a broader vision for considering our experiences. Quality questions do this by honing in on what is most important, pulling out glossed over details, and connecting the dots (like a good editor would!)

What is the make-up of a high-quality question? They are:

• Sincere – Based in genuine curiosity and a loving agenda.
• Insightful – Introduce a new angle of perception that helps illuminate or clarify knowns and unknowns
• Open-Ended – They prompt us to think and cannot be answered yes/no.
• Non-Judgmental – They do not have a ‘right’ answer, do not have a hidden agenda, and aren’t leading us anywhere.

Sincere Questions

Children have an unmatched capacity for asking questions– one study found that four years-olds ask roughly 300 questions a day!

If we stay tethered to our will to understand, support, and connect to someone we will be more likely to end up asking empathic questions that prompt them to go deeper and find more detail.

Examples of How Our Intentions Affect Our Questions

*This is not an exhaustive list of possible intentions. See Cosmetic and Persuasive styles, and our section on Intention. Also, 12 Ways to Cut Off Connection offers habits we have in conversation that often are contradictory to our ideal outcome.
**Translations aren’t always the same. Depending on your intention, you could ask the same question and have a totally different meaning (ie., “Where are you going?” could mean someone wants to genuinely know where you are going, or it could mean “How dare you leave right now!”).  It all comes down to genuine curiosity and your intention.

To stay sincere with your questions, remind yourself of your primary agenda to understand.
Consider if the question you are wanting to ask contributes first and foremost to understanding, or another intention. If another, simply recognize that and take a moment to shift.

Stay curious like a child, and you may surprise yourself by how much you can learn!

Editors help the author:

• Clarify their meaning
• Direct the flow of ideas (as appropriate)
• and sometimes (when the author trusts them) add their own flourishes to enhance a story.

This is a service to the author as it helps them deliver their message in a more effective manner than they could alone. It is a collaborative process; it is a conversation. 

Truly insightful questions encourage us to go deeper into the meatier parts of someone’s message that commonly get glossed over. What are the meatier parts? Feelings, values, and the level of impact of an experience. This goes on to include things like our preferences, dreams, desires, hopes, and stories about who we are and how we came to be this way. These questions demonstrate that we’re paying attention and are interested in the other person’s experience.

How to Make Someone Fascinating, Help them Gain Insight, and Increase your Connection!

Some examples of questions that pull out more information…

Conversation Between a Mother and Son, with Breakdown
“Hey hun how was school?” Open question.
“Fine.” One word, nondescript and unspecific answer
“…Fine, huh? Just another lackluster day or what?” Asks for elaboration.
“Yeah I’m just tired.” Affirmation and small elaboration (kind of a “shrug” answer)
“I’m hearing some boredom or exasperation, is that right?” Reflects back emotions, offers a guess.
“I mean, yeah.”
“What was boring or exasperating today?”Asks for elaboration.
“Everything. The classes lasted forever and I sat alone at lunch again and my walk was so long in the heat and I’m just tired.” Answer lists off several things and ends in the same “shrug” description
“Dang, that sounds like a long day bud. What’s going on at lunch?” Validates, then zeros in on the part of the message that was rushed over but may hold the key to the emotional state: being alone at lunch.

Conversation Between Partners

“How do you feel about having kids?” Open-ended question
“Ah, this again? Really?” Deflective response
I’m sensing some defensiveness. Does that mean you don’t want to talk about it? Reflection and bid for clarity
“No, it’s not that… I’m just worried we’re not going to come to an agreement.” Shares emotion/concern
“What about that scares you?” Insightful question
“Well what if we can’t agree? What does that mean for our relationship? One of us is going to be unhappy!” Elaborates
“Oh, you think this conversation could be a threat to our relationship?” Reframes and checks for clarity
“Yeah, maybe.”
“Mm yeah I’m scared about it, too. I think that’s normal for both of us. And, it is still important to me to address it… “ Validates and reveals

Perhaps asking vulnerable questions of this nature is a bit scary.

We could be worried we’re going to offend someone, be intrusive, or open a conversation pathway that makes us personally uncomfortable.

It’s true that having Elevated Conversation puts us at risk for potential discomfort. Because of this, Better Listening invites us to be courageous and sit with discomfort in order to enable the possibility of deeper connection and understanding.

If you’re interested in having more meaningful conversations, more meaningful questions are a part of the equation.

This means asking about what you’re genuinely curious about and bravely approaching the threshold of vulnerability! Of course, there are various social circumstances in which certain questions are inappropriate, so you’ll have to employ your personal wisdom to determine what risks are reasonable.

