By Kerry Patterson
My Personal Takeaways →If you cannot speak clearly when stakes are high, you eventually pay for it in every part of life: marriage, leadership, team trust, and peace of mind. Crucial Conversations gives a practical framework for moments where most people either attack or shut down. Its core insight is powerful: do not choose between honesty and relationship, protect both.
The book trains you to notice emotional escalation early, create safety, and move discussions toward shared meaning and real action. Read this if you are tired of unresolved tension, passive silence, or conversations that keep repeating without progress. Implement it by practicing one hard conversation at a time: lead with facts, stay curious, invite the other person’s path, and finish with clear commitments. Mastering this skill changes your relationships and your results because conflict becomes a place for clarity, not damage.
By Kerry Patterson and Joseph Grenny
The root cause of many—if not most—human problems lies in how people behave when we disagree about high-stakes, emotional issues.
The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place. —GEORGE BERNARD SHAW
First, opinions vary. For example, you’re talking with your boss about a possible promotion. She thinks you’re not ready; you think you are. Second, stakes are high. You’re in a meeting with four co-workers, and you’re trying to pick a new marketing strategy. You’ve got to do something different, or your company is in trouble. Third, emotions run strong. You’re in the middle of a casual discussion with your spouse, and he or she brings up an “ugly incident” that took place at yesterday’s neighborhood party.
What makes each of these conversations crucial—and not simply frustrating, frightening, or annoying—is that the outcome could have a huge impact on either relationships or results that affect you greatly.
These examples, of course, are merely the tip of an enormous and ugly iceberg of topics that can lead us into conversational disaster. Others include:
Crucial Conversation: A discussion between two or more people in which they hold (1) opposing opinions about a (2) high-stakes issue and where (3) emotions run strong.
What happens in the absence of candid dialogue? Contention. Resentment. Gamesmanship. Poor decisions. Spotty execution. Missed opportunities.
You can measure the health of relationships, teams, and organizations by measuring the lag time between when problems are identified and when they are resolved.
If you fail to discuss issues you have with your boss, your life partner, your neighbor, or your peer, will those issues magically disappear? No. Instead, they will become the lens you see the other person through. And how you see always shows up in how you act. Your resentment will show up in how you treat the other person. For instance, you’ll snap at the person, spend less time with him or her, be quicker to accuse the person of dishonesty or selfishness, or withhold information or affection. The problem will persist, and acting out your feelings instead of talking them out will add strain to an already crucial situation. The longer the lag time during which you act out your feelings rather than talk them out, the more damage you’ll do to both relationships and results.
Our natural tendencies in moments that seem threatening lean toward fight or flight rather than listen and speak.
Your body’s instinct is to prepare you for physical safety. Two tiny organs seated neatly atop your kidneys pump adrenaline into your bloodstream. Your brain diverts blood from activities it deems nonessential (like thoughtfully and respectfully opening a conversation) to high-priority survival tasks (such as hitting and running). As the large muscles of the arms and legs get more blood, the higher-level reasoning sections of your brain get less. As a result, you end up facing challenging conversations with the same intellectual equipment available to a rodent. Your body is preparing to deal with an attacking saber-toothed tiger, not your boss, neighbor, or loved ones.
Unfortunately (and here’s where the problem becomes self-defeating), the more you snip and snap, the less your loved one wants to be around you. So he or she spends less time with you, you become even more upset, and the spiral continues. Your behavior is now actually creating the very thing you didn’t want in the first place.
In the worst companies, poor performers are first ignored and then transferred. In good companies, bosses eventually deal with problems. In the best companies, everyone holds everyone else accountable, regardless of level or position.
When you ask the average person what causes couples to break up, he or she usually suggests that it’s due to differences of opinion. You know, people have different preferences about managing their finances, spicing up their love lives, or rearing their children. In truth, everyone argues about important issues. But not everyone splits up. It’s how you argue that matters. For example, when psychologist Howard Markman examined couples in the throes of heated discussions, he learned that people fall into three categories—those who digress into threats and name-calling, those who revert to silent fuming, and those who speak openly, honestly, and effectively. After observing couples for hundreds of hours, Markman and his research partner Clifford Notarius predicted relationship outcomes and tracked their research subjects’ relationships for the next decade. Remarkably, they predicted nearly 90 percent of the divorces that occurred. But more importantly, they found that helping couples learn to hold Crucial Conversations more effectively reduced the chance of unhappiness or breakup by more than half!
Mountains of research suggest that the negative feelings we hold in and the emotional pain we suffer as we stumble our way through unhealthy conversations slowly eat away at our health.
Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter. —MARTIN LUTHER KING JUNIOR.
He didn’t resort to silence like his colleagues, nor did he try to force his arguments on others. Somehow he managed to achieve absolute candor, but he did so in a way that showed deep respect for Chris.
