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At the moment that a critical discussion is beginning, there is a sequence of things that you need to go through before you can really get through the content of the conversation. This is where you start building safety. Notice that it doesn’t matter if you are initiating the conversation or not, YOU are still the one that goes through the sequence.
What are we talking about? Develop a sentence or two that adequately sums up the controversy. Use simple vocabulary, and try to keep it to one sentence. Make sure the other party agrees that the statement is the point of contention. It frequently sounds like this. “So what you are saying is that the company was better when we were employee owned. Is that right?” Many times your counterpart may say “not exactly. What I am saying is….” and lead to you a slight modification to it. Sometimes this process goes on for a few iterations. This is a GREAT time to be patient and get it right. The alternative is to be working on an issue that isn’t really the point of clash anyway. This sentence is called the resolution and it doesn’t matter if it is expressed in the affirmative (the company was better when we were employee owned) or in the negative (the company was NOT better when we were employee owned). We can explore it logically either way.
What is the nature of the problem? Two things here –First, What is the current impact of the problem? Secondly, What are the future consequences? Using our example, if things were indeed better when the company was employee owned, we may currently see some grumbling or some disappointment. The consequences might be apathy, turnover, and loss of competitive edge. If this is what is uncovered, these are pretty serious consequences.
Determine the purpose for the conversation. Remember that each conversation has a generic purpose and a mutual purpose. There are three possible generic purposes: to understand your counterpart’s point of view, to express your point of view, and to troubleshoot a problem. You cannot troubleshoot until you have done the other two. The mutual purpose varies with each conversation, but it is defined as the reason you and your counterpart are both willing to have the conversation. For instance, you are both willing to discuss the problems associated with the change to a non-employee owned company because you are both concerned with morale OR profitability OR employee satisfaction OR quality.
Imagine the ideal outcome for the conversation. “We will come out of this with some recommendations for measures to take to prevent a slip in quality” OR “We will come through this and understand the top five problems we may face going forward” OR “We will come through this and I will fully understand where he/she stands on the issue.”
NOW we are ready to begin discussing the content. With practice, and depending on the conversation, the whole "initiation sequence" may take just a few seconds.
Insist on great business results! Go to Pathfinder Communication
Monday, February 23, 2009
Saturday, February 7, 2009
Respect
For those of you that have attended the workshops (nearly 300 now, thanks very much) you have heard me talk about the four kinds of respect we need to show in a collaboration and why. The “why” is easy – if we don’t show respect for our counterpart, the discussion will soon become about our disrespect and not the content. We will immediately shift away from solving the primary issue, and begin work on backpedalling away from some remark that distracts us from what we really want – to understand their side of the story as well as they do. So respect for the counterpart is one of the four kinds of respect, but how do we show it? And what if we DON’T respect this person to whom we are talking?
Respect for our counterpart can be thought of as a basic respect for new information. We recognize that they have views and opinions on a subject that is of interest to us. Their views may be well thought out or incoherent; they may agree with ours or be in opposition; they may be based on core beliefs that are similar to ours or are very different. The sharing of those ideas (if they are different from ours) will add to our knowledge if we hear them. If someone can add a new viewpoint, it is worthy of respect. Many (most) of the people with whom I have the pleasure to communicate are intelligent people, well-established and knowledgeable. If we differ on a subject, I am usually the one getting an education. I have a great deal of respect for these teachers and I find that if I fail to learn something from someone, it is usually my own fault by not engaging enough, or not being sufficiently curious. I kick myself when I find myself asking “I should have asked them THIS” as I walk away! Being curious and supportive, helping to find the real reasoning behind the perspective, and NOT judging but being grateful for the opportunity for the exchange are ways that you can communicate your respect. You treat them as if their ideas COULD be exactly correct, because you can’t determine otherwise until you fully understand them.
