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TRANSCRIPT
Crucial Conversations“Stop Avoiding”
David Nowling
Senior Vice President
RBSlade & Associates LLC.
©2012 VitalSmarts, L.C. All Rights Reserved
Crucial Conversations“Stop Avoiding”
What is a Crucial Conversation?
Is Conversation an “Art”
What are the expected outcomes?
Crucial Conversations“Stop Avoiding”
• Why?, What drives these outcomes or expectations?
– Isn't it your Bank’s:
Mission
Vision &
Values?
Crucial Conversations“Stop Avoiding”
• Exercise……..
– Congratulations, you have all been hired as experts, consultants. I will give you your assignment on a card.
Crucial Conversations“Stop Avoiding”
• What holds you back, what keeps you from being a “Dialogue Master”?
• Skills?
• Confidence?
• Motivation?
Crucial Conversations“Stop Avoiding”
Crucial Conversations“Stop Avoiding”
Crucial Conversations“Stop Avoiding”
When we are in a crucial conversation, we have two choices:
Talk it out .. Or Act it out
-When it matters the most,
we often do our worst!
Crucial Conversations“Stop Avoiding”
My left-hand column
Left-hand Right-hand
Crucial Conversations“Stop Avoiding”
Crucial Conversations“Stop Avoiding”
Crucial Conversations“Stop Avoiding”
• The first thing that degrades in a crucial conversation is not our behavior, that is second.. It is our motive..
• Work on me first: As much as we would love to fix everyone else, the truth is we need to work on ourselves first.
Crucial Conversations“Stop Avoiding”
• If you first don’t change your heart, any efforts to change your actions are likely to be insincere, shallow, and doomed to failure.
• We become blind to our own role in the problem
• Our motives degrade…. And we limit our choices.
Skill: Start with Heart
1) Work on me first
2) Focus on what you really want: Ask yourself… What is it I really want for myself and others
How would I behave if I did
Then behave as if you really do
Skill: Start with Heart
Tension, needs improved
Reasonably good
Strong, Positive
Relationships
Skill: Learn to Look
When a conversation turns crucial, we either miss or misinterpret the early warning signs.
• Worst: The worst at dialogue don’t notice the conditions are failing. Instead they react to the failed conditions, and they themselves move to either silence or violence.
• Good: Skilled people recognize that others are moving to silence or violence, and they water down their message to keep things from getting worse.
Skill: Learn to Look
Best: Quickly recognize when a conversation has turned crucial and silence or violence is introduced and use their skills to keep the meeting on track.
Solution: The sooner we notice we are not in dialogue, the quicker we can get back to dialogue and lower the cost.
Skill: Learn to Look
Silence is defined as any action taken to withhold information from the pool of meaning. It ranges from playing verbal games to avoiding a person entirely.
• Masking: Selectively showing our true opinion. Sarcasm, sugarcoating, and couching.
• Avoiding: Staying completely away from sensitive subjects. We talk but without addressing the real issues.
• Withdrawing: Pulling out of communication. Steering clear of those who might raise difficult issues
Skill: Learn to Look
Violence is defined as any action taken to compel others towards your point of view.
• Controlling: coercing others through how we share our views or drive the conversations itself. Cutting others off, overstating opinions, speaking in
absolutes.
• Labeling: is putting a label on people or ideas so we can dismiss them under a general stereotype
• Attacking: speaks for itself. Given up the goal of convincing and have adopted the goal of punishing.
Skill: Learn to Look
Learn to look for your own style under stress:
• By knowing what we typically do when our emotions start to kick in, we are able to put up a “caution sign” keep close tabs on our own reactions, guard against the worst tendencies, and either avoid problems altogether or catch them early.
Skill: Master my Stories
When it matters the most and our emotions kick in, we often do our worst - - and we feel like we are doing the right thing.
When we tell a story, which one does it sound like
Example A, or
Example B
Skill: Master my Stories
Skill: Master my Stories
Our “Stories” create our emotions
Our “Stories” create a path or direction for our response.
See & hear Tell a story Feel Act
Skill: Master my Stories
Skill: Master my Stories
Learn to Separate Facts from Stories
Retrace your path to action to its origin. Separate your facts (observations and feelings) from your stories.
Facts are visible and audible, they are verifiable. Facts include behaviors.
Stories are judgments, conclusions, and attributions that we make from facts.
Crucial Conversations“Stop Avoiding”
Let’s pull this all together
–Start with Heart
–Work on “me” first
–Learn to look –
–Master my stories
Crucial Conversations“Stop Avoiding”
Dave’s Approach to Crucial Conversations
Write out every critical meeting, several times before it even takes place.
Start with Heart and make sure my approach is consistent. (What is it I really want)
Start with purpose and intention of meeting, and what you’re going to tell them.
Facts… just the facts - Facts lead to a story
Ask for others paths (validating my story)
Talk tentatively
Crucial Conversations“Stop Avoiding”
Dave’s Approach to Crucial Conversations
• Consider the audience and keep it at the appropriate level
• DON’T PILE ON• Be open and willing to be tested• After the meeting, revisit, what would you do
differently …..
Crucial Conversations“Stop Avoiding”
Thank you for your time and attention, I wish you the best.