The Art of Conversation - Catherine Blyth [34]
But pauses are just as easily a force for good. Listen to how newscasters’ seesaw cadences help words slip down—even though in some respects their delivery is utterly unnatural. And while it’s well known that listening to music impedes students’ concentration, fewer of us are aware that silence enhances intelligence. A 1970s “wait-time” study in American schools found that if teachers gave students just a few extra seconds to answer questions, their responses and engagement greatly improved, as did their year-end examination results. Equally, evaluation of psychotherapy has found that sessions in which the least is said are most effective.
In part this is because the longer a pause lasts, the more meanings germinate in speculative minds; like the lull before a joke’s punch line, a long pause deepens reflection. Indeed, silence’s spirit of incantation may be very sexy, cloaking the reticent speaker in mystery. Scantly interviewed icons, such as Greta Garbo or Kate Moss, metabolize this into mystique, and women who gripe about male emotional inarticulacy persist in swooning over word-shy hunks, like Pride and Prejudice’s Mr. Darcy, who seem impregnable to pressure to talk. Why say she looks good enough to eat with a spoon if you can say it in an indolent glance and let her imagination roam? Practice the seductive art of tailing off . . .
And see if you can’t splice a few more breaks into your speech to underscore what you’ve just said, to build anticipation, swell significance, slow pace (useful in arguments), or grab attention—if only to free a moment to break off and meet listeners’ eyes. Your words will weigh heavier, you’ll seem more self-possessed, and others will listen closer.
➺ Rule five: Silence pressures others to speak
Alexander Pope dubbed silence the “varnisher of fools, and cheat of all the wise!” Occasionally, it creates too positive an impression, as film executive Kate Philpot discovered when overstretch led to breakdown:
Too tired to speak in meetings, I would just smile and nod, hoping nobody would notice. Ironically, given the chance to talk uninterrupted, clients sang my praises and recommended me to others.
Her tragicomic predicament illustrates how effortlessly silence compels others to talk—a chance to gain information and insights, as well as speak volumes about your confidence. In power games, be aware of three tactical properties: as silencer, shield, and negotiator.
For Sigmund Freud, rebuffing a bumptious writer, it was a blunt but effective instrument:
[Freud] made no answer and was not troubled by the silence this caused. It was a hard silence, a sort of weapon in his hand.
Use silence to kill. Asked a nasty question, pretend you didn’t hear. Don’t want to say why you’re late? Don’t, then. Not reacting also guards against unhelpful revelations, whereas hasty complaints provide recipes for how to wound further. And it overrides embarrassment, as a Frenchman found, watching eighteenth-century Londoners relieve themselves into chamber pots in, horreur!, the dining room—“undisguisedly,” and at “no interruption of the conversation.” So if you screw up, shut up: Talk will perforce move on.
Silence can sidestep commitment, signaling acceptance without an irretrievable yes, since tacit consent is always deniable. Instead of disagreeing, saying nothing keeps channels open, defusing potential confrontation. It also turns tables, forcing others to plead their case. (How weak Richard II seems in Shakespeare’s play, for all his eloquence, before the quiet avenger and future king, Henry Bolingbroke.)
Maintain silence as a smoke screen, forcing opponents to speculate what