The Art of Talking to People, Networking and Building Relationships in Radiation Oncology

By Mel Kauffman

The Art of Talking to people, Networking and Building Relationships

Jayne Mattson, a career management expert and author, joined SROA recently for a webinar about The Art of Talking to People, Networking and Building Relationships.

“You can make more friends in two months by becoming interested in other people than you can in two years getting people interested in you,” said Mattson, who provides guidance and services to early and mid-career professionals looking to take charge of their careers.

At age 12, Mattson’s father gave her a copy of Dale Carnegie’s best-selling book, How to Win Friends and Influence People. Mattson, who re-reads the book every year, said she learns something new every time. She attributes the book to her success and said it motivated her to write You, You, Me, You: The Art of Talking to People, Networking and Building Relationships. She noticed that most clients talk about networking and how to do it, but no one focused on building relationships. This realization sparked the idea for her book.

Building relationships using the You, You, Me, You concept

Mattson’s “You, You, Me, You” concept include four steps for building relationships:

(You) Initiate: Ask questions and always use the person’s name (e.g., “Nice to meet you name,” then ask a question.)

(You) Engage: Engage the other person, ask follow-up questions to get them to keep talking about themselves. (Tip: Use the 5 Ws—who, what, when, where and why—to come up with questions.)

(Me) Develop: Share commonalities. If you have similar experiences or destinations you’ve traveled to.

(You) Strengthen: Balance the conversation and then follow up with another question.

The most important element in relationship building is ending with “you” because, Mattson said, it shows that you want to continue to get to know the other person.

 How to begin a conversation with someone new

These five tips can help you when starting a conversation:

1. Ask the other person 3–4 questions before talking about yourself.
2. Use positive body language to show interest in what others are saying (make great eye contact, lean in, and use your eyes to show interest).
3. Build your next question of what they have just said to keep them talking and to show interest.
4. As you start to talk about yourself, use what you’ve learned from the other person to emphasize things that you have in common with the other person.
5. As the conversation reaches the end, ask one or more question to bring the focus back to the other person (e.g., “I enjoyed our conversation and good luck in. . .” Use something you learned about them to bring the focus back to the other person).

One of the challenges Mattson has found when working with clients is that they aren’t comfortable starting a conversation. She provided several tips for meeting new people and getting over the awkwardness of starting a conversation.  

Watch the webinar to learn more about

• Everyday situations and how to balance the conversation
• Networking
• Social media and the digital age—converting to face-to-face meetings
• What we pay attention to when we communicate
• Getting to know someone
• Tips for when you meet someone new

We want to hear from you!

Networking can be challenging for anyone, what are some tips and tricks you use while building relationships?

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