I listened to a TED Talk by Chris Fenning and he shared an interesting suggestion for making work conversations better. In the first 60 seconds, use the acronym TIP.
TIP – Topic. Intent. Point.
Here’s the process. In the first 2 minutes of the conversation do the following:
- Topic – State the topic you want to discuss.
- Intent – Clearly communicate what you need from the other person. Do you need ideas? A listening ear? Help with a decision? This reminds me of this post I wrote a while back.
- Point – What is a summary of the information needed. After clearly getting to the point, you can add other details. The key is to quickly get to the point first.
I’ve been thinking about many situations where the TIP structure could have pointed a conversation in a better direction.
While the suggestion was for conversations at work, I think that the idea could work equally well in social and personal communication.
Your Turn
What do you think of the TIP structure?
Do you believe it could help make conversations better?
Is there a conversation scheduled today at work that could benefit from this?