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CRUCIAL™ SKILLS REMINDER
July 13, 2005
Volume 3, Issue 27
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IN THIS ISSUE

1. Quote of the Week
2. Tip of the Week
3. Survey Results: Talking Hi-Tech
4. Q&A: Travel Woes
5. Send Your Stories, Comments, and Questions
6. Where Can I Learn More?

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1. Quote of the Week
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“In violence we forget who we are.”

- Mary McCarthy

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2. Tip of the Week
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Watch for Helpless Stories

Are you facing any situations where you see yourself as powerless to get the results you’re after? Look to see if you are possibly telling a Helpless Story. Unlike Victim Stories where we deny our role in causing the problem, with Helpless Stories we deny our responsibility to come up with a solution. We tell ourselves that we have no options for taking healthy action. For example, do any of the following sound familiar?

• “If I didn’t yell at her, she wouldn’t listen.”

• “I’m just the kind of person who tells it like it is. It’s not my fault if people can’t take it.”

• “Why should I bother giving him feedback? He doesn’t care if he’s causing us problems.”

Break out of Helpless Stories by telling the rest of the story and asking yourself, “What can I do right now to move toward what I really want?”

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3. Survey Results: Talking Hi-Tech
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Thanks to all of you who participated in our survey last week entitled, "Talking Hi-Tech." Here are some highlights:

The survey showed more than 87% polled admit that using technology to avoid a confrontation is not effective at solving the issue. Moreover, 89% say technology is not very effective at maintaining a good working relationship.

Not surprisingly, 90% of those polled use e-mail or voice mail several times a day to communicate. About half use it to address problems, and more than half use it to address problems when they involve a peer. The primary reason for using technology with a peer is to be able to document concerns.

More than 92% say they will continue to use e-mail and voice mail to deal with these issues.

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4. Q&A: Travel Woes
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Dear Authors,

One late Friday afternoon while traveling on a commercial airline carrier that was completely packed (all seats sold--and I do mean all), I had the misfortune of getting a center seat. If this were not bad enough, it was summertime (and of course uncomfortably warm). The person seated immediately to my right in the aisle seat was extremely obese and a portion of that obesity was overlapping my leg from my hip to my knee. As you can imagine, after some time my leg began to sweat profusely, making me very uncomfortable. I immediately went to silence (while contemplating violence and praying that God would move that mountain). I endured this for a flight of perhaps 1 1/2 hours and never addressed the issue. Upon arrival at the destination airport, I was soaked in sweat from my hip to my knee.

How could a person address such an issue in a way to gain consideration without embarrassing or angering the other passenger?

Thanks for your thoughts on this important issue.

Signed,

Uncomfortable Passenger

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Answer by Joseph Grenny, coauthor of "Crucial Conversations" and “Crucial Confrontations”

Dear Uncomfortable,

I was particularly interested in responding to your question because it is phrased in a way that is remarkably honest and that illustrates one of the biggest reasons we (you, I, and most other people) sometimes stink at Crucial Confrontations.

We stink because we tell ourselves ugly stories about the person we need to confront. Now, I’m probably going to be unfair to you because if we spoke together I might find that some of your word choices were not intended the way I read them. But for the sake of a teaching opportunity, I beg you to let me use the words that are there to make a valuable point, okay? Here’s the point. It’s hard enough to talk to someone about personal physical issues. But it moves from hard to impossible when in our mind we hold negative judgments about them for it. The evidence for me that you may have negative judgments comes in word choices like, “praying that God would move that mountain.” The stories we often tell ourselves when others cause us problems tend to turn them from people into things in our minds. We objectify them. At times, we even villainize them.

What I’m saying here is that the biggest reason we tend to go to silence is that we don’t care about the other people involved--we simply see them as problems to be solved. And since we don’t care about their concerns, if we do speak up we tend to do it in a way that violates safety--the foundation of effective dialogue.

