Start with Heart
When conversations become crucial you’ll resort to the form of communication that you’ve grown up with - debate, silent treatment, manipulation, and so on.
More often than not, we do something to contribute to the problems we’re experiencing. People who are best at dialogue understand this simple fact and turn it into the principle “Work on me first.”
They realize that not only are they likely to benefit by improving their own approach, but also that they’re the only person they can work on anyway. As much as others need to change, or we may want them to change, the only person we can continually inspire, prod, and shape – with any degree of success – is the person in the mirror.
There is a certain irony embedded in this fact. People who believe they need to start with themselves do just that. As they work on themselves, they also become the most skilled at dialogue. So here’s the irony. It’s the most talented, not the least talented, who are continually trying to improve their dialogue skills. As is often the case, the rich get richer.
Although it’s difficult to describe the specific order of events in an interaction as fluid as a crucial conversation, we do know one thing for certain: Skilled people Start with Heart. That is, they begin high-risk discussion with the right motives, and they stay focused on the right motives no matter what happens.
They maintain this focus in two ways:
First, they’re steely-eyed smart when it comes to knowing what they want. Despite constant invitations to slip away from their goals, they stick with them.
Second, skilled people don’t make Sucker’s Choices (either/or choices).
Unlike others who justify their unhealthy behavior by explaining that they had no choice but to fight or take a flight, the dialogue-smart believe that dialogue, no matter the circumstances, is always an option.
To see how the desires of our hearts can affect our ability to stay in dialogue, let’s take a look at a real-life example.
Greta, the CEO of a mid-sized corporation, is two hours into a rather tense meeting with her top leaders. For the past six months she has been on a personal campaign to reduce costs. Little has been accomplished to date, so Greta calls the meeting. Surely people will tell her why they haven’t started cutting costs. After all, she has take great pains to foster candor.
Greta has just opened the meeting to questions when a manager haltingly rises his feet, fidgets, stares at the floor, and then nervously asks if he can ask a very tough question. The way the fellow emphasizes the word very makes it sound as if he’s about to accuse Greta of kidnapping the Lindbergh baby.
The frightened manager continues.
“Greta, you’ve been at us for six months to find out ways to cut costs. I’d be but lying if I said that we’ve given you much more than a lukewarm response. If you don’t mind, I’d like to tell you about one thing that’s making it tough for us to push for cost cuts.”
“Great. Fire away.” Greta says as she smiles in response.
“Well, while you’ve been asking us to use both sides of our paper and forego improvements, you’re having a second office built.”
Greta freezes and turns bright red. Everyone looks to see what will happen next. The manager plunges on ahead.
“The rumor is that the furniture alone will cost $150,000. Is that right?”
So there we have it. The conversation just turns crucial. Someone has just poured a rather ugly tidbit into the pool of meaning. Will Greta continue to encourage honest feedback, or will she shut the fellow down?
We call this a crucial conversation because how Greta acts during the next few moments will not only set people’s attitudes toward the proposed cost cutting, but will also have a huge impact on what the other leaders think about her. Does she walk the talk of openness and honesty? Or is she a raging hypocrite – like so many of the senior executives who came before her?
How Greta behaves during this crucial conversation depends a great deal on how she handles her emotions while under attack.
If she is like most of us, Greta will defense herself. When we’re in the throes of high-stakes conversations, new (and less healthy) motives often supplant our original, more noble ones. If you are standing in front of a potentially hostile crowd, it’s a good bet you will change your original goal to the new goal of protecting your public image.
“Excuse me,” you might response. “I don’t think that my new office is an appropriate topic for this forum.”
Bang. You’re dead. In one fell swoop you’ve lost buy-in, destroyed any hope for candor in this particular conversation, and confirmed everyone’s suspicion that you want honesty – but as long as it makes you look good.
Later that day we asked Greta how she had been able to keep her composure under fire. We wanted to know exactly what had been going on in her head. What had helped her move from embarrassment and anger to gratitude?
“It was easy,” Greta explained.” At first I did feel attacked, and I wanted to strike back. To be honest, I wanted to put that guy in his place. He was accusing me in public and he was wrong.”
“And then it struck me,” she continued. “Despite the fact that I had four hundred eyeballs pinned to me, a rather important question hit me like a ton of bricks: “What do I really want?”