You see, Kevin’s contribution was not his insight. Almost everyone could see what was happening. People knew they were allowing themselves to be steamrolled into making a bad decision. But all of them except for Kevin believed they had to make a choice between two bad alternatives: • Option 1. Speak up and turn the most powerful person in the company into their sworn enemy. • Option 2. Suffer in silence and make a bad decision that might ruin the company.
The mistake most of us make in our Crucial Conversations is we believe that we have to choose between telling the truth and keeping a friend. As we suggested in the previous chapter, we begin believing in the Fool’s Choice from an early age. For instance, we learned that when Grandma served an enormous wedge of her famous brussels-sprouts pie à la mode and then asked, “Do you like it?” she really meant, “Do you like me?” When we answered honestly and saw the look of hurt and horror on her face, we made a decision that affected the rest of our lives: “From this day forward, I will be alert for moments when I must choose between candor and kindness.”
“How can I be 100 percent honest with Chris and at the same time be 100 percent respectful?”
Each of us enters conversations with our own thoughts and feelings about the topic at hand. This unique combination makes up our personal pool of meaning. This pool not only informs us, but also propels our every action. When two or more of us enter Crucial Conversations, by definition we don’t share the same pool. Our opinions differ. I believe one thing; you another. I have one history; you another. People who are skilled at dialogue do their best to make it safe for everyone to add meaning to the shared pool—even ideas that at first glance appear controversial or wrong. Obviously, everyone doesn’t agree with every idea; people simply do their best to ensure that all ideas find their way into the open.
The Pool of Shared Meaning is the birthplace of synergy. As people sit through an open discussion, they understand why the shared solution is the best option, and they’re committed to act.
Conversely, when people aren’t involved, when they sit back during touchy conversations, they’re rarely committed to the final decision. Since their ideas remain in their heads and their opinions never make it into the pool, they end up quietly criticizing and passively resisting. Similarly, when others force their ideas into the pool, people have a hard time accepting the information. They may say they’re on board but then walk away and follow through halfheartedly.
For instance, sometimes we move to silence. We play Salute and Stay Mute. That is, we don’t confront people in positions of authority. Or at home we may play Freeze Your Lover. With this tortured technique, we give loved ones the cold shoulder in order to get them to treat us better (what’s the logic in that?). Sometimes we rely on hints, sarcasm, innuendo, and looks of disgust to make our points. We play the martyr and then pretend we’re actually trying to help. Or maybe, afraid to confront an individual, we blame an entire team for a problem—hoping the message will hit the right target. Whatever the technique, the overall method is the same. We withhold meaning from the pool. We go to silence.
In order to move to our best, we have to find a way to explain what is in each of our personal pools of meaning—especially our high-stakes, sensitive, and controversial thoughts and opinions—and to get others to share their pools. To achieve this, we have to develop the tools that make it safe for us to discuss these issues and to come to a shared pool of meaning.
Seventy percent of the success of a Crucial Conversation happens in your head, not through your mouth.
A problem well-stated is a problem half-solved. —CHARLES KETTERING
Crucial Conversations are most successful when they’re focused on one issue. Because human interactions are inherently complex, focusing a Crucial Conversation on a single topic takes effort. It requires us to thoughtfully unbundle and then prioritize the issues at hand.
Three Signs You’re Having the Wrong Conversation:
The person knows how to unbundle, choose, and simplify the issues involved.
Content. The first time a problem comes up, talk about the content—the immediate pain. If either the action itself or its immediate consequences are the issue, you’ve got a content problem. For example, your co-worker failed to get you the marketing analytics you needed in order to finish a report for your manager. Now your neck is on the line because your report was late. Or you’re giving a presentation in a team meeting, and one of your fellow team members keeps interrupting and talking over you. If this is the first time this has happened, it’s a content problem.
Pattern. The next time the same problem comes up, think pattern. Now the concern is not just that this has happened once, but that a pattern is starting to develop, or already has. For example, the last three times a really exciting project came to your team, your manager assigned it to others despite your expressed interest. The issue is no longer just one assignment; it’s the pattern that’s emerging. It can be challenging to determine when to move from content to pattern. Often, it may feel like you’re jumping to conclusions if you move to pattern after only a second occurrence of the issue. Yet you want to address patterns early and candidly, before they become entrenched. It can be helpful to think of it this way: The first time something happens, it’s an incident. The second time it might be coincidence. The third time, it’s a pattern.
Relationship. Finally, as problems continue, they can begin to impact the relationship. Relationship issues get to deeper concerns about trust, competence, or respect. For example, we may begin to doubt someone’s competence or question whether we can trust a person to keep commitments. Or we may conclude after repeated incidents that a person doesn’t respect our role or contribution. With these doubts and questions at the forefront of our thinking, we begin to (subtly or overtly) relate to them differently.
When contact is infrequent, it’s essential to talk explicitly about how you will communicate. For example, how will you make sure that everyone has a turn to speak? How will you make space for people to pause and think? What tools will you use? What norms should we establish? How will you accommodate different time zones and work patterns? To answer these questions, start by asking yourself, “When do virtual conversations work well for me? And when do they not?”
