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15 Examples of Conversation Skills

John Spacey, updated on September 13, 2024

Conversation skills are a set of social skills for engaging others in conversation. This is a foundational type of social literacy that is developed in early childhood. Conversational skills also involve deep social abilities that are difficult to master at any age.

Definition of Conversational Skills

The ability to engage others in verbal exchanges of meaning and social interaction.

Conversations are building blocks of social interaction and relationships. Conversational abilities allow you to engage others and to make a good impression in a variety of social situations. The following are common examples of conversation skills.

Avoiding Assumptions

Not jumping to conclusions about others. This is a basic element of politeness and has implications for things like cultural competence whereby you don't assume things about people's background. Avoiding assumptions also applies to using plain language as opposed to assuming others will understand some obscure jargon.

Body Language

Physical elements of communication such as eye contact, facial expressions, gestures, personal space, posture and movement. As a conversational skill this includes both communicating with your body language and reading the body language of others. For example, if someone is leaning away a little, perhaps they don't have time to talk.

Changing the Subject

Conversations can veer in unproductive directions or stagnate around a single topic for too long. Changing the subject with smooth transitions that don't feel abrupt, random or impolite is a skill.

Clarifying Misunderstandings

The ability to detect and immediately tackle any misunderstandings that may arise. For example, if you say something in a way that could easily be misunderstood you could correct this with a quick clarification.

Engaging Everyone

Facilitating the conversation to make sure that everyone is engaged and interested. In conversations with multiple people, it is common for the conversation to sway to inside jokes or other topics that exclude someone. This can create negative feelings or be generally awkward and it's a real skill to make sure that everyone feels included.

Listening

Listening and trying to build genuine curiosity towards the conversation. This can include a variety of techniques to show that you're actively listening such as nodding or making affirmative sounds.

Making Introductions

It is customary to make introductions when someone doesn't know someone else and you are the common thread drawing people into conversation. Introductions can be slightly awkward sometimes so making them in a smooth, relaxed and fun way is actually a skill.

Open-Ended Questions

Conversations don't go too far with close-ended questions such as "Do you live in Dallas?" but have more potential with open-ended questions such as "How is Dallas?" As a skill, this involves identifying those questions with potential to open the conversation up and make it interesting.

Personal Magnetism

Personal magnetism refers to the ability to be interesting to the point that people are drawn to your personality such that you tend to take the lead in conversations. This is an elusive talent that can be cultivated by being socially brave and creative while remaining grounded enough to be considerate of others and mindful of their engagement and interest.

Personal Presence

The general impression that people get from you. This can be described in terms of character traits such as individuals who are perceived as eloquent, shy, mysterious, aloof, confident, kind, optimistic, fun, cynical or unaffected.

Self-Disclosure

The process of expressing your personality and sharing personal details about yourself. This also involves not sharing too much or giving people the wrong impression of you. For example, in a professional situation you might express elements of your personality without oversharing about your personal life in order to maintain a polite professional distance.

Showing Interest

Cultivating interest in others and in the conversation itself and demonstrating this interest. This is a personal presence thing where people can generally feel if you're interested or not.

Small Talk

Small talk is the ability to carry a conversation about nothing whereby there isn't much to talk about but you try to make it interesting anyway. These are usually short conversations where you run into someone but have no real topic to discuss. People can get quite good about talking about mundane topics such as the weather or at answering generic questions such as "how was your weekend?"

Staying on Topic

Just as changing the topic is a skill, it is a conversational skill to stay connected to what others are talking about and not go off in your own direction. Building on what others are saying is often more charming than pursuing your own train of thought. If you go off on random tangents you may end up sidelined if people don't follow your conversational transitions.

Turn Taking

Turn taking is a basic skill for children in conversation but is also a surprisingly deep skill whereby you can sense if you are hogging the conversation or push in where others are ranting for too long. Where children may be taught not to interrupt, the deeper skill is to know when interrupting does make sense.

Next read: Social Abilities

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