Asking this question had a powerful effect on Greta’s thinking. As she focused on this far more important question, she quickly realized that her goal was to encourage these two hundred managers to embrace the cost-reduction efforts – and to thereby influence thousands of others to do the same.
As Greta contemplated this goal, she realized that the biggest barrier she faced was the widespread belief that she was a hypocrite. On one hand, she was calling for others to sacrifice. On the other hand, she appeared to be spending discretionary funds for her own comfort. It was at that moment that she was no longer ashamed or angry, but grateful. She couldn’t have asked for a better opportunity to influence these leaders than the one offered up by this penetrating question. And so she moves to dialogue.
Refocus your brain. Now, let’s move to a situation you might face. You’re speaking with someone who completely disagrees with you on a hot issue. How does all of this goal stuff apply? As you begin the discussion, start by examining your motives. Going in, ask yourself what you really want.
In order to move back to motives that allow for dialogue, you must step away from the interaction and look at yourself – much like an outsider. Ask yourself: “What am I doing, and if I had to guess, what does it tell me about my underlying motive?”
As you make an honest effort to discover your motive, you might conclude: “Let’s see. I am pushing hard, making the argument stronger than I actually believe, and doing anything to win an argument.”
Once you call into question the shifting desires of your heart, you can make conscious choices to change them. “What I really want is to genuinely try to find solution rather than try to win people over to my ideas.” Put succinctly, when you name the game, you can stop playing it. Do what Greta did. Stop and ask yourself some questions that return you to dialogue. Here are some great ones:
· What do I really want for myself?
· What do I really want for others?
· What do I really want for the relationship?
· How would I behave if I really wanted these results?
Asking questions about what we really want serves two important purposes:
First, it reminds us of our goal.
Second, it juices our brain in a way that helps us keep focused.
Wanting to win
This particular dialogue killer sits at the top of many of our lists. Heaven only knows that we come by this deadly passion naturally enough. Half of the TV programs we watch make heroes out of people who win at sports or game shows. Ten minutes into kindergarten we learnt hat if we want to get the teachers’ attention, we have to spout the right answer. That means we have to beat our fellow students at the same game. This desire to win is built into our very fiber before we’re old enough to know what’s going on. Unfortunately, as we grow older, most of us don’t realize that this desire to win is continually driving us away from healthy dialogue.
Hoping to remain safe
Of course, we don’t always fix mistakes, aggressively discredit others, or heartlessly try to make them suffer. Sometimes we choose personal safety over dialogue. Rather than add to the pool of meaning, and possibly make waves along the way, we go to silence. We’re so uncomfortable with the immediate conflict that we accept the certainty of bad results to avoid the possibility of uncomfortable conversation. We choose (at least in our minds) peace over conflict. Had this happened in Greta’s case, nobody would have raised concerns over the new office, Greta never would have learned the real issue, and people would have continued to drag their feet.
The best at dialogue present themselves with questions that turn either/or choice into a search for the all important and ever-elusive and. Here’s how it works.
First, clarify what you really want. If you know what you want for yourself, for others, and for the relationship, then you’re in position to break out of the Sucker’s Choice.
Second, clarify what you really don’t want, add it to what you want. This is the key to framing and question. Ask your mind to start searching for healthy options to bring you to dialogue.
“What I don’t want is to have useless and heated conversation that creates bad feelings and doesn’t lead to change.”
Third, present your brain with a more complex problem.
Finally, combine the two into an and question that forces you to search for more creative and productive options than silence and violence.
“How can I have a candid conversation with my husband about being more dependable and avoid creating bad feelings or wasting our time?”
It’s interesting to watch what happens when people are presented with and questions after being stuck with Sucker’s Choice. Their faces become reflective, their eyes open wider, and they begin to think.
Summary - Start with Heart
Work on Me First
· Remember that the only person you can directly control is yourself.
Focus on What You Really Want
· When you find yourself moving toward silence or violence, stop and pay attention to your motives.
o Ask yourself: “What does my behavior tell me about what my motives are?”
o Then, clarify what you really want. Ask yourself: “What do I want for myself? For others? For the relationship?”
o And finally, ask: “How would I behave if this were what I really wanted?”
Refuse the Sucker’s Choice
· Clarify what you don’t want, add it to what you do want, and ask your mind to start searching for healthy options to bring you to dialogue.