You’ll find that they take far fewer words to say it than the rest of us. The more words it takes you to describe the topic, the less prepared you are to talk.
Creating a simple problem sentence helps you both start with a clear purpose and hold yourself accountable. It gives you a standard by which to measure whether you told your full truth. Don’t worry about how you’ll say it. Just tell yourself the truth about what you want to say. Having done that, you can address the next problem: “How can I both tell the truth and strengthen the relationship?”
What do you do when you start a conversation focused on one issue and new issues emerge? You have a choice to make. You can either stay focused on the original issue or move to a new one. In all cases, you want to place a bookmark. When you place a bookmark, you verbally acknowledge where you’re going in the conversation and what you intend to come back to.
When you place a bookmark, you make a conscious choice about what you want to talk about. And you register clearly with the other person that you will return to the bookmarked issue later. Never allow the conversation to shift or the topic to change without acknowledging you’ve done it.
Change begins with your heart.
The first step to dialogue is to get your heart right.
People who are best at dialogue understand this simple fact and turn it into the principle “Work on me first, us second.” They realize not only that they are likely to benefit by improving their own approach, but also that the only ones they can work on anyway are themselves. As much as others may 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.
Ask yourself these three questions: “What do I really want for myself?” “What do I really want for others?” “What do I really want for the relationship?”
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 or violence: “How can we have a candid conversation and strengthen our relationships?”
Emotions don’t settle upon you like a fog. They are not foisted upon you by others. No matter how comfortable it might make you feel to say it, others don’t make you mad. You make you mad. You make you scared, annoyed, insulted, or hurt. You and only you create your emotions.
Once you’ve created your upset emotions, you have only two options: You can act on them or be acted on by them. That is, when it comes to strong emotions, you either find a way to master them or fall hostage to them.
That is, when they have strong feelings, they influence (and often change) their emotions by thinking them out.
Just after we observe what others do and just before we feel some emotion about it, we tell ourselves a story. We add meaning to the action we observed. We make a guess at the motive driving the behavior. Why were they doing that? We also add judgment—is that good or bad? And then, based on these thoughts or stories, our body responds with an emotion. This intermediate step is why, when faced with the exact same circumstances, 10 people may have 10 different emotional responses. For instance, with a co-worker like Louis, some might feel insulted, whereas others merely feel curious. Some become angry, and others feel concern or even sympathy.
Since we and only we are telling the story, we can take back control of our own emotions by telling a different story.
Stories provide our rationale for what’s going on. They’re our interpretations of the facts. They start by helping to explain what we see and hear (“Carl is walking out of the building with a bright yellow box. Yellow boxes contain secure material”). But usually stories take the what a step further and give voice to why something is happening (“Carl is stealing our intellectual property”). Our stories contain not just conclusions but also judgments (whether something is good or bad) and attributions (interpretation of others’ motives).
In fact, until we tell different stories, we cannot break the loop.
We’re about to share some very effective tools you can use to expose, examine, and improve your story. We confess up front that these skills take work. They take focus, concentration, and humility.
Mastering our stories isn’t about letting someone off the hook for bad behavior. Instead, it is the first step toward addressing that behavior through dialogue. When we master our stories, we take ownership for the emotional energy we bring to the conversation. And when we do that, we begin to change the conversation.
In this moment, Joseph would argue his story is true: “Celia is judging me. And she is being unappreciative!” While there might be truth to Joseph’s claim, what he’s missing is the fact that he is part of the story. His actions helped Celia to tell the kind of story that created upset emotions that led to her behavior. He was a full partner in the downward spiral. Be careful when you argue for your story that you first examine whether you might be creating the reality you claim to describe.
To slow down the lightning-quick storytelling process and the subsequent flow of adrenaline, retrace your Path to Action—one element at a time. This calls for a bit of mental gymnastics. First you have to stop what you’re currently doing. Then you have to get in touch with why you’re doing it. Here’s how to retrace your path: • (Act) Notice your behavior. Ask: “Am I acting out my concerns rather than talking them out?” • (Feel) Put your feelings into words. Ask: “What emotions are encouraging me to act this way?” • (Tell story) Analyze your stories. Ask: “What story is creating these emotions?” • (See/hear) Get back to the facts. Ask: “What have I seen or heard that supports this story? What have I seen or heard that conflicts with this story?”
Actually, identifying your emotions is more difficult than you might imagine. In fact, many people are emotionally illiterate. When asked to describe how they’re feeling, they use words such as “bad” or “angry” or “scared”—which would be OK if these were accurate descriptors, but often they’re not. Individuals say they’re angry when, in fact, they’re feeling a mix of embarrassment and surprise. Or they suggest they’re unhappy when they’re feeling violated. Perhaps they suggest they’re upset when they’re really feeling humiliated and hurt. Since life doesn’t consist of a series of vocabulary tests, you might wonder what difference words can make. But words do matter. Knowing what you’re really feeling helps you take a more accurate look at what is going on and why. For instance, you’re far more likely to take an honest look at the story you’re telling yourself if you admit you’re feeling both embarrassed and surprised rather than simply angry. When you take the time to precisely articulate what you’re feeling, you begin to put a little bit of daylight between you and the emotion. This distance lets you move from being hostage to the emotion to being an observer of it. When you can hold it at a little distance from yourself, you can examine it, study it, and begin to change it. But that process can’t begin until you name it.
