What is an Authentic Conversation?

Dear Aurel, Bao, Claudio and others, thanks for responding to my “Authentic Conversations and the Art of Feedbacking” video post and posing the essential, genesis question “What is an authentic conversation?”

If I give you the answer it’s no longer authentic — real and true to you — so you’re going to have to figure it out on your own. Jk, rhetoric aside, I’d be happy to share my thoughts.

There was also a related question, “Are directional talks wrong entirely?” Let me combine the answers.

The measurement is trust. An authentic conversation is a mutual attempt to be honest with each other and share true thoughts and feelings in the conversation.

That’s why authentic conversations are scary and takes courage, because either side has to extend trust and the other side has to reciprocate (typically one side has to instigate the trust; it takes a mature relationship for both sides to simultaneously extend and reciprocate the trust from the beginning of the conversation). And we hesitate because we all have painful past experiences of such intentions not going two-ways.

An authentic conversation is a mutual attempt to be honest with each other and share true thoughts and feelings in the conversation.