In a previous post, I worked to identify what I must address to become a self-differentiated leader. With the knowledge that change initiatives can be anxiety-producing for many people, it will be essential to have a clear plan. As a self-differentiated leader, I must be committed to my purpose to stand firm in my goals and strategies. To be effective at holding crucial conversations, I must be willing to consider an outside view of myself.
Start with Heart
Crucial Conversations teaches that we must first deal with ourselves to evaluate our motives. We must assess ourselves to focus on what we want while maintaining our bearings on the original purpose of the dialogue. We must be able to keep our brains engaged by asking complex questions to present new choices to regain safety and re-engage in dialogue.
Since all change begins with me, I must first stop to ask myself the following questions:
- What do I want for myself?
- What do I want for others?
- What do I want for the relationship?
Action Prompt: How would I behave if I wanted these results?
These three questions and action prompts can foster healthy, open communication and a collaborative work environment. After working in unhealthy environments in the past, I aspire to help create a healthy and productive one.
Learn to Look
As I work to create an environment that encourages these healthy conversations, I must also be diligent in observing myself and the team as we move through this innovation to advising together. I must watch for the signs when individuals either resort to (silence) by “purposefully [withholding] information from the pool of meaning” or (violence) “by trying to force meaning into the pool” (Patterson et al., 2012, pp. 58-61). With safety problems or when dialogue stops and conversations become crucial, the human brain switches from a source of rational reasoning to one of fight or flight. We can reactivate the rational brain and help bypass this evolutionary response to hold effective dialogues by working and learning to engage through questions. This process of asking myself what I want to get out of a conversation allows me to check my tendencies toward silence or violence.
The book’s authors offer additional resources, one of which is to determine your Style Under Stress.
I found these results and the examples from Crucial Conversations very revealing. I know I avoid and withdraw when conflict or disagreement arises, but I would never have self-assessed “controlling” in the violence category.
I will have to be mindful of these tendencies and stop to:
- Spot Crucial Conversations (physical/behavioral signs or emotions)
- Look for Safety Problems (both what and why)
Make it Safe
Throughout the development of my Influencer Strategy and by creating a 4DX Plan, there has been no doubt about how important accountability is to motivation, morale, and the success of a change strategy. Therefore, I must create safety so communication and innovation can flow freely among team members. I must be observant and aware when the team is engaged in dialogue and when it is not. Committing to actively engage in crucial conversations when dialogue stops cultivates accountability throughout the advising unit. The process outlined by Crucial Conversations will help as we move through the implementation of an advising innovation. These conversations will also help us grow and evolve with multiple perspectives, points of view, and, most importantly, understanding and respect for one another. Crucial conversations “teaches direct and respectful ways to express [my] thoughts” (Vital Smarts India, 2012) and to “reestablish mutual purpose and mutual respect” (Patterson et al., 2012, pp. 76-82) when the dialogue becomes threatened. The authors challenge me to assess whether others know I care about their goals and trust my motives. I sincerely hope that sharing my why will help me establish a mutual purpose (Patterson et al., 2012, p. 77) from which we can build and recover when conversations become crucial. This communication strategy will be valuable to this change initiative since maintaining mutual respect is the only way to stay in dialogue. It is empowering to help equip every team member with the skills needed to effectively move forward in dialogue through difficult and stressful situations like those we will face as emotions run high.
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Master my Stories
The chapter on mastering my stories is one of the most valuable aspects of the crucial conversation strategy to my reflection. The facts outlined about how only I can be responsible for my emotions and how I respond to them will be helpful as I inevitably meet resistance at different stages of implementation. The steps outlined for the “Path to Action” have given me much perspective on how I perceived situations and interactions from my professional past. I can now evaluate how the stories I created surrounding past conversations are responsible for how I felt about those interactions. Indeed, the cumulative effect of those stories and emotions eventually led me to leave those positions. Undoubtedly, the authors’ “skills for mastering our stories” will prove helpful as I evolve into a self-differentiated leader and as our team works and collaborates. As the advising team moves forward through our innovation of advising, these skills can equip us to have crucial conversations that will allow our efforts to be effective and our relationships to grow stronger.
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Following the path to action and retracing the steps help with personal awareness and more control over our emotions.
STATE my Path
Everything up until this point helps to prepare to engage in crucial conversations. The steps and processes help to ensure that we are clear on our motives, purposes, perceptions, and perspectives as we finally begin to engage in dialogue. Striking a balance between open honesty and respectful humility is something the best at dialogue can do.
