Crucial Conversations

These is the list of tools to have effective crucial conversations:

With this tool is where we know how to talk without offending anyone and to state our opinions. In order to achieve this, you mix three ingredients: confidence, humility, and skill. Here is where you: Share your facts Tell your story Ask for other’s paths Talk tentatively Encourage testing For me, I can see myself doing this. I can visualize myself sharing my elements, my conclusions, asking others to share their facts and stories, explaining myself as a story instead of facts, and making it safe so others can express their views.

Here is where you notice when other people are not feeling safe so the conversation is compromised. You need to learn to see when the topic and what people are doing (silence or violence) start getting out of hand. It is important that you recognize your Style Under Stress so you learn how to react to that and how to improve to move to better styles. When you are under stress you can move to silence or violence mode by masking, avoiding, withdrawing, controlling, labeling, or attacking. You need to work on this so you can lead crucial conversations. For me, I think I am good at noticing how people are feeling most of the time, but after I took the assessment to determine my Style Under Stress, I got that I withdraw, try to control, and attack so I have a lot of work to do to avoid these behaviors. According to the Dialogue Skills Assessment, I need to work on most of the areas. It has been very interesting to confirm that I’m not very good at having good conversations, and to have a table that shows you in what areas you have to work on to get better.

Here is when you learn how to listen when others blow up. With this tool you need to be very patient and curious because you really want to get to the bottom of the discomfort. You can: Ask: you show interest and ask questions about what is going on. Mirror: You recognize and accept the emotions that other people are feeling. Paraphrase: You restate what other people are sharing so you show that you understand and they feel safe. Prime: Guess what they are thinking and feeling Don’t forget to use your ABC: Agree when you find agreement Build on the areas you have not agreed on yet Compare: find what the views have in common For me, I am very excited to try this one too. Of course I need to learn how to manage my own emotions first, but I want to see how I use these strategies when people are reacting to a situation.

With this tool, you can make it safe to talk. After you notice that a conversation is not safe anymore, you find the ways to bring it to safety. Here is when you establish a Mutual Purpose by finding a mutual goal so people are open to the conversation because you show that you care about their interests. When this step is at risk is when the debates start and people get defensive. Mutual Respect is important too because it allows a safe dialogue so learning to sympathize is crucial. Depending on the situation, you need to Apologize when you make a mistake, Contrast using don’t/do statements, or create a Mutual Purpose by finding that choice that works for everyone. Don’t forget, keep asking yourself what you really want. For me, I need to learn ways of restoring safety. This point reminded me of my last principal, she always listened to everyone and found ways of including most of the ideas. She always made the conversations safe and respectful. I have been practicing the don’t/do and even though they don’t come to me very fast, I am getting more aware of what I need to say.

This is the last step and here is when the actions start and the results happen. There are four ways that you can decide: Command: No one else is involved in the decisions Consult: You listen for the group input and then the decisions are made Vote: You use majority wins to make the decisions Consensus: Everyone agrees on the decisions Like the goals, it is important to establish who is responsible to act on the decision, what they need to do, and by when. It needs to have a follow up time to hold the responsible accountable. For me, I would prefer to use the consensus style so everyone will be on board. It will be very clear who is doing what by when, and it sounds very similar to the WIGs sessions.

With this step you start with yourself because you are really the only person that you can control, knowing your motives and what you really want. You believe that dialogue is a viable option, and you ask three important questions so you stay focused while having the crucial conversations: What do I really want for myself? What do I really want for others? What do I really want for the relationship? You need to train your brain to stay thinking about your goal and not let the adrenaline take over of your body and get reactive. Your brain needs to learn to find different options instead of going to silence or violence. For me, I need to really work on this. I am a very reactive person so I need to train my brain to stay calm and focus on the goal. I already started using this strategy and it has allowed for more fluently conversations.

Adapted from Crucial Conversations: Tools for Talking when Stakes are High. By Patterson, Grenny, McMillan, &amp; Switzler

Crucial conversations are discussions that need to be done when opinions vary, stakes are high, and emotions run strong. It is very important to know how to handle them because they usually impact your life. It is crucial to learn how to have a dialogue with people that stay silent or turn violent so the conversation takes a healthy path by getting all the relevant information from you and the others. People need to feel that their opinions, feelings, and theories are heard and are relevant when making the decisions. 

Here you recognize when you are angry, scared, or hurt but you stay in dialogue. You learn how to manage your emotions and choose behaviors that let you stay in effective conversations for better results. You learn to create useful stories instead of listening to the worst case scenario stories that your mind finds. Here is where the evidence is crucial, you use it to have support for your story. You learn to recognize the Victim, Villain, and Helpless Stories and you recognize your role in the problem. Don’t forget, &nbsp;keep asking yourself what you really want. For me, this has been my favorite tool. I recognized myself having conversations in the past where I was the victim, the others were the villains, and there was nothing else I could do. My eyes and heart were opened to recognize that I was at fault too on many of those situations. Now I know that I have to shoot down the stories that my brain creates and just stay with the facts. I need to give the benefit of the doubt to every situation, and I need to recognize when I am wrong to get better.

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