The goose is finished cooking and steam is rising from the mashed potatoes. Your guests have taken their seats according to your well-crafted name cards, and the conversational engines start revving. Someone brings politics to the table and the stranger sitting across from him is offended.
Or maybe you're in a small study group and people are taking their literary interpretations way too seriously. Maybe you're a leader of a breakaway group at a spiritual retreat and people are digressing from your carefully-scripted outlines. Maybe your roommate has seriously gotten on your last nerve and she's not answering your questions.
In those moments, you have a choice to let the conversation flow and fizzle out accordingly, or speak up and guide the conversation to a more graceful place.
Pause. Take a beat. In that moment, between realizing that the conversation is spiraling wildly out of control and deciding what your involvement will be, there is a space. Recognize that space before you miss it. That pause is for you to consider your options and recognize what the desired outcome of this conversation will be. Because we are finite creatures existing inside of time, this space is short, so use it well.
In this pause, ask yourself what you want people to get out of that moment. How do you want people to feel? At a formal debate, it's okay for those involved to feel a little bit confronted, because it's part of the structure of argument to receive a conclusion. A mediator settling a conflict will want both parties to walk away with a sense of reconciliation. At a dinner party, the hostess will want all of her guests to feel refreshed and important by the end of the night.
After realizing what feeling you want to cultivate with your words, your course of action will flow directly from this. You can either be quiet if you feel the tete-a-tete needs no intervention, or you can change the subject subtly. If one of your guests is provoking an emotional response from the other, a good course of action would be to direct your ornery guest to a menial task and tell a light anecdote to the other as they compose themselves. Guiding a conversation is less about being witty and more about being an air-traffic controller; making sure chit-chat goes smoothly, everyone is having a pleasant time, and that each person arrives at exactly the emotional destination you want them to.
Next time political parties clash over the sound of soft jazz in the background and despite your tender roast goose, ask your harrier to be a doll and turn down the music and then tell your sensitive friend about the time you saw this saxophonist in concert. Soon you'll find all of your friends speaking about their favorite music and saying goodnight with a warm glow on their cheeks.
