Page 48 - Effective Communication Skills by Dalton Kehoe

Talking to Connect and Build Relationships
Lecture 13

In an effort to share my knowledge of communication more effectively,
I developed a pragmatic model of human communication that describes
three general modes of talk. My goal is to get us to notice which mode
we’re in and whether that style of talk is appropriate for the context and
likely to be effective. If not, I believe we can learn to consciously choose
another, more appropriate mode. This lecture focuses on connect talk.

y model begins with a fundamental assumption that the ¿ rst goal
of all interpersonal communication is to make connections with
Mothers. In overcoming our basic uncertainty about who we are
and how the world around us works, we are driven to communicate to build
relationships with others and then to inÀuence them to get what we want.

The ¿rst two modes in my model of talk—connect and control talk—do just

that. The third mode, dialogue talk, is about maintaining connection in the
Lecture 13: Talking to Connect and Build Relationships
face of differences and disagreement. We are going to review the control and

dialogue modes in the next few lectures, but ¿rst let’s start with the mode
that’s at the heart of everything: connect talk.
There are two types of connect talk for building momentary but positive
relationships: procedural talk and ritual recognition talk. Procedural talk is
what we use to get through simple transactional situations—having a bite
to eat, buying something—just to be seen as normal and performing our
social roles appropriately. Where possible, we do so in a way that creates a
positive emotional connection with another, even if only for a moment. We
expect others (and they expect us) to enact the norms of ritual connection in
a smooth and polite way because that’s what “normal” people do.

The second type of connect talk involves ritual recognition or greetings,
the archetypal version of which is “How are you?” answered with “Fine.”
Lecture 13: that it doesn’t mean anything—but in fact, it is the basic building block
We’ve grown up learning that this type of exchange is throw-away talk—
for beginning and sustaining our social connections. Like many other
rituals, the words of greeting don’t literally mean what they say; they have

40