Making Conversation: Seven Essential Elements of Meaningful Communication

A former Senior Partner and Global Managing Director at the legendary design firm IDEO shows how to design conversations and meetings that are creative and impactful.

Conversations are one of the most fundamental means of communicating we have as humans. At their best, conversations are unconstrained, authentic and open―two or more people sharing thoughts and ideas in a way that bridges our individual experiences, achieves a common goal. At their worst, they foster misunderstanding, frustration and obscure our real intentions.

How often do you walk away from a conversation feeling really heard? That it moved the people in it forward in some important way? You’re not alone. In his practice as a designer, Fred Dust began to approach conversations differently. After years of trying to broker communication between colleagues and clients, he came to believe there had to a way to design the art of conversation itself with intention and purpose, but still artful and playful. Making Conversation codifies what he learned and outlines the seven elements essential to successful exchanges: Commitment, Creative Listening, Clarity, Context, Constraints, Change, and Create. Taken together, these seven elements form a set of resources anyone can use to be more deliberate and purposeful in making conversations work.

The Seven Cs provide a complete leadership framework for transforming every interaction:

• Creative Listening: Move beyond simple ‘active listening’ to discover what people are really saying with pioneering techniques from the author’s work at IDEO.
• Meeting Design: Learn to purposefully shape the context, constraints, and clarity of any meeting to ensure it is productive, creative, and impactful.
• Constructive Dialogue: Turn potential conflict into creation with frameworks that foster understanding and build toward a common goal, even when the stakes are high.
• Team Collaboration: Discover how to build commitment and trust within any group, turning a collection of individuals into a powerful, creative collective.

Fred Dust is a former senior partner and global managing director at the international design firm IDEO. A leading voice and practitioner of human-centered design and networked innovation, he helps organizations in media, finance, retail, and health confront disruption stemming from shifts in consumer behavior, social trends, economic pressures, and new technology. Prior to IDEO, Dust trained as an architect and spent eight years working with independent artists and major art organizations. He chairs the board of Parsons School of Design and sits on the boards of the New School, NPR, and the Sundance Institute. He lives in New York City.