Let me give a personal example. I bought some food at an airport kiosk a while back and was treated--in my view--very rudely by the person preparing it. She had a tip jar at the cash register and I was confident she expected me to pay her for the service she had rendered. I had no intention of doing so. In fact, the tip I intended to give her was a crucial confrontation--I was going to give her feedback about her behavior. But fortunately the service was slow enough for me to examine my story about her before I opened my mouth. I realized I saw her as an obnoxious, self-centered person who was taking her misery at life out on me. My intention because of this story was not to give her feedback, but to give her punishment. Had I opened my mouth with that story driving my emotions I would have inevitably been condescending and rude. And when she reacted badly to my “feedback” I would have blamed her. In the yawning expanse of time during which I waited for my food I worked on my story. I tried to think about her day, her life, the previous customers, and even my officious food order. And something wonderful happened. I saw her as a person. And I still wanted to talk to her--but not just to give feedback, it was to serve her. And that changed everything. That’s a long way of saying “watch out.”

When someone is creating physical or emotional discomfort for you, you are at enormous risk of telling yourself a story that turns that person from a person into a thing. Which makes it more likely you’ll move to silence (after all, this kind of inconsiderate person isn’t likely to care--so why speak up?) or violence (they deserve to know how their lack of self-control inconveniences people around them--so I’ll be brutally honest).

Thanks for letting me go off on that harangue.

Final point. If there’s a conversation you need to have it’s not with the person next to you, but with the airline. The person did nothing wrong and had no option for doing anything different had you confronted him or her. The right conversation is with an airline that has not figured out how to accommodate people of different sizes without creating discomfort for them and others.

Best wishes,

Joseph

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For tips on rethinking the stories you may be telling about others, read Chapter 6 (Mastery My Stories) of the book “Crucial Conversations: Tools for Talking When Stakes are High.”

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5. Send Your Stories, Questions, and Comments
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The editors of the Crucial Skills Reminder welcome expressions of all views. “Before and After,” “Author Q&A,” and "Letters to the Editor" submissions may not exceed 300 words. All submissions will be edited for length, clarity, grammar, and taste and may be republished in any format. Submissions should be in plain text and not include attachments. All submissions must include the writer's e-mail address (for verification, not publication). We don't promise publication, and all submissions become the property of VitalSmarts, L.C.

Submit your stories, questions, and comments as follows:

Before and After
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This monthly feature will share real experiences from readers who have used Crucial Skills to overcome issues that were keeping them from getting the results they wanted.

Please send your stories to beforeandafter@vitalsmarts.com. Please include "BEFORE AND AFTER" in the subject line of your e-mail.

Author Q&A
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Submit your question to the authors of "Crucial Conversations" and “Crucial Confrontations” 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

Letters to the Editor
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Send us your comments, reactions, and opinions on content in the Crucial Skills Reminder. We'll publish letters once a month for others to read.

Please send your letters to letters@vitalsmarts.com and include "LETTERS" in the subject line of your e-mail.

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6. Where Can I Learn More?
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Web Seminars
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Join the authors of "Crucial Conversations" and “Crucial Confrontations in a free web seminar as follows:

Crucial Conversations

- July 28, 1-2:15 p.m. (Eastern) (general overview)
- August 24, 1:00-2:00 p.m. (Eastern) (general overview)
- September 15, 1:00-2:00 p.m. (Eastern) (general overview)

Crucial Confrontations

- July 20, 1-2:15 p.m. (Eastern) (general overview)
- August 11, 1:00-2:00 p.m. (Eastern) (general overview)
- September 7, 1:00-2:00 p.m. (Eastern) (general overview)

For details about each Web Seminar and to register online, visit
www.vitalsmarts.com/Events/?s=All&c=Webinars

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:

- August 1-2, Denver (Greenwood Village), CO*
- August 23-24, Chicago, IL*
- August 24-25, Baltimore, MD
- September 13-14, Irvine, CA*
- September 19-20, Detroit (Beverly Hills), MI*
- September 20-21, Dallas Ft Worth, TX*

Crucial Confrontations:

- August 23-24, Dallas Ft. Worth, TX*
- September 13-14, Denver (Greenwood Village), CO*
- September 19-20, Phoenix, AZ*
- September 20-21, Washington, DC*

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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