Respect for content is the second kind of respect that you bring to collaboration. I remind myself (and my counterpart) that the energy we are spending on the topic is because the result MATTERS and the way to get a good result is to sort through as many ideas as we can generate. Respect that your current understanding of the content is ALWAYS just a starting place and that your mind could be changed at any moment IF you are successful in finding a piece of mind changing information. If the topic is not important, then we needn’t talk about it at all unless it will affect our relationship going forward. If that is the case, the topic should probably be the relationship!
Respect for the process is the third kind of respect. The process of conducting a critical discussion properly is an interpersonal discipline that has been honed and refined over centuries. It helps us to do things that are VERY difficult using the tools that most of us have – it helps reach the best possible decisions based on limited information and in the face of uncertainty. As we improve in using the process, we find that it is usually easy to get a great deal of information from knowledgeable sources. What an improvement over bullying and tricking each other into accepting partially formed ideas.
I leave Respect for yourself for the fourth kind. One should never enter a critical discussion depending on the respect of their counterpart. You cannot control that they will show it EVEN if you have earned it. But you can have respect for yourself by always being non-judgmental of your counterpart, being non-manipulative, remaining authentic and empathetic. You respect that you are intelligent and have skills in communication that others desperately need. You share them. You don’t allow yourself to bully or be bullied, manipulate or be manipulated, judge or be judged. When your counterpart violates these rules, you address it with compassion understanding that they don’t know any other way, or they would use it. Further if the counterpart shows disrespect for you by committing any of the errors that could drive you to defensiveness, you should give them the benefit of the doubt by assuming that they meant no harm and telling them that the behavior is unacceptable, describing how it marginalizes you, and explaining that their disrespect is unnecessary and distracts from the purpose of the conversation.
Insist on great business results! Go to Pathfinder Communication
Respect for our counterpart can be thought of as a basic respect for new information. We recognize that they have views and opinions on a subject that is of interest to us. Their views may be well thought out or incoherent; they may agree with ours or be in opposition; they may be based on core beliefs that are similar to ours or are very different. The sharing of those ideas (if they are different from ours) will add to our knowledge if we hear them. If someone can add a new viewpoint, it is worthy of respect. Many (most) of the people with whom I have the pleasure to communicate are intelligent people, well-established and knowledgeable. If we differ on a subject, I am usually the one getting an education. I have a great deal of respect for these teachers and I find that if I fail to learn something from someone, it is usually my own fault by not engaging enough, or not being sufficiently curious. I kick myself when I find myself asking “I should have asked them THIS” as I walk away! Being curious and supportive, helping to find the real reasoning behind the perspective, and NOT judging but being grateful for the opportunity for the exchange are ways that you can communicate your respect. You treat them as if their ideas COULD be exactly correct, because you can’t determine otherwise until you fully understand them.
Respect for content is the second kind of respect that you bring to collaboration. I remind myself (and my counterpart) that the energy we are spending on the topic is because the result MATTERS and the way to get a good result is to sort through as many ideas as we can generate. Respect that your current understanding of the content is ALWAYS just a starting place and that your mind could be changed at any moment IF you are successful in finding a piece of mind changing information. If the topic is not important, then we needn’t talk about it at all unless it will affect our relationship going forward. If that is the case, the topic should probably be the relationship!
Respect for the process is the third kind of respect. The process of conducting a critical discussion properly is an interpersonal discipline that has been honed and refined over centuries. It helps us to do things that are VERY difficult using the tools that most of us have – it helps reach the best possible decisions based on limited information and in the face of uncertainty. As we improve in using the process, we find that it is usually easy to get a great deal of information from knowledgeable sources. What an improvement over bullying and tricking each other into accepting partially formed ideas.
