Making Great Conversationalists: Chapter Nine

Chapter Nine in Steven and Teri Maxwell's self-help book " Making Great Conversationalists" amuses me every time I read it.  This chapter - for people who hadn't already caught the pattern - explains the skills an advanced conversationalist is supposed to have.   Honestly, I had no idea of what an advanced conversationalist looked like before  I read this book and I am no better informed after reading the book.  The great part about the chapter is that the Maxwells have crammed all sorts of different types of speaking in between various other topics they forgot to address in earlier sections.

The chapter starts off with a very Maxwellian boast that people who teach their kids how to converse like a Maxwell will be better conversationalists than the average American adult.   That boast is walked back slightly in the next sentence, but mainly because the Maxwells needed a chance to slam how bad most Americans are at talking to Maxwells.  I suspect the Maxwells haven't connected the Maxwell Family's obsession with tracting and judging random strangers with the "bad conversational" skills of the people they meet.  There are a lot of people who will happily shoot the breeze with complete strangers; there are relatively few people who will continue a conversation once the Maxwells make it clear that the only reason they are talking to you is to convert you.

I wonder what would happen if people were more vocal about why they are leaving the conversation with the Maxwells.   I'd be tempted to say something like "Entering a conversation with an unstated external motive is something conmen do, not Christians.  I'm disappointed the fact you were afraid to be upfront about your reasons for starting this conversation.  Goodbye."  Of course, I'd have to practice that a few more times before I could say that on the fly, but you get the idea.  And, truthfully, I am much more willing to listen to someone who states upfront that they are trying to teach me about their religion.   Sneaking it into a conversation is creepy and unbecoming of people who are supposed to be a city on a hill and a light shining in the darkness.

The first major topic in the chapter is that conversations require back-and-forth exchange of information.   I agree with that - but very few of the "good" conversations involved mutual back-and-forth earlier in the book.   Really, the good conversations either had an adult male say "Amuse me!" and his family compiled by talking at him or a kid say "Dad, hold forth on your most recent Biblical obsession!" and the father did.   Most of this section is an extended bitching fest about how an adult career woman told one of the Maxwell sons who was traveling for business all about her job, but failed to ask him any questions about his job.    I was genuinely surprised that any of the Maxwell men travel for business until I remembered that Nathan Maxwell does consult some professional computer security specialist organizations and that Christopher Maxwell travels to take wedding photos.   I'm also surprised that neither Maxwell parent realizes how catty this story sounds:

(...) However, sometimes all one can do is to keep asking questions when the other person doesn't ask any questions in return. That was the exact experience of our son as a talk to the lady next to him on his flight. She was delighted to talk about herself, but she had absolutely no interest in him. She didn't ask our son even one question about his life. Our son stepped off that plane having learned many new things. She left without any new knowledge. (pg. 143)

This enraged snippet says far more about the Maxwell Family level of entitlement than it does about the passenger traveling in the next seat over.  An earlier paragraph explains that the woman worked at setting up pharmacies around the US.   I've been involved in turning over retail areas to a new product before and the process is always chaotic, rushed for time, and physically demanding.  If she's also managing staffing as well, that brings in a whole new level of craziness.  The lady had probably been working 14-16 hour days during the entire trip and had no interest in hearing about the random stranger's life in the seat next to her. 

On top of the expectation that an unrelated woman should jump at the chance to educate and entertain a Maxwell man, the Maxwell son is strangely ignorant of a basic conversational truth.  If the other person is answering your questions - especially if they are giving the most basic answer possible - while not asking any questions of you, the person is trying to end the conversation without being rude.   Can you blame her?  She's stuck on a plane for at least 2-3 hours next to Chatty Chester but answering Chatty Chester's questions is safer than worrying he's going to turn into Grumpy George or Enraged Ernst if she ignores him.

