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CRUCIAL™ SKILLS REMINDER
April 13, 2005
Volume 3, Issue 15
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IN THIS ISSUE

1. Tip of the Week
2. Crucial Applications: Landing That Job
3. Q&A: Outbursts during Church Meetings
4. Send Your Questions
5. Where Can I Learn More?

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1. Tip of the Week
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Watch for Villain Stories

When you find yourself telling a story that vilifies another person, it can be hard to reach dialogue with that person. When you find yourself telling stories like “It’s all her fault,” or “I know I was tough on him, but he’s a pompous weasel,” make a conscious effort to mentally turn the person from a villain back into a human. Ask the “humanizing question”:

Why would a reasonable, rational, and decent person do what the other person is doing?

You aren’t trying to assume the best of the other person in order to ignore his or her weaknesses. Don’t ignore a genuine problem. However, starting a crucial conversation by assuming the best helps you balance the picture. That way your story’s not entirely one sided and you have a better chance of keeping your emotions in check.

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2. Crucial Applications: Landing That Job
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By Kerry Patterson

You’re seated across from an interviewer who is waiting to be impressed. What will make you stand out from the herd? Well, like it or not, it probably won’t be your academic record. Your resume is also a feature that can only serve to eliminate you if you haven’t done it well. Grades, classes, and resumes rarely set you apart.

So what makes the difference? It’s your ability to master crucial conversations that is most likely to land you that job. Every time you talk with a future employer, you’re in the middle of a crucial conversation. Stakes are high, opinions vary, and emotions run strong.

Why would recruiters pay so much attention to your interpersonal skill as demonstrated during the interview? Interpersonal skills matter because in a real job, you work in a social environment made up of small groups and teams. Individuals who aren’t able to express themselves well aren’t heard, so their best ideas are often missed. Additionally, individuals who fall apart under the pressure of an interview aren’t going to stand up to the tension-filled conversations offered up most days at work.

Some helpful tips on landing that job:

1. Work on Your Mindset

Convince yourself that you want the job and you’d be honored to work for the company. Otherwise, you’re not a good enough actor to hide your uncertainty or possible disdain. You can always say no later.

2. Read Your Audience

As much as the interview feels like it’s about you, it’s not. It’s about how well you’ll fit into the new culture. That means you need to know something about the company and people you’re talking to. Do your homework. Also, as the interview unfolds, watch for nonverbal cues.

3. Practice Holding Crucial Conversations with a Friend

Practice both advocating and listening. Ask your friend to see if you speak confidently without seeming pushy or brash, and if you carefully listen. Ask clarifying questions when necessary.

4. Ask for the Job

You’d be surprised how many people aren’t offered a job because they didn’t have the moxie to ask for it.

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3. Q&A: Outbursts during Church Meetings
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Dear Authors,

During monthly "Church Council" meetings, the norm has been for one or more outbursts to occur. More often than that not, the issue surrounds church finances or something our senior pastor has or has not done. As chairperson of the meeting, how can I best defuse volatile outbursts during meetings while still maintaining an atmosphere where church members feel safe to appropriately express concerns?

Sincerely,

Frustrated

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Answer by Al Switzler, coauthor of "Crucial Conversations" and “Crucial Confrontations”

Dear Frustrated,

Whether at home, at work, or at a church meeting, sometimes we run into behaviors that we know are counterproductive. These behaviors, like “volatile outbursts,” cause the positive feelings in the room to dissipate and people to shut down. When they shut down, they don’t contribute their questions or ideas and, perhaps more importantly, their level of commitment and engagement decreases. So planning and taking action both suffer. Certainly those are outcomes that no team leader, chairperson, manager, colleague, parent, family member, etc., wants to have happen.

So, the problem is clear and unfortunately widespread. What are some solutions?

Here are some tips and skills that we learned and then shared in our book “Crucial Confrontations: Tools for Resolving Broken Promises, Violated Expectations, and Bad Behaviors.” Wow--even the title seems to promise some solutions! So here we go.

Step 1: Give the other person the benefit of the doubt.

In training we encourage people not to jump to conclusions about others. We don’t know why they are acting the way they are. It’s easy to mentally categorize them as “insensitive,” “bullies,” or “the last living Neanderthal relics.” We ask, “How come they don’t get it? Can’t they see the problems they are causing?” The cure for labeling other people or for telling ourselves stories that allow us to dismiss them is to ask the humanizing question: “Why would a reasonable, rational, decent human being act like that?” Could there be reasons that you don’t know? Often we tell ourselves that the other person is acting this way because he or she just doesn’t care about others’ feelings or is being selfish--interested only in his or her own agenda. This question helps us suspend our judgments, be more patient, and seek to understand or diagnose before we act. When we ask these kinds of questions, we don’t vilify the other person. We also don’t oversimplify. Maybe the person has stress at home, or has a constituency that is influencing him or her to “win, and accept nothing else,” or maybe, and this is pretty common, the person doesn’t have the interpersonal skills required when topics get emotional.

Step 2: Safely Describe the Gap.