I leave Respect for yourself for the fourth kind. One should never enter a critical discussion depending on the respect of their counterpart. You cannot control that they will show it EVEN if you have earned it. But you can have respect for yourself by always being non-judgmental of your counterpart, being non-manipulative, remaining authentic and empathetic. You respect that you are intelligent and have skills in communication that others desperately need. You share them. You don’t allow yourself to bully or be bullied, manipulate or be manipulated, judge or be judged. When your counterpart violates these rules, you address it with compassion understanding that they don’t know any other way, or they would use it. Further if the counterpart shows disrespect for you by committing any of the errors that could drive you to defensiveness, you should give them the benefit of the doubt by assuming that they meant no harm and telling them that the behavior is unacceptable, describing how it marginalizes you, and explaining that their disrespect is unnecessary and distracts from the purpose of the conversation.
Insist on great business results! Go to Pathfinder Communication
Monday, February 2, 2009
Perspective
Thanks for all of your well wishes regarding my surgery. I am recovering nicely, and am grateful for friends like you.
We spoke last about the collaborative process and I introduced 15 items that YOU control that contribute to an atmosphere of safety, the keystone of collaborative magic.
As I have mentioned lots of times in these pages, safety is that quality in a conversation that makes others feel that they needn’t hold back things when they are speaking with you. They know some things about you, and chief among them is that you will not use what they tell you as a weapon. How do they know this? The same way you do! When you speak to someone and find yourself holding back, ask yourself why. Why wouldn’t you just share your thoughts, especially if it helped your employer get better results?
Some reasons that we don’t like to share our thoughts with some people:
They are sometimes insincere – We may feel that they have at one time or another said one thing and done another, perhaps on purpose.
They are sometimes judgmental - We may have seen them make judgments about people before and we fear we may be judged badly if we say the wrong thing, so we avoid telling a full version of the truth.
They are sometimes manipulative – We feel that they may sometimes “position” us or others, potentially putting us at risk.
They may sometimes threaten – We feel that they may sometimes overtly or subtly say things that indicate they will cause or allow unpleasant things to happen to us.
They may sometimes be competitive with us – We feel that they may use the information we give them to further themselves without giving (or sharing) credit.
These things drive us away from entering into collaboration. Who in their right mind would collaborate with someone that may treat us like THAT? Why take the chance? If YOU have a reputation for possessing any of these traits, you are driving people away from collaboration. You need to start reversing the damage immediately. It may take a while, and you need to start now.
If you are insincere, you need to show AUTHENTICITY. Authenticity is behaving in a manner consistent with your feelings. This needs to be done with respect and high purpose. For instance, without hurting another person’s feelings and for the good of your organization, you will need to tell just how you feel. Try this: Picture the person you love most in the world (your child, or spouse, or parent, or a dear friend). Picture the way you might behave in breaking some devastatingly bad news to them. It is hard, because you know how the news will hurt them. It affects you badly to have to tell them this, but you have to. You plan something to say and start to break the news, and when you see their reaction, you can’t help but feel genuine empathy for them. That feeling is an authentic feeling. There is nothing manufactured or calculated about it, and your behavior is completely consistent with that feeling. Now imagine you are delivering GREAT news to that same person. As you do, you feel amazing joy for them. You may laugh or cry, but whatever you do will be an authentic extension of your feelings. It is THAT unabridged connection between your feeling and your actions that portray authenticity.
It’s easy to imagine it when it is someone close to you, but what if it is just another guy at work? You need to practice OPENNESS. Openness is that quality that inhibits a judgmental attitude and allows us to extend the benefit of the doubt to others. By giving others the benefit of the doubt, we free ourselves to consider their words fully, without bias. We are WILLING to be influenced and OPEN to their idea. We will be fair in evaluating it. To behave with openness, all one must do is adopt a position that says “the person with whom I am speaking has ideas that they feel are important, justified, and valid. I will not allow my feelings about the person discourage me from being willing to accept their ideas IF they are good ideas”.
After listening to the ideas, be GENEROUS. If the ideas were good, allow yourself to be influenced by them and help to spread them, always giving proper credit (“you know, Paul had a great idea about this that I think you’ll find interesting”). If you don’t agree with the idea, be generous enough to say so in a constructive and supportive way (“I don’t feel that I have a sufficient understanding of your idea to really get behind it with you. I would be glad to listen if you have more to tell me about A, B, C…”).
