Influencer Online— January 16th

Dear Crucial Skills,

I recently got a call from the head of another department. He asked me, "Why are the analysts afraid to ask you for a work product?"

I tried to build in safety and replied I wasn't sure why that would be and that my department worked hard to meet requests.

This isn't the first time this manager has called with this type of pointed question. After taking the position, he explained that "in their opinion, the Rapid Response Group wasn't very rapid."

Do you have any suggestions on how to deal with someone who seems to have no method of communicating other than attacking?

--Signed,

Attacked

Several months ago, I presented a Crucial Conversations workshop to managers of a Fortune 100 company. At the end of the presentation, one senior IT manager approached me and said how much he enjoyed the presentation and how helpful he found many of the concepts. He then asked if our Crucial Conversations course was open to the public—he wanted his wife to attend.

This IT manager was not the first to approach me with such a request. As a VitalSmarts Master Trainer, one of the most common questions I receive is "What if my boss/spouse/teenaged child/mother-in-law doesn't know the skills?"

Dialogue is certainly easier to achieve when all parties participate and share meaning in a respectful, safe, and skilled way. This is one of the reasons we encourage intact teams within organizations to go through the training together. But, just because it is easier when all parties are skilled at dialogue does not mean you can only dialogue with someone else who knows the skills. Even if your boss, spouse, teenaged child, or mother-in-law doesn't have top-notch dialogue skills, you can still have a successful conversation.

So, what do you do when someone has an attacking style of communication? You have already taken the first step by recognizing that you are dealing with a process issue (how we are communicating) rather than a content issue (what we are communicating about). When process issues arise—when someone is in silence or violence rather than dialogue—you need to step out of the content and address the process. Sometimes this can be done in the same conversation; often, it works best to initiate a separate conversation about the process concern.

As you think about how to approach this conversation, make sure to let the person know you don't want to discuss a particular incident but rather the process of how you are communicating.

"I'd like to take a few minutes to talk about how we are working together."

You don't want the other person to start attacking, so make sure to build some safety:

"I don't want you to think I don't value the work you do or the feedback you have given our team in the past. I really appreciate your willingness to bring your concerns with my group's performance directly to me. I would like to talk about how you raise those concerns."

Then, explain your concerns about the process, not content:

"There have been times when you have called with a question like "Why are the analysts afraid to ask you for a work product?" When you ask questions like that, it seems like you have already made a judgment on my behavior or approach. It feels like an attack on me. I don't think that is what you intend; however, that is how it impacts me. Do you see it differently?"

One tip on this: When addressing a process concern, you still want to use facts to support your conclusions. Yet, often, when you present a fact, the other person will seize on this as the main issue. It's not. The process of how you are communicating is the issue, not the fact you used to illustrate that process. Make sure you are prepared to refocus the conversation:

"My goal isn't to talk about one question or one incident. Rather, I'd like to discuss the process of how we communicate in general."

Finally, remember that if your goal truly is to dialogue with this person about his attacking behavior, you are responsible not only for sharing your meaning but for helping him to share meaning as well. Exploring skills like asking, mirroring, paraphrasing, and priming, work equally well when someone is in silence or violence.

Warmly,

Emily Moss

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I Was a Crucial Conversations Drop Out

At the conclusion of each training session I conduct, I like to make some homework assignments—something to help participants pass the time in-between sessions and give them a direct experience with the material. I find this practice especially helpful when conducting multi-sessions that are spaced out over a period of several weeks.

During a recent spaced-learning engagement, one of the participants raised his hand to share how his homework went. He had decided to try out a couple of the safety skills—and he decided to try the skills out on his teen-aged son. Here was his report:

“I tried it out with my son as we were talking about which colleges might be the best fit for him. I was using the skills, creating safety left and right, and boom! Visibly upset, my son ended the discussion, got up and walked out of the room. As he walked away, I realized I was a Crucial Conversations drop-out. It came to me that while the skills and approach sounded perfect in the controlled environment of the classroom, they really didn’t work in reality—at least not with my teen-aged reality. And right in the middle of swearing an oath to never return to class, my son came back into the room, apologized for his rude behavior, and asked to restart where we left off in the college destination discussion. I was shocked.”

The participant went on to share his big “aha” revelation: even though the Crucial Conversations approach didn’t appear to work in the moment, it prepared his son to be receptive at a later time. Too often we think only in terms of the actual conversation – the 20 minutes the conversation may last. We tend to dismiss the long-term interaction that continues after those initial 20 minutes.

What may seem like an initial failure may only appear that way because we haven’t allowed enough time for the approach to really take effect. And many times, what we do in those initial 20 minutes sets the tone for the interactions we’ll have in the future.

On another note, thank you so much for all of the sayings you sent in after last month’s column—I enjoyed reading through them and have included some of my favorites below: