Conversation creates a new kind of network within organizations. Current networks are used for competitive advantage, but conversation is focused on encouraging people to realize their potential.
Interpretation
Conversation fosters connections that help individuals discover and harness their abilities.
The quote by Theodore Zeldin emphasizes the transformative power of conversation within organizations. While existing networks serve to create competitive advantages, the act of conversing encourages individuals to unlock their potential, fostering a culture of growth and collaboration rather than mere competition. This shift from traditional networking to conversational connections can lead to deeper insights and enhanced performance among team members.
In practice
In a team-building workshop, I shared this quote to highlight the importance of communication in collaboration.
Conversation is a meeting of minds with different memories and habits. When minds meet, they don't just exchange facts: they transform them, reshape them, draw different implications from them, engage in new trains of thought. Conversation doesn't just reshuffle the cards: it creates new cards.
We think of speaking as something we do naturally, without any effort. But like playing music, it requires attention and knowledge and practice.
So much of what passes for conversation today is degraded. It's either about one-upmanship, or dreary trivia. Even the cut and thrust of wit and bons mots is a form of bedazzlement designed to stop conversations dead rather than broaden them.
It is in the power of everybody, with a little courage, to hold out a hand to someone different, to listen, to attempt to increase, by even a tiny amount, the quantity of kindness and humanity in the world.
I think one of the most important changes of our time has been our attitude to fear. Every civilisation defends itself by keeping fears out and saying 'we protect you from fear'. But it also produces new fears and throughout history people have changed the kind of fears which have worried them.
However fascinating you may think you are, there is a limit to what you can know about yourself.
In selecting men for office, let principle be your guide. Regard not the particular sect or denomination of the candidate-look to his character.
For me, I've learned that the best thing is to focus on the team you play for and yourself and what you need to do.
No matter how brilliant a man may be, he will never engender confidence in his subordinates and associates if he lacks simple honesty and moral courage.
Poor leaders push us towards the goal. Great leaders guide us through the journey.
You can't manage by memo. You can't stand up there and just send out edicts. I think you just gotta really personalize your relationships.
Regard your soldiers as your children, and they will follow you into the deepest valleys; look upon them as your own beloved sons, and they will stand by you even unto death.
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