- We're going to look at how the four conversational maxims
influence our interactions with other people.
These were first articulated by Paul Grice,
and this video is mostly going to be educational,
but I'll try to create some basic concrete tips
for each of the four maxims.
A maxim is just an unspoken principle,
or rule of conversation.
And when a conversation is going well, or as expected,
you'll hardly notice that these are in effect.
The conversation will feel natural,
but we're not born with these.
We learn them and we pick them up through experience.
And ideally, both people in a conversation
would cooperate in following these principles
to communicate effectively.
You can usually tell that something's gone a little wrong
when somebody in the conversation
doesn't follow these norms.
If people aren't following these principles,
then the conversation can start to feel off,
demanding, confusing, dissatisfying,
and that increases the work
that's required to manage the conversational difficulty
and get things back on track if possible.
If you struggle day to day with conversations,
then use these four maxims
as a checklist for self-assessment.
My hope is that by becoming more aware
of how these maxims work,
you can become a better conversationalist over time.
The first maxim is quantity.
Simply put, this means to be informative,
but it requires a balance.
Being informative means that the communicator
should give right amount,
or expected amount of information in a conversation,
but not too little or not too much.
The classic example of too little information
is when a teenager asks his mom or dad to borrow the car,
but they're not providing enough information
for the request.
Can I borrow the car?
Well, where are you going?
They answer, out.
Who are you going out with?
Friends.
Well, when will you be home?
Later.
Those answers don't give very much information.
And if this were my son,
I'd say he's not fully cooperating, or working with me,
to give me the information
or quantity of information I need
for the type of request that he's making.
Now, does this mean there's anything untruthful
about what he has said? No.
His plans are to go out with friends and be back later.
Those things are all true, as far as we know,
it's just that there's not sufficient detail for me
to feel satisfied with his answers, given his request.
Sometimes you'll see this in job interviews.
An applicant just doesn't have enough to say
about an important question,
and that may raise some red flags.
On the other side of the coin,
people will sometimes over explain.
They give too much information for the situation.
This happened to me once during a job interview.
We had about a dozen questions to ask the applicant
and about 30 minutes to do it.
And we asked the first question
and the applicant gave us a long-winded 10 minute answer.
And it was just a warm-up question really
about why they were interested in the position.
And a 10 minute answer was saying too much
for what the situation called for.
That violated the maxim of quantity,
because it was too much.
And you could feel that in the room,
it created a fairly demanding situation for me
and the other interviewers,
because we had to do the rest of the interview
in the limited time that remained,
so it caused conversational difficulty.
If I had to boil this maxim down into a concrete tip,
I'd say to read the situation
and give the amount of information that would satisfy
the expectations.
Don't make people pull information out of you
and don't dominate conversations by talking the whole time.
Don't say too much or say too little,
give the expected amount of information.
The second maxim is quality,
and that means speaking truthfully.
You'll often hear this explained as not lying
or not saying what you know is false.
It could also mean not making claims
without adequate evidence
or stretching the point
beyond what the evidence would support.
When I was young, I went to high school with somebody
who was always making up stories
that usually involved famous people that he knew.
So I grew up in a really small town,
and there's just no way that this kid knew Michael Jackson,
or hung out with the band members from Guns and Roses.
We all knew these were not true,
in part because it just didn't make sense,
but also he never had any evidence.
This was before social media,
but people still had cameras and took pictures
and got autographs, but he never had any evidence to support
or back up what he was saying.
Now, I think he just wanted to feel special,
but nobody believed him.
But thankfully, he stopped telling stories
like this over time.
And this example is a pretty harmless one,
but in professional situations,
speaking truthfully is really important.
In my experience, any time people can tell
that somebody's not being honest,
it causes a lot of tension in the conversation
and in the relationships.
I know somebody who is once almost not hired
in part because they said something during interview,
something really small that someone knew was not true.
And in the scheme of things,
what they said was an unimportant piece of information.
But because one of us knew it wasn't true,
it really jammed the person's interview up
and it was hard to get past.
The point is to cooperate
in having an effective conversation,
both sides have to communicate truthfully.
Both sides have to have a conversation
that's based in truth and reality.
The tip for this is obvious, speak truthfully
and don't stretch the truth, exaggerate,
or make claims you cannot support with evidence.
The third maxim is relevance, sometimes called relation.
This means that the information that comes out
has to be relevant to the current conversation.
And like the other maxims,
we hardly notice when people are saying things
that are relevant, but you'll notice this
when people go off on tangents
and what they say doesn't clearly connect
or relate to the rest of the conversation,
that's why they sometimes call it relation.
Our talking turns should relate to or be relevant to
what's been said so far.
You'll notice this when people have a bad habit
of changing the subject.
This becomes really obvious
if the person in a conversation asks a question,
but the other person gives an answer that's not relevant.
You've probably seen this happen,
and it makes people uncomfortable.
They're not sure how to handle the interaction.
What do you say?
Do you confront the person and say,
that's not what I asked you?
It can make things really awkward.
You'll also see relevance become an issue
when somebody's comment almost relates,
but some of the dots are not connected.
So if you said to somebody,
I'm going to the store to buy a winter coat,
do you wanna come?
But the other person replies,
ah winter, like they say on the Game of Thrones,
nothing burns like the cold.
That comment's almost relevant.
We both said the word winter,
but I'm still not sure if you're coming to the store
with me or not because the rest of what you said
doesn't relate.
Now, having said that,
most conversations do change topics a few times
during the normal course of an interaction.
But when it happens suddenly or unexpectedly,
that's when we notice the maxim of relevance
has been violated.
Given that, my tip for this in general,
is to stick to the current topic.
Resist the temptation to go on tangents
or quickly pivot on the subject.
Stay on the conversation's current course
until it seems that both people are ready to move on.
And fourth, manner.
This last maxim is a little different.
Paul Grice might say the first three maxims
are about what you say,
and the fourth one, manner, is about how you say it.
So it can be summed up as communicate clearly.
So let's get right to the tip on this one.
You can communicate clearly
by practicing a few related habits.
Say things in a concrete specific way
as opposed to being vague or ambiguous.
Use words and expressions that your listeners
are likely to understand,
and talk in an orderly way that's easy to follow
instead of being disorganized.
So use these four maxims as a checklist.
Are there any of these that you struggle with
when you are in a conversation?
Or do you know anyone in your everyday life
who struggles with any of these four norms?
As mentioned, when things are going well in a conversation,
we hardly notice that these maxims are operating.
Typically it's when somebody does not fulfill
these expectations that something feels off
and then you have to manage that conversational difficulty
as a result.
As mentioned, feel free to download that PDF
of the five essential communication skills
that all professionals should have.
I'll put a link to that in the description below.
What do you think of these conversational maxims?
I would love to hear your thoughts
and your own self-assessment in the comment section below.
I look forward to reading those comments
and interacting with you down there.
Until next time, thanks.
God bless, and I will see you soon.