Take the time to get below the easy-to-say emotions and accurately identify those that take more vulnerability to acknowledge (like shame, hurt, fear, and inadequacy).
This is the emotional equivalent of a Fool’s Choice. It argues that stories are either right or wrong. That’s rarely the case. More often than not, our stories are more or less accurate. For example, Maria might be right that Louis holds sexist biases about the influence of women. But that might not be all that’s going on in this episode. What if Louis just got a bad performance review in which his boss admonished him to “have more of a voice.” Would Maria feel differently if she knew this was also a part of what’s happening?
To avoid confusing story with fact, watch for “hot” terms. For example, when assessing the facts, you might say, “She scowled at me” or “He made a sarcastic comment.” Words such as “scowl” and “sarcastic” are hot terms. They express judgments and attributions that, in turn, create strong emotions.
As you learn to question and analyze your stories, pay close attention to an insidious and common type of story: the self-justifying story.
We ignore any of our villains’ virtues and turn their flaws into exaggerated indictments.
In Victim Stories we exaggerate our own innocence.
We tell a clever story when we want self-justification more than results.
“What am I pretending not to notice about my role in the problem?” This question jars you into facing up to the fact that maybe, just maybe, you did something to help cause the problem. Instead of being a victim, you were an actor. This doesn’t necessarily mean you had malicious motives. Perhaps your contribution was merely a thoughtless omission. Nonetheless, you contributed.
In fact, with experience and maturity, we learn to worry less about others’ intent and more about the effect others’ actions are having on us.
“What should I do right now to move toward what I really want?”
The best at dialogue immediately turn their attention to why others might not feel safe.
Here’s why gifted communicators keep a close eye on safety. Dialogue calls for the free flow of meaning—period. And nothing kills the flow of meaning like fear. When you fear people aren’t buying into your ideas, you start pushing too hard. When you fear you may be harmed in some way, you start withdrawing and hiding. Both these reactions—fight and flight—are motivated by the same emotion: fear. On the other hand, if you make it safe enough, you can talk about almost anything, and people will listen. If you don’t fear that you’re being attacked or humiliated, you yourself can hear almost anything and not become defensive.
Think about your own experience. Can you remember receiving really tough feedback from someone at some point in your life and not becoming defensive? Instead, you absorbed the feedback. You reflected on it. You allowed it to influence you. If so, ask yourself why. Why in this instance were you able to take potentially threatening feedback so well? If you’re like the rest of us, it’s because you believed the other person had your best interest in mind. In addition, you respected the other person’s opinion. You felt safe receiving the feedback because you trusted the motives and ability of the other person. You didn’t need to defend yourself from what was being said—even if you didn’t like what the person was saying! On the other hand, if you don’t feel safe, you can’t take any feedback. It’s as if the pool of meaning has a lid on it: “What do you mean I look good? Is that some kind of joke? Are you insulting me?” When you don’t feel safe, even well-intended comments are suspect.
By pulling yourself out of the content of an argument and looking for signs that safety is at risk, you reengage your brain, and your full vision returns. As we suggested earlier, when you give yourself a new problem to consider, you affect your brain functioning.
Imagine increased influence, enhanced relationships, stronger teams, and more effective leadership. Turn on your capacity to recognize and respond to safety problems.
Silence consists of any act to purposely withhold information from the pool of meaning. It’s almost always done as a means of avoiding potential problems, and it always restricts the flow of meaning. Methods range from playing verbal games to avoiding a person entirely. The three most common forms of silence are masking, avoiding, and withdrawing. Masking consists of understating or selectively showing our true opinions. Sarcasm, sugarcoating, and couching are some of the more popular forms.
Violence consists of any verbal strategy that attempts to convince or control others or compel them to your point of view. It violates safety by trying to force meaning into the pool. Methods range from name-calling and monologuing to making threats. The three most common forms are controlling, labeling, and attacking. Controlling consists of coercing others to your way of thinking. It’s done through either forcing your views on others or dominating the conversation by interrupting, overstating your facts, speaking in absolutes, changing subjects, or using directive questions, among other strategies.
Labeling is putting a label on people or ideas so we can dismiss them under a general stereotype or category.
Attacking speaks for itself. Your motive goes from winning the argument to making the other person suffer. Tactics include belittling and threatening.
