Barbara Looney, Black Hills State University – Re-Learning Conversation Skills

When was your last conversation with a stranger?

Barbara Looney, Assistant Professor of Management, School of Business, at Black Hills State University, examines how in a more digitized world, conversation skills need to be re-strengthened through practice.

Barbara Looney, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Management, School of Business, Black Hills State University, Spearfish, SD. Looney teaches Managerial Communications, a persuasive business writing course, for the School of Business, and Humanities, a survey of human expression, for the School of Liberal Arts. Additionally she co-advises the entrepreneurial-focused Enactus Team. Prior to her academic career, Looney was a Customer Service Representative for the Sheraton Hotel Corporation in Boston, a Congressional staff assistant in Washington, D.C., a corporate paralegal for law firms in Washington, D.C. and Charlotte, NC, and the assistant manager of a bar supply company in Ft. Lauderdale, FL.

Re-Learning Conversation Skills

Increasingly in the lives of digital natives, the opportunity for well-developed conversation suffers. University faculty can attest to how fresh classes of students arrive on campus with technology experience that surpasses their predecessors, but these same techno-savvy students often display declining personal communication skills.

Since 2008, nearly 900 students in a Managerial Communications class have completed an exercise to strike up a conversation with a complete stranger in the week ahead. 

Student feedback shows a decline in their self-reported ability and comfort about speaking to others they do not know. Increasingly, students admit anxiety about initiating conversations, with many reporting embarrassment and several admitting discomfort to the point of actual avoidance and even mild fear. 

In the past year two global firms, JPMorgan and Coca-Cola, both announced the demise of their internal voicemail systems. Voicemail got booted in favor of faster texting and more efficient email.

Electronic communication spares us having to use the skills needed for vocal expression such as tone and pace. 

The consequence of diminished practice speaking is diminished confidence about speaking.

Might we create more opportunities that put us into conversational settings?  We can regularly construct our own Conversation with a Stranger moments and practice the skills we want to have.  Most of us can be better communicators than we realize, once we make an attempt and practice speaking.

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Black Hills State University
BHSU Mass Communication Program