By “Describing the Gap” we mean describing the difference between what was expected and what was observed. You expected productive dialogue, but you instead witnessed emotional outbursts. You can make describing the gap safe by inviting the person to talk in a private setting. You can make it safe by showing in your attitude, your facial expressions, and your tone of voice that you are not frustrated or angry. You have not prejudged the person. Your intentions are to share what you’ve observed, seek to understand, and then to find a solution. It might sound like this, “In our church council meetings, we’d like a very positive climate that is candid and respectful. Last night, you raised your voice, called the decision ‘one of the most miserable in history,’ and then said, ‘Why can’t we do something smart once in a while.’ I believe that affected climate of the meeting and the involvement of the people there. Can we talk about this? I’d like to understand why you acted that way.”

Step 3: Diagnose.

Now you pause and listen to diagnose the real cause behind this behavior. You’ll hear reasons why the person is acting the way he or she is acting. The reasons you hear will help you understand whether this person is being influence by motivation issues, ability barriers, or a combination of both. Here is a brief list of some of the possible responses with some annotation.

* “Oh chill out, it’s not a big deal.” (Motivation)
* “I know, but it’s so hard for me to control my temper around an issue I care so much about.” (Ability)
* “Come on, that was just healthy debate.” (Motivation)
* “John started it . . . did you see how he disregarded my data?” (Motivation)
* “My leader told me to make sure I didn’t give an inch on this budget.” (Motivation)
* “I know I have a problem. I’ve offended my spouse and my brother by yelling just this week. I don’t know what to do about it.” (Ability)

Step 4: Seek a solution.

Without getting into the details of how to solve them (we have whole chapters devoted to this in “Crucial Confrontations”), let me suggest that you solve motivation and ability problems very differently. For motivation, you help the other person understand the consequences of the problem to self, to others, and to your organization. To solve ability problems, ask for ideas and jointly explore ability barriers.

Step 5: Get an agreement.

This last bit of advice is surprisingly easy and often the core issue. Excellent performance begins with clear agreements. There are two points on this: 1) If you get a solution, determine specific steps--we teach who, does what, by when, and follow-up in the book. 2) Determine some ground rules. Often teams have clear goals on technical or business issues like due dates, budgets, and quality standards. They often don’t have agreements that are specific and clear around the more intangible aspects of working together--like cooperation, communication, initiative, or style. I think getting an agreement about what appropriate behavior means in your church council would help the individuals involved. It might sound like this: “Each of us will be respectful and candid in our communications in the meeting. If we feel ourselves getting emotional, particularly if we get angry and raise our voices, we will pause and ask questions of the other person to get more perspective.” And so on. Another agreement or ground rule that might help is this: “If someone loses his or her temper in the meeting, we will privately talk to the person to help coach.”

These steps can help you deal with an issue that won’t go away unless it is honestly and safely addressed. This is, by the way, what a crucial confrontation is--a face-to-face accountability talk conducted with safety, respect, and candor.

Best wishes

Al Switzler

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For more on diagnosing and dealing with the root causes of a problem, see Chapter 4 (Make It Motivating) and Chapter 5 (Make It Easy) of the book “Crucial Confrontations: Tools for Resolving Broken Promises, Violated Expectations, and Bad Behavior.”

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4. Send Your Questions
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Submit your question to the authors of "Crucial Conversations" at www.vitalsmarts.com/CrucialSkills/FreeStuff/AskAnAuthor/
Or e-mail it to questions@vitalsmarts.com.

We do our best to answer those questions that reflect the interests of our readers. For more about the authors of "Crucial Conversations," visit http://www.vitalsmarts.com/CrucialSkills/Product/TheAuthors.aspx

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5. Where Can I Learn More?
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Special Author Events
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Don't miss your opportunity to learn more about Crucial Skills by attending a special author event where one of the authors will teach you to handle crucial situations well and get the results you want.

For details about each author event and to register online, visit www.vitalsmarts.com/Events/?s=All&c=Introductory%20Workshop

Web Seminars
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Join the authors of "Crucial Conversations" and “Crucial Confrontations in a free web seminar as follows:

- April 14, 1-2 p.m. (Eastern) (general overview of Crucial Confrontations)

- April 19, 1-2 p.m. (Eastern) (general overview of Crucial Conversations)

Open Enrollment Training
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Crucial Skills Training offers intensive skills training in our principles and methods. For in-house training conducted by your staff or one of our professional facilitators, contact your VitalSmarts representative. Open enrollment courses are also available as follows:

Crucial Conversations:

- April 26-27, New York, NY*
- May 10-11, Baltimore, MD*
- May 10-11, Troy, MI *
- May 10-11, SF Bay Area, CA
- May 10-11, Greenwood Village (Denver), CO *
- May 17-18, Chicago, IL*
- May 24-25, Salt Lake City, UT*
- June 14-15, Dallas Ft. Worth, TX*
- June 21-22, Irvine, CA*
- June 21-22, Arlington, VA*
- June 21-22, Cleveland, OH*

Crucial Confrontations:

- April 19-20, Independence (Cleveland), OH*
- April 26-27, Washington, DC*
- June 14-15, Southern CA*
- June 20-21, Troy, MI*
- June 21-22, Greenwood Village, CO*

Additional course dates are available at www.vitalsmarts.com/Events/?s=All&c=Training

*Trainer certification is also offered directly following most Training. For more information or to sign up, contact your VitalSmarts representative or visit www.vitalsmarts.com/Events/?s=All&c=t

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