How do you expand your data stream? Start by asking for more data. For example: • Email. “I haven’t heard back from you in a couple of days in response to the email I sent you. I am not sure how to interpret your silence. How are you feeling about the proposal?” • Telephone. “I wish I could see your face right now. I don’t know how you’re hearing my message, and I would hate for you to misinterpret it. Can you help me understand what you’re thinking right now?” • Direct messaging. “When I read the comment that you posted on my social media account, I wasn’t sure how to take it. It seemed like you might be upset. Are you?” When you see signs of silence or violence in virtual communication, ask for more data.
If you spot safety risks as they happen, you can step out of the conversation, build safety, and then find a way to talk just about anything with just about anyone.
The key is to step out of the content of the conversation. That’s right. When safety is at risk and you notice people moving to silence or violence, you need to step out of the content of the conversation (literally stop talking about the topic of your conversation) and rebuild safety.
Remember, human beings are wired to look for threats. When people feel threatened, they move to silence or verbal violence or to flight or fight—none of which are great for problem solving.
The best at dialogue don’t play games. Period. They know that in order to solve their problem, they’ll need to talk about their problem—with no pretending, sugarcoating, or faking. So they do something completely different. They step out of the content of the conversation, make it safe, and then step back in. Once safety is restored, they can talk about nearly anything.
They need to know two things about your intent. They need to know that: • You care about their concerns (Mutual Purpose). • You care about them (Mutual Respect).
So what do you do if the other person doesn’t seem to care about your purpose? You choose that as the topic of the Crucial Conversation you need to have. After all, your purpose is every bit as important as the other person’s, and you could and should hold that as a boundary. For example, you might say: It’s important to me that we have a collaborative and productive relationship. I’d like to talk about a pattern I’ve noticed in our conversations. I know we often have different goals or objectives. And I hope you know that I care about your objectives as well as my own. Sometimes, though, I sense that you don’t really care about my goals, and that can make it tough for me to talk about things with you. I’m wondering if I’ve misread this.
Because respect is like air. As long as it’s present, nobody thinks about it. But if you take it away, it’s all that people can think about.
Feelings of disrespect often come when we dwell on how others are different from ourselves. We can counteract these feelings by looking for ways we are similar. Without excusing others’ behavior, we try to sympathize, even empathize, with them. A rather clever person once hinted how to do this in the form of a prayer—“Lord, help me forgive those who sin differently than I.” When we recognize that we all have weaknesses, it’s easier to find a way to respect others. When we do this, we feel a kinship between ourselves and even the thorniest of people.
Here are four skills that the best at dialogue routinely use to build safety up front in a conversation and rebuild safety when it’s been lost: • Share your good intent. • Apologize when appropriate. • Contrast to fix misunderstandings. • Create a Mutual Purpose.
Mari, I was wondering if we could talk about what happened on Friday night. I love you, and I want to make sure we’re talking about things that impact our relationship, because our relationship is the most important thing in the world to me. I’m sure there are things you’d like me to change, and I want to understand those as well as share concerns I have. Could we talk? When you start the conversation by sharing your good intent, you lay the foundation for safety. It doesn’t mean that the other person won’t get defensive as the conversation progresses, but it does give you the touchstone you need to return to again and again when safety is at risk.
Now an apology isn’t really an apology unless you experience a change in heart. To offer a sincere apology, your motives have to change. You have to give up saving face, being right, or winning in order to focus on what you really want. You have to sacrifice a bit of your ego by admitting your error. But like many sacrifices, when you give up something you value, you’re rewarded with something even more valuable—healthy dialogue and better results.
Contrasting is a don’t/do statement that fixes misunderstandings: • In the “don’t” part of the statement, you explain what you don’t intend for the conversation. This addresses others’ concerns that you don’t respect them or that you have a malicious purpose. • In the “do” part of the statement, you clarify what your intention for the conversation really is. This confirms your respect or clarifies your real purpose.
Of the two parts of Contrasting, the don’t is the more important because it deals with the misunderstanding that has put safety at risk.
Contrasting can also be a powerful tool for preventing safety problems. In this respect, it’s similar to starting a conversation by sharing your good intent. Two examples: “I wanted to talk about how we’re managing our finances. I don’t want you to think that I don’t appreciate the time you’ve taken to keep our checking account balanced and up to date. I do appreciate it, and I know I certainly couldn’t have done nearly as well. I do, however, have some concerns with how we’re using the new online banking system.” “I’d like to talk to you about something that’s worrying me, and I’m honestly not sure how to handle this conversation. My fear is that I’ll draw down on our relationship, and that’s not my intent at all. It’s the opposite. My goal in bringing this up is to strengthen our relationship.”
We have to open our mind to the fact that maybe, just maybe, there is a third choice out there—one that suits everyone.
By focusing on higher and longer-term goals, you often find ways to transcend short-term compromises, build Mutual Purpose, and return to dialogue.
In summary, when you sense that you and others are working at cross-purposes, here’s what you can do. First, step out of the content of the conflict. Stop focusing on who thinks what. Then create a Mutual Purpose: • Commit to seek a Mutual Purpose. Make a unilateral public commitment to stay in the conversation until you come up with something that serves everyone.
