"Inject a few raisins of conversation into the tasteless dough of existence."

--O. Henry

"Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free."

Check your answer at the end of today's article.

"Conversation, n. A flair for the display of the minor mental commodities, each exhibitor being too intent upon the arrangement of his own wares to observe those of his neighbor."

--Ambrose Bierce, satirist

AHM-nih-bus Meaning: containing or including many items Example sentence:At the beginning of the fiscal year, accountants held anomnibus meeting to consider a wide variety of financialissues.

To make your conversations more creative and spontaneous, you can apply some basic principles of improvisational theater. Today's article is a slightly-revised reprise of one of the most popular articles I have written since publication of "Better Conversations" began in 2002. I coined the neologism "improversation" for conversations conducted

with improv principles. Read on . . .

Improversation: Stay Present

A key principle of improvisational theater is to "Respond in the present." Improv players get themselves and fellow players into trouble when they think ahead and write mental scripts of what they'll say later on. It often happens that by the time another player makes them an offer to deal with, their pre-scripted response doesn't fit.

Note: In improv, every response is considered an "offer."

Even when people are able to pretend to listen because they want to appear polite, their attention is divided between scripting and responding, and what they say will seem more mechanical than spontaneous. When you commit to being fully present, you can also be fully attentive to what others are saying.

Good Conversation Needs Spontaneity

For the best flow, a conversation needs spontaneity. When conversers are able to be in the moment, their phrases will have the feeling of freshness and authenticity, even though they may not be well-crafted or even grammatical. (The ancient Greeks had a phrase to describe oratory that had been too carefully planned in advance: "It smells of the lamp." The speaker had stayed up late to work out the perfect language, correct in form, but, when finally spoken, stale in tone.)

The best-known improv group in North America is

"Second City," in existence since the 1950s and franchised

in both Canada and the U. S. Many of the very best

improv performers like Mike Nichols and John Belushi

came to TV and the movies from this professional source.

However, only a small portion of Second City performances

are live and "in the moment." Instead, the players improvise the sketches which are then fixed and scripted for performance. The result is that the performances use rehearsed and well-worn material that, while amusing, often lacks freshness.

Quality conversation is creative and improvisational and,

although patterned, is often surprising rather than predictable. As with the music of jazz ensembles and the play of young children, offers are exchanged and wonderfully creative ideas emerge. (For an in-depth exploration of this concept, see Keith Sawyer's excellent book, Creating Conversations, March 2001.)

Collaboration Is a Key Goal

In conversation, as in ensemble theater, achieving collaboration is a key goal. To achieve this, conversers

must let go of trying to pre-plan and control the conversation. When all the talkers are thinking about

what they'll say next, the result is more like "co-blaboration" than real collaboration.

When you take a chance and stay in the moment, even if

you're not sure what you're going to say next; when you

trust your experience and your intuition, the right words will

come forth and fit nicely into the open moment.

Famous Quotations: Who wrote these words?

"Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free."

Answer: Emma Lazarus

Loren Ekroth ©2009, all rights reserved

Loren Ekroth, Ph.D. is a specialist in human communication and a national expert on conversation for business and social life.