DR published a culture feature on September 13, 2026, in which conversation facilitator Pernille Bandholm Jakobsen argues that good conversations require attention, courage and sometimes preparation.
The feature, published by DR, presents advice from Jakobsen, who wrote the book Samtalen together with coach Katrine Kent. According to DR, she describes a conversation as more than an exchange of reports about everyday events.
Jakobsen set out her argument on the P1 program Supertanker. She says a conversation needs a starting point, where one person offers something and another connects to it. If no one connects, she says, the result is a monologue, a sermon or entertainment.
It does not help if each participant puts a new topic on the table, Jakobsen tells DR. She calls that pattern a serial monologue disguised as a conversation.
Small talk as an entry point
Small talk about wind and weather has a poor reputation, but Jakobsen says the format itself is not the problem. The difficulty arises when people dislike it in advance or stay in it too long, according to her account in the DR feature.
Someone has to take the next step, she says, and that requires courage. If it works, she says the conversation can gain what she calls flying altitude, where the senses sharpen and time seems to stop. Such conversations can stay with people for years afterward.
Preparation and patience
Jakobsen calls it a persistent myth that good conversations arise by themselves. Hosts prepare the food, the table and their clothes, and she says the same can be done with the subjects of conversation.
Preparation does not need to be a script, per her advice in the feature. It can be enough to consider what currently occupies you, and which topics you want other people’s perspectives on.
In the same Supertanker episode, host Carsten Ortmann described friends who ask guests to bring a conversation piece, an object to talk from. One evening a human skull was on the table, acquired by his wife’s father while studying medicine. Later, a photo book by musician Tobias Rahim came out.
Ortmann said no one had to think of something to say, because the object did the work. Jakobsen calls bringing an object a strong conversation starter, since all things carry stories. She adds that hosts need the courage to begin and the humility to withdraw again.
Conversations are not always elegant, Jakobsen says. They can be messy, full of pauses and take unexpected directions, and participants need mild forbearance with themselves and others. Talking together is a skill, she says, and skills follow the rule of use it or lose it.
DR notes that the formula for the good conversation was already discussed in ancient Greece. The full Supertanker episode on the subject is available on DR Lyd, and the feature also touches on everyday Danish conversation habits such as talking about the weather, work and television series.