Recognize the purpose behind the strategy. Ask people why they want what they’re pushing for. Separate what they’re demanding from the purpose it serves.
Invent a Mutual Purpose. If after clarifying everyone’s purposes you’re still at odds, see if you can invent a higher or longer-term purpose that’s more motivating than the ones that keep you in conflict.
Creating safety doesn’t resolve all our issues; it simply creates the space to give dialogue a chance.
Our hearts need to be in the right place, and our heads need to be focused on the right topic.
By finding a way to maintain safety without compromising candor.
In order to speak honestly when honesty could easily offend others, we have to find a way to maintain safety. That’s a bit like telling someone to smash another person in the nose, but, you know, don’t hurt him. How can we speak the unspeakable and still maintain respect? It can be done if you know how to carefully blend three ingredients: confidence, humility, and skill.
• Share your facts. • Tell your story. • Ask for others’ paths. • Talk tentatively. • Encourage testing.
The skill here is to share your facts, not the facts. You are sharing what you have seen and heard. When you acknowledge that these are your facts, you make space for other facts—things the other person may have seen and heard.
The goal of Contrasting is not to water down your message, but to be sure that people don’t hear more than you intend.
One of the ironies of dialogue is that when there’s a difference of opinions, the more convinced and forceful you act, the more resistant others become. Speaking in absolute and overstated terms does not increase your influence; it decreases it. The converse is also true—the more tentatively you speak, the more open people become to your opinions.
“It appears to me that…”
“I’m starting to feel like…”
“I don’t think you’re intending this, but I’m beginning to feel…”
If they have different facts or stories, you need to hear them to help complete the picture. Make sure they have the opportunity to share by actively inviting them to do so: “Does anyone see it differently?” “What am I missing here?” “I’d really like to hear the other side of this story.”
“I know people have been reluctant to speak up about this, but I would really love to hear from everyone.” Or “I know there are at least two sides to this story. Could we hear differing views now? What problems could this decision cause us?”
Occasionally you can tell that others are not buying into your facts or story, but they’re not speaking up either. You’ve sincerely invited them, even encouraged differing views, but nobody says anything. To help grease the skids, play devil’s advocate. Model disagreeing by disagreeing with your own view: “Maybe I’m wrong here. What if the opposite is true? What if the reason sales have dropped is because our products truly are outdated. I know I’ve made the opposite case, but I really want to hear all the reasons my position could be dangerously wrong.”
Once we’re convinced that it’s our duty to fight for the truth, we start pulling out the big guns. We use debating tricks that we’ve picked up throughout the years. Chief among them is the ability to “stack the deck.” We cite information that supports our ideas while hiding or discrediting anything that doesn’t. Then we spice things up with exaggeration:
And again, the harder we try and the more forceful and nasty our tactics, the greater the resistance we create, the worse the results, and the more battered our relationships.
When your adrenaline level gets below the 0.05 legal limit, you’ll be able to use your STATE skills. In fact, your willingness to use STATE skills in sharing your message is a reliable indicator of your interest in dialogue. The harder it is for you to use them, the more likely your goal is to win rather than learn.
Watch for the moment when people start to resist you—perhaps they begin to raise their volume and/or overstate the facts behind their views in reaction to your tactics—or perhaps they retreat into silence. Turn your attention away from the topic (no matter how important) and onto yourself. Are you leaning forward? Are you speaking more loudly? Are you starting to try to win? Are you hammering on your keyboard as you furiously type a comment?
As you consider what you really want from the conversation, ask yourself, “How would I behave if this is really what I want?”
If you want to stand a chance at influencing people, you have to start by understanding them. So tone down your approach. Open yourself up to the belief that others might have something to say, and better still, they might even hold a piece of the puzzle—and then ask them for their views. Back off your harsh and conclusive language. But don’t back off your belief. Hold to your belief; merely soften your approach.
One of the best ways to persuade others is with your ears—by listening to them. —DEAN RUSK
Thoughts are all electricity. Emotions add chemistry. Once the chemicals that fuel emotions are released, they hang around in the bloodstream for a time—in some cases, long after thoughts have changed. So be patient while the chemistry catches up with the electricity.
We can see that if we don’t get at the source of their feelings, we’ll end up suffering the effects of the feelings.
To encourage others to share their paths, we’ll use four power listening tools. We call the four skills power listening tools because they are best remembered with the acronym AMPP—ask, mirror, paraphrase, and prime. These tools work regardless of whether people are in silence or violence.
Common invitations include: “What’s going on?” “I’d really like to hear your opinion on this.” “Please let me know if you see it differently.” “Don’t worry about hurting my feelings. I really want to hear your thoughts.”