More often than not, we do something to contribute to the problems we’re experiencing. People who are best at dialogue understand this simple fact and turn it into the principle “Work on me first.”
They realize that not only are they likely to benefit by improving their own approach, but also that they’re the only person they can work on anyway. As much as others need to change, or we may want them to change, the only person we can continually inspire, prod, and shape – with any degree of success – is the person in the mirror.
There is a certain irony embedded in this fact. People who believe they need to start with themselves do just that. As they work on themselves, they also become the most skilled at dialogue. So here’s the irony. It’s the most talented, not the least talented, who are continually trying to improve their dialogue skills. As is often the case, the rich get richer.
Although it’s difficult to describe the specific order of events in an interaction as fluid as a crucial conversation, we do know one thing for certain: Skilled people Start with Heart. That is, they begin high-risk discussion with the right motives, and they stay focused on the right motives no matter what happens.
They maintain this focus in two ways:
First, they’re steely-eyed smart when it comes to knowing what they want. Despite constant invitations to slip away from their goals, they stick with them.
Second, skilled people don’t make Sucker’s Choices (either/or choices).
Unlike others who justify their unhealthy behavior by explaining that they had no choice but to fight or take a flight, the dialogue-smart believe that dialogue, no matter the circumstances, is always an option.
To see how the desires of our hearts can affect our ability to stay in dialogue, let’s take a look at a real-life example.
Greta, the CEO of a mid-sized corporation, is two hours into a rather tense meeting with her top leaders. For the past six months she has been on a personal campaign to reduce costs. Little has been accomplished to date, so Greta calls the meeting. Surely people will tell her why they haven’t started cutting costs. After all, she has take great pains to foster candor.
Greta has just opened the meeting to questions when a manager haltingly rises his feet, fidgets, stares at the floor, and then nervously asks if he can ask a very tough question. The way the fellow emphasizes the word very makes it sound as if he’s about to accuse Greta of kidnapping the Lindbergh baby.
The frightened manager continues.
“Greta, you’ve been at us for six months to find out ways to cut costs. I’d be but lying if I said that we’ve given you much more than a lukewarm response. If you don’t mind, I’d like to tell you about one thing that’s making it tough for us to push for cost cuts.”
“Great. Fire away.” Greta says as she smiles in response.
“Well, while you’ve been asking us to use both sides of our paper and forego improvements, you’re having a second office built.”
Greta freezes and turns bright red. Everyone looks to see what will happen next. The manager plunges on ahead.
“The rumor is that the furniture alone will cost $150,000. Is that right?”
So there we have it. The conversation just turns crucial. Someone has just poured a rather ugly tidbit into the pool of meaning. Will Greta continue to encourage honest feedback, or will she shut the fellow down?
We call this a crucial conversation because how Greta acts during the next few moments will not only set people’s attitudes toward the proposed cost cutting, but will also have a huge impact on what the other leaders think about her. Does she walk the talk of openness and honesty? Or is she a raging hypocrite – like so many of the senior executives who came before her?
How Greta behaves during this crucial conversation depends a great deal on how she handles her emotions while under attack.
If she is like most of us, Greta will defense herself. When we’re in the throes of high-stakes conversations, new (and less healthy) motives often supplant our original, more noble ones. If you are standing in front of a potentially hostile crowd, it’s a good bet you will change your original goal to the new goal of protecting your public image.
“Excuse me,” you might response. “I don’t think that my new office is an appropriate topic for this forum.”
Bang. You’re dead. In one fell swoop you’ve lost buy-in, destroyed any hope for candor in this particular conversation, and confirmed everyone’s suspicion that you want honesty – but as long as it makes you look good.
Later that day we asked Greta how she had been able to keep her composure under fire. We wanted to know exactly what had been going on in her head. What had helped her move from embarrassment and anger to gratitude?
“It was easy,” Greta explained.” At first I did feel attacked, and I wanted to strike back. To be honest, I wanted to put that guy in his place. He was accusing me in public and he was wrong.”
“And then it struck me,” she continued. “Despite the fact that I had four hundred eyeballs pinned to me, a rather important question hit me like a ton of bricks: “What do I really want?”
