Whenever you interact with someone, you have an opportunity to ingratiate yourself or alienate yourself from that person.

There are many frameworks that discuss these, but I think there are three levels of conversation that one should be conscious of that often creep up in day-to-day interactions in the work world. The Braindump, Brainstorm, and the Braintrust. In each of these situations you can take specific actions to enhance the conversation.

Braindump – These conversations are essentially a one-sided flow of information. The primary goal here is to offload knowledge or ideas.

Either you, or someone you’re speaking with is sharing a large amount of information. In fact, it’s possible that multiple people are treating the meeting as a braindump and you’ll end up with several sources of information and very few decisions made. If you’re a transmitter of the information, provide structure, try and document as much of the material as possible ahead of time and ensure that any follow-up contacts are listed for the listener. On the other hand, if you’re a receiver, ask questions about structure and offer to take notes (it’ll help you process the information as an added benefit). Finally, follow up on any missing details that other parties might have and share it back to make sure you got all the information correctly.

Brainstorm – These conversations are a collaborative group conversation to generate ideas around a specific topic or problem. The primary goal is to drive a large quantity of ideas, independent of quality.

In a brainstorm, everyone plays the role of participant, and relatively few play the role of moderator. Balancing your role as a contributor can help you stand out. Be the person who says “you were saying” or “that’s a great idea.” Keeping the larger group on track for time, and making sure that everyone in the room is heard. In addition, if you’re an expert, try and contribute some ideas in a clearly organized fashion to allow others to build on to them. Worst case, come with good questions, context, and problem bounding scope that can help folks move fast and contribute quickly.

Braintrust – These conversations are collaborative, with a trusted group of select individuals and an aim to drive towards refining output.

To make the most of this group, be a facilitator of creating such a group. Create open communication channels, introduce like-minded people and ask hard/open questions and be open to any feedback you get (it can often be tough/honest so don’t take it personally). The creation of a braintrust takes time and effort. Find experts or ask the folks already in your brain trust who else they’d think to include for specific questions.

The more conscious you are of these “modes of conversation” the more you can drive productive and meaningful interactions with your peers leading to a higher quality outcome.