We play the role of mirror by describing how the other person looks or acts. Although we may not understand others’ stories or facts, we can see their actions and reflect them. Mirroring is most useful when another person’s tone of voice or gestures (hints about the emotions behind them) are inconsistent with his or her words. For example: “Don’t worry. I’m fine.” (But the person’s look and tone suggest he’s actually quite upset. He’s frowning, looking around, and sort of kicking at the ground.) Our response: “Really? From the way you’re saying that, it doesn’t sound like you are.” We explain that while the person may be saying one thing, his tone of voice or posture suggests something else. Mirroring magnifies safety because it demonstrates our genuine interest in and concern for others. We are paying attention! So much so, that we aren’t just listening to what they are saying; we are noticing how they are saying it.
We create safety when our tone of voice says we’re OK with them feeling the way they’re feeling.
Be careful not to simply parrot back what was said. Instead, put the message in your own words—usually in an abbreviated form: “Let’s see if I’ve got this right. You’re worried because the previous project manager was fired. You’re wondering if you or others on the project team might be at risk as well.”
The power-listening term “priming” comes from the expression “priming the pump.” If you’ve ever worked an old-fashioned hand pump, you understand the metaphor. With a pump, you often have to pour some water into it to get it running. Then it works just fine. When it comes to power listening, sometimes you have to offer your best guess at what the other person is thinking or feeling before you can expect him or her to do the same. You have to pour some meaning into the pool before the other person will respond in kind.
Understanding doesn’t equate with agreement. Sensitivity doesn’t equate to acquiescence. By taking steps to understand another person’s Path to Action, we aren’t promising that we’ll accept their point of view. We are promising to listen.
How to Respectfully Disagree About Politics at crucialconversations.com.
Agree when you agree. Don’t turn an agreement into an argument.
Now when the other person has merely left out an element of the argument, skilled people will agree and then build. Rather than saying: “Wrong. You forgot to mention … ,” they say: “Absolutely. In addition, I noticed that …”
But the pool expands only when their meaning is heard and when your meaning is heard. Your meaning needs to be in the pool as well. However, you will create more safety for others by helping them share their meaning first, before you dive into the pool with all your meaning. Start by listening, then sharing.
You can’t force people to listen to you. Just because you listened to them doesn’t necessarily mean they will listen to you.
It can also help to set that expectation up front. For example, when Uncle Carl launches into his latest diatribe, take a moment to set some boundaries for the conversation. Let him know that you want to hear his perspective and ask him if he is willing to hear yours in return.
If you live by the compliment, you’ll die by the criticism.
We lean too far forward and move from enjoying praise to needing it. Sometimes we do it out of a naïve hope that outside evidence will take better care of us than we can of ourselves. And other times it’s just about a quick fix. We are unwilling to do the work required to steady ourselves, preferring to lean on approval instead.
Others’ feedback is either pure truth, pure falsehood, or some mixture of the two. Usually it’s some mixture. The sensible response to feedback would be to do what TOSA students do: Put it in a bag, sort out what’s true, and discard the rest.
Collect yourself. Breathing deeply and slowly reminds you that you are safe. It signals that you don’t need to be preparing for physical defense. Being mindful of your feelings helps, too. Do your best to name them as you feel them. Naming them helps you put a little bit of daylight between you and the emotions. Are you hurt, scared, embarrassed, ashamed? If you can think about what you’re feeling, you gain more power over the feeling. Also, identifying, examining, and critiquing the stories that led to your feelings can help (see Chapter 5). Some students collect themselves by consciously connecting with soothing truths, for example, by repeating an affirmation like, “This can’t hurt me. I’m safe” or “If I made a mistake, it doesn’t mean I am a mistake.”
As we learned in the previous chapter, curiosity can inoculate you against defensiveness. Focusing on understanding helps interrupt our tendency toward personalizing. It’s hard to beat yourself up when you’re busy solving a puzzle. The best “curiosity puzzle” is answering the question “Why would a reasonable, rational, decent person say what he or she is saying?” Detach yourself from what is being said as though it is being said about a third person. That will help you bypass the need to evaluate what you’re hearing.
Recover. It’s sometimes best at this point to ask for a time-out. Feelings of control bring feelings of safety. And you regain a sense of control when you exercise your right to respond when you’re truly ready. Explain that you want some time to reflect and you’ll respond when you have a chance to do so. Like TOSA students, separate the tasks of collecting and sorting. Put it all in a bag and sort it out later. Give yourself permission to feel and recover from the experience before doing any evaluation of what you heard. At TOSA, students sometimes simply say, “I will take a look at that.” They don’t agree. They don’t disagree. They simply promise to look sincerely at what they were told on their own timeline.
Having more meaning in the pool, even jointly owning it, doesn’t guarantee that we all agree on what we’re going to do with the meaning. We often fail to convert the ideas into action for two reasons:
The two riskiest times in Crucial Conversations tend to be at the beginning and at the end. The beginning is risky because you have to find a way to create safety, or else things go awry. The end is dicey because if you aren’t careful about how you clarify the conclusion and decisions flowing from your Pool of Shared Meaning, you can run into violated expectations later on.