Asking this question had a powerful effect on Greta’s thinking. As she focused on this far more important question, she quickly realized that her goal was to encourage these two hundred managers to embrace the cost-reduction efforts – and to thereby influence thousands of others to do the same.
As Greta contemplated this goal, she realized that the biggest barrier she faced was the widespread belief that she was a hypocrite. On one hand, she was calling for others to sacrifice. On the other hand, she appeared to be spending discretionary funds for her own comfort. It was at that moment that she was no longer ashamed or angry, but grateful. She couldn’t have asked for a better opportunity to influence these leaders than the one offered up by this penetrating question. And so she moves to dialogue.
Refocus your brain. Now, let’s move to a situation you might face. You’re speaking with someone who completely disagrees with you on a hot issue. How does all of this goal stuff apply? As you begin the discussion, start by examining your motives. Going in, ask yourself what you really want.
In order to move back to motives that allow for dialogue, you must step away from the interaction and look at yourself – much like an outsider. Ask yourself: “What am I doing, and if I had to guess, what does it tell me about my underlying motive?”
As you make an honest effort to discover your motive, you might conclude: “Let’s see. I am pushing hard, making the argument stronger than I actually believe, and doing anything to win an argument.”
Once you call into question the shifting desires of your heart, you can make conscious choices to change them. “What I really want is to genuinely try to find solution rather than try to win people over to my ideas.” Put succinctly, when you name the game, you can stop playing it. Do what Greta did. Stop and ask yourself some questions that return you to dialogue. Here are some great ones:
· What do I really want for myself?
· What do I really want for others?
· What do I really want for the relationship?
· How would I behave if I really wanted these results?
Asking questions about what we really want serves two important purposes:
First, it reminds us of our goal.
Second, it juices our brain in a way that helps us keep focused.
Wanting to win
This particular dialogue killer sits at the top of many of our lists. Heaven only knows that we come by this deadly passion naturally enough. Half of the TV programs we watch make heroes out of people who win at sports or game shows. Ten minutes into kindergarten we learnt hat if we want to get the teachers’ attention, we have to spout the right answer. That means we have to beat our fellow students at the same game. This desire to win is built into our very fiber before we’re old enough to know what’s going on. Unfortunately, as we grow older, most of us don’t realize that this desire to win is continually driving us away from healthy dialogue.
Hoping to remain safe
Of course, we don’t always fix mistakes, aggressively discredit others, or heartlessly try to make them suffer. Sometimes we choose personal safety over dialogue. Rather than add to the pool of meaning, and possibly make waves along the way, we go to silence. We’re so uncomfortable with the immediate conflict that we accept the certainty of bad results to avoid the possibility of uncomfortable conversation. We choose (at least in our minds) peace over conflict. Had this happened in Greta’s case, nobody would have raised concerns over the new office, Greta never would have learned the real issue, and people would have continued to drag their feet.
The best at dialogue present themselves with questions that turn either/or choice into a search for the all important and ever-elusive and. Here’s how it works.
First, clarify what you really want. If you know what you want for yourself, for others, and for the relationship, then you’re in position to break out of the Sucker’s Choice.
Second, clarify what you really don’t want, add it to what you want. This is the key to framing and question. Ask your mind to start searching for healthy options to bring you to dialogue.
“What I don’t want is to have useless and heated conversation that creates bad feelings and doesn’t lead to change.”
Third, present your brain with a more complex problem.
Finally, combine the two into an and question that forces you to search for more creative and productive options than silence and violence.
“How can I have a candid conversation with my husband about being more dependable and avoid creating bad feelings or wasting our time?”
It’s interesting to watch what happens when people are presented with and questions after being stuck with Sucker’s Choice. Their faces become reflective, their eyes open wider, and they begin to think.
Summary - Start with Heart
Work on Me First
· Remember that the only person you can directly control is yourself.
Focus on What You Really Want
· When you find yourself moving toward silence or violence, stop and pay attention to your motives.
o Ask yourself: “What does my behavior tell me about what my motives are?”
o Then, clarify what you really want. Ask yourself: “What do I want for myself? For others? For the relationship?”
o And finally, ask: “How would I behave if this were what I really wanted?”
Refuse the Sucker’s Choice
· Clarify what you don’t want, add it to what you do want, and ask your mind to start searching for healthy options to bring you to dialogue.
posted by Inspirational Articles at 7:47 AM
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