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able to assess the nature of a particular threat and [accept] the lesser evil.

If it’s really the shortest route to meet those interests, plan it.

SALESMANSHIP

We all sell when we communicate, be it an idea, opinion, or joke, just as all workers must flog their skills. Many seem unaware of this, in part, because the idea of selling intimidates. Fools imagine it is all deals, but serious salesmanship forges relationships, using passion and personality as tinder to clients’ enthusiasm. Without it there would be no business. Anyone who imagines selling to be beneath them should know it comes garlanded with philosophical plaudits. Aristotle anatomized it in his Art of Rhetoric (persuasive speech), identifying three aspects, in ascending importance:

Logos: the virtue and style of the argument

Pathos: the emotions of the audience

Ethos: the credibility of the speaker

As Aristotle discerned, an insight borne out by twenty-first-century research using brain scanners, the best idea matters not a jot if it leaves audiences cold. Even if your words move them to tears, to get a message inside their heads, first they must believe in you—and want to. Smart work communication doesn’t focus narrowly on hearing, or saying, yes, but building faith, credit, and the long-term conversation that is a relationship. It:

Shares spoils

Gives credit where due

Expresses admiration and gratitude

Is amusing and amused

Speaks up for the weak

Apologizes frankly and first

A suck-up’s charter? It’s only human to use rapport to shore up your position. That’s how primates do business, with similar networking ploys seen in monkeys. Call it generosity, aloud.

But however casual a work conversation, beware of presuming intimacy. Or humor, that insuperable friendship coagulant—a qualification only time brings. In a 1950s London department store, anthropologists found, incoming workers had to wait three dull weeks to be included in banter, three more before cracking their own jokes.

MECHANICS

Each work conversation is a three-part task, entailing regulating, sending, and receiving messages.

Regulating: For an organized communication, think in advance: when; where; how long; what issues to cover; in what order; what note to strike; what interests and goals are at stake; how to meet or improve them.

At the encounter, greet, introduce (if unfamiliar), and trade pleasantries. This both respects rapport and neatly places it out of harm’s way, because the transition into business signals that what follows isn’t personal, and it ensures everyone knows who is here and why. (Had he done so, my husband might have avoided the university interview throughout which a don shuffled papers, addressing him “Joanna.”)

Preamble small talk also tests and sets the tone, so it may shift the frame of subsequent discussion. Hint you’ve brought an alternative proposition, for instance, and the other side’s conversation strategy is in tatters. Or, off home turf, lead greetings and you may lead the next moves too.

When discussion begins, state purpose and agenda, then explore propositions and decisions, step by step, repeating agreements at the end. Whatever transpires, a friendly farewell helps to restore lost face. And in the absence of minutes, circulate action points afterward to avoid confusion.

Sending: To resonate, present your message as Castiglione’s ideal courtier did, never lacking “for eloquence adapted to those with whom he is talking.” And be, as director Gurinder Chadha advised wannabe filmmakers,

Don’t leave your personality at the door. Karl Marx knew how to package his punches, blending “philosophical seriousness with the most biting wit.” Trim vocabulary, pace, and tone to the occasion, aiming at simplicity and concision, using keywords, humor, surprise, and arresting images.

absolutely clear about what you want to say.... What’s your vision?

Consider how near listeners to sit; when to look at them to sink a punch, grab