We can solve both these problems if, before making a decision, the people involved decide how to decide.
There are four common ways of making decisions: command, consult, vote, and consensus.
When choosing among the four methods of decision-making, consider the following questions:
While a conversation doesn’t necessarily need to end with a decision, it should always end with a commitment. It may be a commitment to change or take action. Or it may be a commitment, simple but sincere, to reflect on the new meaning that has been shared. As you close your conversations with commitments, make sure you consider the following four elements (sometimes shortened to the acronym WWWF):
Once again, a proverb comes to mind: “One dull pencil is worth six sharp minds.” Don’t leave your hard work to memory. If you’ve gone to the effort to complete a Crucial Conversation, don’t fritter away all the meaning you created by trusting your memories. Write down the details of conclusions, decisions, and assignments. Remember to record who does what by when. Revisit your notes at key times (usually the next meeting) and review assignments.
When you hold people accountable, not only do you increase their motivation and ability to deliver on promises, but you create a culture of integrity.
Generally speaking, a vast majority of these problems go away if they’re privately, respectfully, and firmly discussed. Your biggest challenge will be the respect part. If you put up with this behavior for too long, you’ll be inclined to tell a more and more potent Villain Story about the offender.
If you’ve tolerated the behavior for a long time before holding the conversation, own up to it. This may help you treat the individual like a reasonable, rational, and decent person—even if some of his or her behavior doesn’t fit this description.
“I’d like to talk about something that’s getting in the way of my working with you. It’s a tough issue to bring up, but I think it’ll help us be better teammates if I do. Is that OK? When I walk into your office, frequently your eyes move from my eyes downward. And when I sit next to you at a computer, sometimes you put your arm around the back of my chair. I don’t know that you’re aware you’re doing these things, so I thought I’d bring them up because they send a message that makes me uncomfortable. How do you see it?”
When something bothers you, catch it early. Contrasting can also help: “I’m not trying to blow this out of proportion. I just want to deal with it before it gets out of hand.” Share your facts: describe the specific behaviors you’ve observed: “When Jimmy leaves his room a mess, you use sarcasm to get his attention. You call him a ‘pig’ and then laugh as if you didn’t mean it.” Tentatively explain the consequences: “I don’t think it’s having the effect you want. He doesn’t pick up on the hint, and I’m afraid that he’s starting to resent you.” Encourage testing: “Do you see it differently?”
When spouses stop giving each other helpful feedback, they lose out on the help of a lifelong confidant and coach. They miss out on hundreds of opportunities to help each other communicate more effectively.
Deal with trust around the issue, not around the person.
Use Contrasting. Explain that you don’t want to hurt the person’s feelings, but you do want to share something that could be helpful.
Also explain that you’re reluctant to bring up the issue because of its personal nature, but since the problem is interfering with the person’s effectiveness, you really must.
Perhaps the most common way that the language of dialogue finds itself into everyday conversation is with the statement, “I think we’ve moved away from dialogue.”
We found that time and again what stands between us and what we really want is lag time. The problem isn’t that we have problems. The problem is the lag time between when we know we have them and when we find a way to effectively confront, discuss, and resolve them. If you reduce this lag time, everything gets better.
[[CRUCIAL_CONVERSATIONS_SKILLS_TABLE]]
WHAT’S A CRUCIAL CONVERSATION?
MASTERING CRUCIAL CONVERSATIONS:
CHOOSE YOUR TOPIC: You can’t solve the real problem if you don’t choose the right topic. Here’s how to make sure you are talking about the right thing:
START WITH HEART: Here’s how people who are skilled at dialogue stay focused on their goals—particularly when the going gets tough.
MASTER MY STORIES: If strong emotions are keeping you stuck in silence or violence, try these steps:
LEARN TO LOOK: When caught up in a Crucial Conversation, it’s difficult to see exactly what’s going on and why. When a discussion becomes stressful, we often end up doing the exact opposite of what works. We turn to the less healthy components of our Style Under Stress. To break from this insidious pattern, Learn to Look:
MAKE IT SAFE:
STATE MY PATH:
EXPLORE OTHERS’ PATHS:
RETAKE YOUR PEN: Then use four skills to manage how you address the information others share:
- Collect yourself. Breathe deeply, name your emotions, and present yourself with soothing truths that establish your safety and worth.
- Understand. Be curious. Ask questions and ask for examples. And then just listen. Detach yourself from what is being said as though it is being said about a third person.
- Recover. Take a time-out if needed to recover emotionally and process what you’ve heard.
- Engage. Examine what you were told. Look for truth rather than defensively poking holes in the feedback. If appropriate, reengage with the person who shared the feedback and acknowledge what you heard, what you accept, and what you commit to do. If needed, share your view of things in a non-combative way.
MOVE TO ACTION: Turn your successful Crucial Conversations into great decisions and united action by avoiding the two traps of violated expectations and inaction: