At a company I worked for, I was part of a team that was physically split up around the country. So, while we worked together and completed tasks as a team, it didn’t have the same kind of camaraderie that can only be fostered in a shared physical space. (On the other hand, it didn’t have the special kind of animosity and passive-aggressive resentment that can also be pressure-cooked into existence by a shared physical space, but that’s for another post.) To help bond the team, my manager arranged travel to get us in one place and have dinner. We met, and it was pleasant, but before entrees were served, my manager asked us all to share something about our lives that none of our teammates knew yet. After listening to everyone’s stories and telling my own, I understood why the maxim “be interesting and be interested” makes its way into so many motivational speeches.
Be Interesting
Being interesting does not come naturally to most people. In the age of the internet in every home and every pocket, it’s getting harder to share an experience that truly piques the curiosity of listeners. As such, being interesting takes practice – not unlike stand-up comedy. You have to test your material on different audiences, gauge responses, adjust, refine, and hone until you kill every time.
There are very few people who can kill on-the-spot with unrehearsed material. This is why Billy Crystal hosted the Academy Awards for so many years – it’s supremely difficult to be bullet proof in front of a live audience so consistently. For the rest of us, we need to prepare a few killer anecdotes just in case we’re forced to share in either a group or one-on-one setting. Those anecdotes should be tailored to the audience, factoring in size, relationships, age, and general tastes.
For my part, I’ve got a killer story that takes roughly 20 minutes to tell depending on how much crowd control I have to do, like answering questions, quelling heckles, and parking listener’s stories that they’re reminded to tell by my story. I’ll usually ask to go last because people tend to get intimidated after hearing my epic tale or they just want to explore more of the context of my story, which derails the purpose of the ice breaker. With that said, I always try to deliver it as if it’s the first time, and I think my enthusiasm really helps to augment the experience.
What makes for an interesting story? Really, any topic can be interesting as long it can be tied to a broader observation of the human condition and the storyteller is invested in the telling. Of course, I recommend choosing stories that are readily relatable instead of topics around something like Applied Physics. On the other hand, you never know if you’re going to be speaking to a group of engineers at a bar. So, boning up on Applied Physics might be clutch. Whatever your stories are, just make sure that they have meaning for both you and the listener. They may forget the details of your story, but they’ll remember how your story made them feel. And that makes you interesting.
Finally, it’s important to practice telling stories well, because when you tell a story poorly, that signals to the listener that you haven’t taken the time to ruminate over the event and distill it down to the important parts, which people normally do when events or topics mean something to them. And if it doesn’t mean something to you, then it will mean less to the listener.
Be Interested
With so many poor storytellers around, it can be more difficult to be interested than it is to be interesting. As a good listener to a bad storyteller, it is exhausting to practice active listening, nodding, uh huh-ing, and trying to help the speaker find the momentum and arc of their story. But, if you want people to talk to you, then these listening skills are the price of admission.
People in customer-facing positions will tell you that one of their coping mechanisms is to find something about the customer that they can like. I’ve heard that some sex workers also employ this tactic. If you can’t like the customer even a little bit, then the job is going to become intolerable very quickly. I think about that when I listen to a poorly told story. Even if the story is unrelatable, meaningless, or seemingly pointless, I try to find that one nugget of value to hang on to so that I can be interested.
Workplace Application
Soft skills are the lubrication between employees that make working with each other easier and more effective. By that, I mean that your work life will be more enjoyable if people like working with you, especially your managers and associates in other departments with whom you may not interface much. Being an effective communicator and a trusted listener are indispensable skills that make you valuable to your coworkers. People will involve you in interoffice politics, managers will be more likely to mentor you, and you’ll just have an easier time slipping into positions that can benefit you.
I know I’ve benefitted.