Once the Maxwells have worked out that imaginary insult, they move into teaching your kids to lead conversations away from problematic topics.   Again, this is an important skill for people to have - but why are the Maxwells waiting so long for this idea?   In my childhood, I didn't run into potentially "inappropriate" topics until I was in 3-5th grade because my parents were sane.  They kept us away from sex, drugs, inappropriate alcohol use, and scary stuff that would keep me up at night - and didn't worry about the rest.  In CP/QF land, inappropriate topics start as soon as a kid can talk.  My son watches "Sesame Street" at 18 months old - so presumably a 3 year old CP/QF kid needs to be able to steer the conversation away from terrible topics like "Paws Patrol".

Smoothly changing the topic of a conversation is a good skill to have.  Don't do it like this:

"Hey, Joseph, did you watch that great paramedics show last night?"

" No, I didn't, Daniel. Last night I was working on a web-design project that I am creating for homeschool family that has a home business. I am doing the work for free because I need it to for my portfolio and because I want to help the family's business grow. What do you think are the most important components of websites you go to? What draws you to the site, and what makes you buy what they want to sell?" (pg. 143)

Allow me to summarize this stellar conversation:

"Hey, Joseph, let's bond over a common cultural experience!!"

"I'm gonna bulldoze over you, Daniel!  Hey, answer a few questions for me so I can skip market research, 'k?  How should I make a website that's not geared towards your demographic at all?  Like should there be colors or buttons or something?  Daniel?  Daniel, why are you walking away?  Not cool, Daniel!"

Really, the only thing that I could think of that would top that is if Daniel started describing everything he appreciates in a porn website without specifying that he's describing a porn site.....

The rest of the topic discusses how kids should work at steering the conversation to topics that they are knowledgeable about.   And - again - the Maxwells are far more heavy-handed about that idea than anyone needs to be.  People prefer talking about subjects that they feel comfortable with.  Heavens knows I feel much more confident discussing educational methods in secondary schools than I do discussing the differences in techniques in an artist's collection of works.   Being able to manage the discomfort that comes with being inexperienced in an area is equally important as turning every conversation to a topic that a person can shine in.

As annoying as having every conversation steered towards a Maxwellian topic of excellence, the next section manages to make conversations worse.   The Maxwells glorify people who jam references to God into every conversation.  Like many people who reference God incessantly, the examples the Maxwells find manage to be trite or insulting rather than edifying.   The Maxwells have a mutual friend who didn't recognize Steven Maxwell's voice on the phone, but did once he left a voice message.   When discussing this quirk a day later, the lady goes into a whole spiel about how missing Steven's voice made her wonder how often she missed God's voice in her life.    The Maxwells find that digression profoundly edifying; I am merely grateful that my friends would laugh about that and move on.    A different family has taught their children to redirect all compliments back to God.  If you said to the kid, "Jackie, you play the violin so well!", Jackie would reply, "Thank you.  I am so glad God has given me this talent!"   That quirk stuck with me because it's the same method that women and children in the Fundamentalist Latter-Day Saints were expected to use to reflect compliments back to their husband or father as the headship of their home.

After that, we get a mild break so the Maxwells can discuss how important storytelling is as a conversational skill.  I love a good story - and the Maxwells use up a page and a half re-telling John's story of being instructed by the California Highway Patrol to drive 300 feet behind a cruiser to form one part of a slow-moving traffic wedge in the middle of the night.   The story caught my attention - but what I remember most is that the Maxwells have no idea what caused the need for a traffic wedge in the middle of the night.   Oh, they have lots of reasonable ideas - presidential motorcade? high-speed chase? - but John didn't turn on the TV and no one thought of using the internet to see if any news site reported on an issue in that area. 

If you guessed that the next topic is the importance of inserting religious references into stories, you win! 

The remaining four pages in the chapters are reviews of previously covered topics, so I'm not going to drag you through them again.

Chapter Ten is about how to teach kids to deal with common issues in conversations - or at least that's what the title implies.  My husband and I agree that the real outcome of following this chapter is to drive every human who talks to you far, far away....