8 Killer Tips to Get People to Pay Attention to You During a Conversation!
Have you ever talked to someone and had a vague feeling that this person is not listening to you?
Yesterday I called my mom and our conversation went something like,
“Hi mom! How are you doing?”
“Very good! You?”
“I am doing fine! Yesterday I went to visit my friend, and she was telling me about her husband’s habit of responding to her 5 minutes after she asks him a question.”
“Hmmm… Really?”
“Yes. She says, it is impossible to talk to him, when he comes home he turns on the TV or browses the internet.”
“A-huh…terrible.”
“Do you know when you are trying to have a conversation and the other person pretends to listen?”
“Hmmm… right“
“And then they try to cover it up by repeating the last few words you say back to you…”
“Aha… the last few words you say…”
“ or mumbling something in agreement, like ‘yeah’ or ‘sure’!
“…right… a-huh”
“when their mind is focused on something else, like reading emails or playing computer games.”
“…computer games… terrible…”
“Mom, are you listening to me?”
“… sure, I’m listening!”
“I can hear the sound of “Zuma” in the background!” (Yes, my mom plays “Zuma” and she is actually breaking records at it)
“…What? … Sorry… Ok, I turned it off. So how was your day?”
I do not think that this was the only non-conversation someone was having that evening.
In our age of distraction we are so accustomed to multitasking and dividing our attention between checking our email, chatting on facebook, and responding to our spouse that we do not think it might be strange or offensive to people, who are trying to talk to us.
So what should we do, when we need to get our message across and the other person is not listening to us? How do we get our listener’s attention back?
Here are some “communication tricks” to get people to listen to your every word:
