Forget what you learnt at school!

It’s time to record an interview. But first we need to prepare, know the personality and everything about them – Correct?

This is what we’re told. All the professional interviewers say this. University courses say, in order to be able to engage with the interviewee we need to know everything about them, to know what to ask and get maximum advantage over them so we can get something juicy.

So you prepare, read the biographies and papers. Listen to other interviews and do as much research as is possible to find the specific areas where you can dig around and maybe find some interesting angle to ask them, maybe even a little dirt.

This is the method that is mentioned everywhere to help you interview and if you intend to interview a celebrity or someone of note, it may be a valid approach. It’s a way of showing that you have done your research and you respect their field of expertise. What’s actually happening here though, is you’re going into the interview with your agenda to get what You want. You know everything about them and you have a line of questioning that suits you. This is not what we’re doing here with recording a Life Story.

It’s not an interrogation

We don’t want them to feel like it’s an interrogation where we’re drilling them for information as if they’re a British spy caught by the Stasi pre 1989.

Ultimately you want to create enough confidence in them so they feel as if you’re a friend, a very close friend at that. This will enable you to get what you want and they will get someone engaging to talk to. But this will only happen if you help them to feel.

* Comfortable

* Engaged

* Open to tell stories as a conversation

* Free from judgement or opinion

Our priority is to help them to relax and be completely comfortable so they’ll engage with us in casual conversation. This is not about us, this is entirely about them and what they want. If we concentrate on their comfort and care about who they are, with true genuine interest in their story, they will feel that interest and then open up to reveal, through the stories of their life, the things we want to hear. After all, we all want to be heard and one of the greatest gifts we can give them is to listen.

Your attitude is written large

We’ve all had those conversations where someone is pretending to be interested in us but we know, despite what comes out of their mouth, that they really find us tedious. The classic is where they are reading, taking a note or sending a text message while saying “It’s okay I’m still listening please carry on…”

We know when someone is disinterested and so will the person you’re talking to. Our body language will give it away in a flash but so will the way we engage with them.

We show our interest by

* Looking directly at them

* Giving non-verbal responses, like nodding or smiling

* Asking a question relevant specifically to something that was mentioned

* Referencing to previous comments. If several hours ago all the better

* Allowing them to take the conversation where they want to take it

* Noticing when they are becoming tired, bored and uncomfortable

There are rabbit holes that need searching

Having an agenda means it’s about us and what we want to acheive. We have our list of topics and questions and all we want to do is work our way through it to know that we have done our job. That’s all well and good but along the way a subject will come up that will take us down an unexpected and potentially wonderful rabbit hole. To ignore this new direction is to disrespect their interests and express that you don&#...