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Explore Others’ Paths
In step 3 of STATE-ing our path, we ask for others’ points of view and genuinely listen to receive their input or perspective. To do this, we must explore others’ paths. At times we will be in situations where we must navigate rocky waters, like when others are expressing silence or violence. We must acknowledge that just as we tell ourselves stories and make individualized interpretations and understandings of others’ words and actions, others do the same about ours. Therefore, I must be transparent about mistakes, aware of emotions, interpretations, and verbal/non-verbal messages, communicate my intentions clearly, and apologize when they are not. It is humbling and powerful to require leaders and team members to check themselves when they find themselves out of line and to demand that they admit and own those errors in judgment or temper.
Start with Heart
Suppose we work to sincerely and patiently listen to another’s experience. In that case, we can openly and curiously explore how others are feeling, what they are thinking, and how we can help restore safety so that dialogue can continue (Patterson et al., 2012, p. 157). Just as we have done in our preparation for crucial conversations, we can encourage others to follow the five steps outlined above to retrace them together to develop our crucial conversation skills.
Use Inquiry Skills
- When?
- When silence or violence begins, it is time for us to step out of the conversation and establish safety so that we can get to the source of the emotions causing others to stop dialoguing.
- How?
- Patterson et al. (2012) state, “We must be genuine in the face of hostility, fear, or even abuse” (p. 162).
- What?
- Make it safe for others to be vulnerable about their feelings and truly listen to what they are saying.
Power Listening Tools
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Use your ABCs when you disagree.
- Agree:
- Work to be sure that dialogue continues and is not interrupted by minor details. Focus on the areas of agreement to grow and evolve from as a starting point.
- Build:
- Actively search for points of common ground on which to build. By starting a dialogue with the areas of agreement, you open space to create discussion and understanding.
- Compare:
- Share how your perspective differs from the other person and use that conversation about your facts, stories, and emotions to explore how each of you sees the options up for discussion, which is much more effective than simply declaring that you are right the other person is wrong. You can disagree and still hold valuable dialogue.
Move to Action
Now that we have been actively working on practicing strong dialogue skills, we must follow through to the action steps derived from those discussions. Once again clarity is key to this phase of the dialogue strategy which helps convert crucial conversations into both results and action.
- How are decisions going to be made?
- If people have differing views on how the decision will be made, there could be miscommunications and misunderstandings, eroding the trust built throughout the dialogue.
- Are we ever going to decide?
- This condition occurs when there are too many options or maybe no solutions after dialogue and meaning are explored. This condition leaves everyone playing a game of not it wondering if anything will ever happen.
Decide How to Decide
“To avoid violated expectations, separate dialogue from decision making. Make it clear how the decision will be made – who will be involved and why” (Patterson et al., 2012, p. 179) before starting a dialogue. When the line of authority is clear, the manager will be the decision maker. When the line of authority is unclear, identifying the decision-maker can be more challenging because a dialogue will be needed to identify who will decide collectively.
The Four Methods of Decision-Making
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How to choose which decision-making method to use
- Who cares?
- Consider who on the team has an invested interest and truly desires to be a part of the decision-making. There is a better time to push for involvement from those who don’t.
- Who knows?
- Think about the team members with experience or special skills that would add beneficial knowledge to the decision-making process.
- Who must agree?
- Get ahead of the opposition. Consider all the players for whom you will need to obtain acceptance and involve them in the decision-making process.
- How many people is it worth involving?
- “Involve the fewest number of people while still considering the quality of the decision along with the support that people will give it” (Patterson et al., 2012, p. 183).
The Final Step!
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- Who?
- “Assign a name to every responsibility” (Patterson et al., 2012, p. 184) to avoid confusion or a general lack of progress due to ambiguity.
- Does what?
- Review, reanalyze, and compare your vision with the understanding of those assigned to carry it out. Very clearly outline each aspect of your expectations.
- By when?
- The 4 Disciplines of Execution (4DX) clearly explain the fury of the day-to-day whirlwind. If deadlines are not communicated, then that urgency will inevitably cause our plans to be pushed to an undefined date, likely never to be complete.
- How will you follow up?
- Accountability is key to success in the Influencer Strategy through its measures of success and the 4DX Plan through a compelling scoreboard. Therefore, it is essential to build specific and time-sensitive follow-ups into the action steps outlined.
“Write down details of conclusions, decisions, and assignments. Remember to record who does what by when” (Patterson et al., 2012, p. 187) and keep your team members accountable. With all these skills combined, we can finally recognize that it is possible to heal from past hurts and become skilled, proficient, and comfortable holding high-stakes dialogues even when situations are uncomfortable so that together, we can innovate advising.
References
Patterson, K., Grenny, J., McMillan, R., & Switzler, A. (2012). Crucial conversations: Tools for talking when stakes are high (2nd ed.). McGraw Hill.
Vital Smarts India. (2012, February 10). Crucial Conversations Explained in 2 Minutes. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ixEI4_2Xivw