Inappropriate Questions? Asking your boss about their sex life at a work event isn’t necessarily a courageous move; it’s likely off kilter. However, noticing that they mention something about not having seen their family all weekend, may serve as a clue that they miss them, feel overwhelmed by work, or are avoiding something. You could leave this comment unaddressed, assuming it is more respectful not to be nosy. However, your boss did put out the breadcrumbs of their own accord. Is it possible they want to talk about it but don’t feel it’s totally appropriate to launch into un-prompted? Asking with genuine curiosity what it’s like not to have seen them invites vulnerability and connection without forcing them into an awkward corner. People can always choose not to answer your questions. Asking a question does not force someone to answer. Consider giving them the responsibility to set their own boundaries, instead of trying to respect imaginary ones you built for them yourself.

Insightful Questions Alleviate Small Talk!

In casual conversation, we sometimes ask questions out of politeness, which is cosmetic. While cosmetic questions may seem to serve certain social situations, they do little to help you authentically connect with and understand someone better.

This isn’t to say small talk doesn’t have a place at all. Like asking your boss personal questions, you need to use your personal wisdom to assess the relationship. Small talk, while often boring, helps us suss out new people and determine if they are safe to develop a relationship with. Some cosmetic conversation is naturally going to occur. However, you’re going to be better able to connect with a new person when you ask questions about what they care about versus what they do.

Will Wise, author of “Ask Powerful Questions,” suggests we generate quality questions by thinking about someone’s “map.” Imagine everyone has a map for their life that illustrates their journey, their possibilities, their identity, the landmarks of their lives, etc. (essentially their ‘stories’).

The map metaphor is incredibly useful for gaining a depth of understanding we don’t commonly know how to aim for. These questions help us get to someone’s values, motivations, and development. You can ask these questions about someone’s map of love or career, or their map of a particular relationship or problem in their life. More examples below.

And a few more things to consider getting clarity on:

• What are they communicating about themselves or their beliefs/values with what they are saying?
  • Ex. ”Some people are just slobs!”
  • What to notice: Maybe they believe it is better to be orderly and they value cleanliness.

• What are they leaving out because they’re too close to the subject?
  • An expert in any subject may leave out details that are obvious to them. You will need to follow closely to find gaps that you need more information on, then ask very specific questions to help them fill in the information.

• Do they ever contradict themselves?
  • Most of us do it without even noticing. If you pick up on these and offer them to people, it gives them insightful fodder for thought.
  • Ex. Someone saying, “People need to set boundaries so they don’t get walked all over,” and later acting resentful and complaining about a friend who should ‘just’ know not to come by without calling first but does so all the time.

Insightful questions encourage us to elaborate and expand on the parts of conversation that matter for connection and empathic understanding: our feelings, values, the impact of our experiences, our hopes, dreams, desires, preferences, and stories. They aim at the why and how of who we are and what we’re experiencing. By asking questions that nudge others to explain what they felt about an experience, what it meant to them, and how it fits into their ‘map,’ we can help them gain clarity, learn about themselves and deepen the relationship.

Open-Ended Questions

Quality questions invite story-like answers that allow a person to express what is valuable to them. That means asking questions that can elicit complex responses. You can do this by avoiding closed-ended questions and instead aiming for open-ended questions.

Try to ask questions that give someone the opportunity to choose their own adventure in terms of how they answer.

Open-ended questions invite people to express themselves on their own terms, allowing us to see them more clearly and potentially connect more deeply. When we ask closed-ended questions, the answers and options are more limited, and thus so are the possibilities for deeper understanding.

Strangers Meet at a Friend’s Party

Non-Judgmental Questions

While we don’t intend to, our questions are often loaded with judgment, and the person we ask these questions of often senses it better than we do.

The tricky bit with utilizing it effectively is that it often is used to imply something that the person should have done. “Should” is a judgment. These questions end up not meaning “why,” but “you should’ve…”

• Why were you late? …could be: “You should’ve been on time.”
• Why did you ask that? …could be: “You shouldn’t ask questions like that.”
• Why couldn’t you change your mind? …could be: “You should’ve just changed your mind.”
• Why did you study ceramics? …could be: “You should’ve chosen something more practical.”

Even if we don’t mean to “should” on someone with our Why questions, they could be construed that way. When people feel judged, a common response is to defend ourselves. Defensiveness in a conversation is a slippery slope to escalation and folks shutting down.