People that display these behaviors to us make us feel respected, and we like to collaborate with people that respect us. Others will not want to collaborate with you if they feel you disrespect them.
Insist on great business results! Go to Pathfinder Communication
We spoke last about the collaborative process and I introduced 15 items that YOU control that contribute to an atmosphere of safety, the keystone of collaborative magic.
As I have mentioned lots of times in these pages, safety is that quality in a conversation that makes others feel that they needn’t hold back things when they are speaking with you. They know some things about you, and chief among them is that you will not use what they tell you as a weapon. How do they know this? The same way you do! When you speak to someone and find yourself holding back, ask yourself why. Why wouldn’t you just share your thoughts, especially if it helped your employer get better results?
Some reasons that we don’t like to share our thoughts with some people:
They are sometimes insincere – We may feel that they have at one time or another said one thing and done another, perhaps on purpose.
They are sometimes judgmental - We may have seen them make judgments about people before and we fear we may be judged badly if we say the wrong thing, so we avoid telling a full version of the truth.
They are sometimes manipulative – We feel that they may sometimes “position” us or others, potentially putting us at risk.
They may sometimes threaten – We feel that they may sometimes overtly or subtly say things that indicate they will cause or allow unpleasant things to happen to us.
They may sometimes be competitive with us – We feel that they may use the information we give them to further themselves without giving (or sharing) credit.
These things drive us away from entering into collaboration. Who in their right mind would collaborate with someone that may treat us like THAT? Why take the chance? If YOU have a reputation for possessing any of these traits, you are driving people away from collaboration. You need to start reversing the damage immediately. It may take a while, and you need to start now.
If you are insincere, you need to show AUTHENTICITY. Authenticity is behaving in a manner consistent with your feelings. This needs to be done with respect and high purpose. For instance, without hurting another person’s feelings and for the good of your organization, you will need to tell just how you feel. Try this: Picture the person you love most in the world (your child, or spouse, or parent, or a dear friend). Picture the way you might behave in breaking some devastatingly bad news to them. It is hard, because you know how the news will hurt them. It affects you badly to have to tell them this, but you have to. You plan something to say and start to break the news, and when you see their reaction, you can’t help but feel genuine empathy for them. That feeling is an authentic feeling. There is nothing manufactured or calculated about it, and your behavior is completely consistent with that feeling. Now imagine you are delivering GREAT news to that same person. As you do, you feel amazing joy for them. You may laugh or cry, but whatever you do will be an authentic extension of your feelings. It is THAT unabridged connection between your feeling and your actions that portray authenticity.
It’s easy to imagine it when it is someone close to you, but what if it is just another guy at work? You need to practice OPENNESS. Openness is that quality that inhibits a judgmental attitude and allows us to extend the benefit of the doubt to others. By giving others the benefit of the doubt, we free ourselves to consider their words fully, without bias. We are WILLING to be influenced and OPEN to their idea. We will be fair in evaluating it. To behave with openness, all one must do is adopt a position that says “the person with whom I am speaking has ideas that they feel are important, justified, and valid. I will not allow my feelings about the person discourage me from being willing to accept their ideas IF they are good ideas”.
After listening to the ideas, be GENEROUS. If the ideas were good, allow yourself to be influenced by them and help to spread them, always giving proper credit (“you know, Paul had a great idea about this that I think you’ll find interesting”). If you don’t agree with the idea, be generous enough to say so in a constructive and supportive way (“I don’t feel that I have a sufficient understanding of your idea to really get behind it with you. I would be glad to listen if you have more to tell me about A, B, C…”).
People that display these behaviors to us make us feel respected, and we like to collaborate with people that respect us. Others will not want to collaborate with you if they feel you disrespect them.
Insist on great business results! Go to Pathfinder Communication
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