In a perfect world, rainbows and butterflies would surround us and a roaring crowd would
be heard as our stakeholders listened to us propose our blended learning innovation plan. Well, our world isn’t perfect and is unfortunately full of people resistant to change. Proposing change is challenging, especially when people are set in their ways with the way things are done! How are we supposed to propose change when there are far more experienced members in our organization? How do we prepare ourselves to handle negative reactions from stakeholders towards our innovation plan? How are we supposed to lead this innovation if we’re scared to speak up? As Dr. Jonathan Camp says as he discusses the book A Failure of Nerve by Edwin Friedman, effective leadership is being able to self-differentiate by regulating one’s own anxiety (Camp, 2010). In other words, we need to be able to stay cool, calm, and collected when emotions and differing opinions rise. It’s easier said than done, but with the strategies from the book Crucial Conversations: Tools for Talking When Stakes are High (Patterson et al., 2012), we are provided tools and strategies towards positive dialogue to be able to handle almost any crucial conversation.
A crucial conversation is a discussion between two or more people where (1) stakes are high, (2) opinions vary, and (3) emotions run strong (Patterson et al., 2012). The goal of a crucial conversation is to get unstuck by getting everyone’s input (Vital Smarts, 2012). Ineffective leaders shy away from having these conversations or they have them and respond poorly in self-defeating ways. When people disagree with your ideas, a self-differentiated leader continues to take a well-defined stand (Camp, 2010), not allowing the emotional triangle nor sabotage (a sign we’re doing the right thing) to pull us in and distract us. We must be able to maintain focus and composure and stay connected to others without losing our identities. Our non-anxious responses to any sabotage are what’s going to define us as self-differentiated leaders, which will lead to influencing others towards accomplishing the goal.
When it comes to crucial conversations, the free flow of meaning between two or more
people (dialogue) is what leads to success (Patterson et al., 2012). We need to create synergy by having members take from their personal pool of meaning and add to the shared pool. This will help us all make better choices because the larger the pool, the smarter the decisions (Patterson et al., 2012). Here are the principles of dialogue as laid out by Crucial Conversations to avoid debate, silent treatment, manipulation, and so on:
Start with Heart
Keep your heart in the right place and stay focused on your goals. Remember that the only person you can directly control is yourself. Make sure your motives are good before moving forward. Here are a few tips:
Clarify what you really want. Ask yourself: What do I want for myself? For others? For the relationship?
How should I act if this were what I really wanted?
Clarify what you DON’T want…what is the worst thing that will happen if you stop pushing?
Combine what you want with what you don’t want and look for a productive option to bring yourself to dialogue.
Learn to Look
When a conversation starts to become difficult, we often end up doing the opposite of what works. Here are a few tips:
Be aware of the conditions and content of your conversation.
Look for when things become crucial.
Learn to look for signs that your conversation is moving towards silence or violence.
Make it Safe
When tempers flare or when discussions silence, step out of the conversation, make it safe, then go back and continue the dialogue. Here are a few tips:
Decide what is at risk…mutual purpose or mutual respect?
Apologize if you’ve disrespected them.
Start with what you don’t mean, then explain your intentions.
Create a mutual purpose.
Master my Stories
When you’ve lost control of a conversation, take charge of your emotions. Retrace your path and get back to the facts. Here are a few tips:
Ask yourself if you are in a form of violence or silence.
Look for evidence to support your story.
Tell the rest of the story by asking yourself if you’re pretending not to notice your role in the problem.
STATE my Path
When you have a tough message to share, analyze your message and STATE your path:
What?
Share your facts - they are the least controversial
Tell your story - be confident, but don’t pile everything you want to say, just conclusions
Ask for others’ paths - listen to others’ views about the situation
How?
Talk tentatively - Tell your story rather than disguising it as a hard fact
Encourage testing - make others feel safe to share opposing views
Explore Others’ Paths
Start with a patient attitude of curiosity to help others feel safe. Then use these 4 power listening skills to help make it safe for other people to speak frankly (AMPP):
Ask - to get things rolling and show interest in their views
Mirror - to confirm the emotions appear to be feeling
Paraphrase - to acknowledge the story, which shows you understand
Prime - when you’re getting nowhere by taking your best guess at what they might be thinking or feeling to get the dialogue moving
These tools work when in silence or violence.
Move to Action
When it’s time to make a unified decision, setting clear expectations about how decisions will be made is key. We can’t assume things will get done with the expectations we have in mind. We first have to decide which method of decision-making we will use (Command, Consult, Vote, or Consensus). When deciding which method to choose, ask yourself:
Who cares?
Who knows?
Who must agree?
How many people is it worth involving?
The next step is to give assignments so there won’t be any confusion about:
Who?
Does what?
By when?
How will you follow up to keep everyone accountable?
After reading the tips and strategies laid out in Crucial Conversations, I felt a little overwhelmed as I wondered if I would remember everything in the heat of the moment. It’s going to take a lot of practice and role-playing, but since I have the support of my core collaboration team, we can and we will get this done. I feel more prepared than ever before to have the crucial conversations needed to move our innovation plan forward. I love the feeling of confidence I have in myself and in my team to speak up and create change in our organization. I’m confident my team and I will overcome resistance towards our change plan and successfully progress forward.
References
Camp, J. (2010, November 10). Friedman's Theory of Differentiated Leadership Made Simple. YouTube. Retrieved March 1, 2022, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RgdcljNV-Ew
Patterson, K., McMillan, R., Grenny, J., Switzler, A., & Gregory, E. (2012). Crucial conversations: Tools for talking when stakes are high, 2nd edition. McGraw-Hill Education.
Vital Smarts. (2012, February 10). Crucial conversations explained in 2 minutes. YouTube. Retrieved March 1, 2022, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ixEI4_2Xivw
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