Inquisitional Why

Genuine “Why”

You’ll notice that in the second conversation, there was very little defensiveness because neither party felt judged by the other. This is partially due to lack of inquisition, but also due to tone. *Tone conveys sincerity beyond words. Jack and Jill wanted to truly understand what the other person was experiencing and offer their own experience to increase understanding and connection.

In these two conversations, you can see that the format of the Inquisitional Why was transformed to questions that started with “What,” “I want to understand…” “Can you tell me more about…” etc.

If you’re having trouble finding out which one you’re using, ask yourself,

A Few More Notes on Quality Questions: Check for Omissions and Check for Understanding

• People often omit information- so listen for what wasn’t said!

Questions are so valuable because they help us pull out information from a speaker’s message that may be omitted or obscured. When we communicate, we make assumptions, leave out details for the sake of brevity or lack of awareness regarding what is obvious, or use abstractions that don’t truly get to the meat of what we mean.

When they leave something out:

• Simple – “I was afraid” → afraid of whom / what specifically?
• Comparative – “We need to get better” → Compared to whom or what? On what scale? Where a 1 is ____, and a 10 is _____?
• Lack of Referent – “No One Likes Me” → Who doesn’t like you? or “Strong People could do this” → Who is strong enough to do this?
• Unspecified Verbs – “He Rejected me” → What does ‘rejection’ look like?

When they assume you know what they mean by their word choice without being specific:

• “I wish I had some recognition” →What would it look like to be recognized?
• “I’m in a lot of pain” →What does that feel like? Where do you feel it?
• “I need some help here” →What would helping you entail?
• “You need to get your priorities straight?” →How do you decide? What is important?

When they use absolutes (always, never, no one, everyone, etc):

• No one is nice to me → Who specifically? Also, what does ‘nice’ mean?
• Everyone is mean → Who specifically?
• You’re always so bossy → When, specifically?
• I will never do this! → Never is a long time, is there one situation in which you might do this?

When they speak as if things are either one way or the other:

•  I can’t do this without help → What would that help look like?
•  I have to do my homework →Who is making you? How?
•  I should do this or that →What would happen if you didn’t?

When they obscure cause and effect without specification:

•  You piss me off → What did you see me do or say?
•  I’m sad because you’re late → What about my lateness affects your feelings?

When they ‘read your mind’ or project their thoughts onto you/others:

• You hate me → What suggests that s/he hates you?
• He has no idea what he’s doing → How do you know?
• Everyone is judging me! → How do you know?

Checking for Understanding and Clarity
Don’t forget to make sure you fully comprehended what they meant. It is a shame to walk away from a conversation feeling that you completely understood only to find out later that you assumed incorrectly! Use some of the following questions after someone has shared something to determine if you’re on the same page:

• Could you clarify what you meant by ___?
• You were talking about ___, did I get that right?
• What I’m hearing is ___, does that sound accurate?
• It sounds like ___, is that what you meant?
• Here’s what I got:___. Does that sound like what you wanted me to understand?
• I’m not sure I totally got that.
• Can you elaborate?
• Help me understand a bit better, could you go over that again?
• Would you be open to sharing some more detail?
• I don’t think I’m fully getting your meaning. Here is what I understand, and this is why it confuses me…
• Do you mean ___?

Quality Questions Summary

To Do it: 

• By checking in on your intentions, paying attention, and cultivating genuine curiosity you can form questions that are:
  • Sincere – Based in genuine curiosity and a loving agenda.
  • Insightful – Introduce a new angle of perception that helps illuminate or clarify knowns and unknowns
  • Open-Ended – Prompt story-like answers.
  • Non-Judgmental – They do not have a ‘right’ answer, do not have a hidden ‘should,’ and aren’t leading us anywhere. 

To Help You Do It:

• Listening Interview: A wonderful way to learn about the role of listening in our lives is through interviewing. Interviewing puts us in the frame of mind to try to really understand another person and do our best to get the full picture. Not only that, but this interview is about listening itself, so it’s a two-for-one!
• Conversation Starter Questions List
• StoryCorps Great Questions – A master list of questions to ask generally and by topic to ensure an interesting conversation!

The Interpersonal Stage Summary

To Do it: 

• The Interpersonal Stage is about engaging with our conversation partner by responding to them. There are a few ways to respond that are powered by Better Listening.
• Reflect the emotion back to the person, Reframe their message in terms of the positive things they value or desire, and Validate their emotional experience.
• Ask sincere, insightful, open and non-judgmental questions.
• Reveal what is happening within your thoughts and emotions to support them and clarify their message.

Try our Elevated Conversation Guide to practice!