Books/Crucial Conversations

"Crucial": high stakes, differing opinions, and strong emotions
Choices: avoid, do badly or do well
Humans default to self-defeating ways/first order/adrenaline based thoughts
When actions disproportionately have an impact
Predict success or failure = 5 conversations [?]
Change relies on holding one another accountable to the change
"Fool's choice"
- choose between telling the truth and keeping a friend
"Dialogue"
- Get all the relevant information out into the open
- Allow everyone to add their meaning to the shared pool
Establish a shared pool of meaning up front
"Start with heart"
- Stay focused on your true goal
- Don't rush into looking for ways to win/punish/keep the peace
- Questions
  - What do I want for myself
  - What do I want for others
  - What do I want for the relationship
  - How would I behave if I really wanted these results?
    - Find bearings / direction
    - Take charge of my body
  - Clarify what I don't want
Resisting the fool's choice by setting up new choices
Pay attention to the
- content of the conversation
- condition of the conversation
  - look for when it turns crucial
    - emotional, behavioral, physical
  - safety
    - people stop talking because they feel unsafe
    - people move to silence or violence
- what and why
Silence
- masking – understating/selectively showing opinions
- avoiding – steering away
- withdrawing – leaving a conversation altogether
Violence
- controlling – coercing
- labeling – dismiss with a stereotype
- attacking – making the person suffer
Building safety
- Requirements
  - Mutual purpose: working towards a common outcome – entrance
  - Mutual respect: to be able to continue talking
- Skills
  - Apologize
  - Contrast
    - Emphasize that you don't have a malicious purpose
    - Confirm respect and real purpose
  - Create a mutual purpose
    - Commit to seek a mutual purpose
    - Recognize the purpose behind the strategy / true intent
    - Invent a mutual purpose
    - Brainstorm new strategies
  - Explore others' paths
Monitor yourself
Mastering stories
- REBT/Path to action
- There's the stimulus, and our reaction to it
- Mastering stories
  - Act - notice behavior
  - Feel - feelings encouraging behavior
  - Tell story - story creating emotions
  - See - evidence behind story
- "clever stories" justify bad behavior – incomplete
  - victim - exaggerate our innocence / counter by adding own role
  - villain - overemphasize other's guilt / humanize the other person
  - helpless - powerless to do anything / determine core motivation
- triggered because they're true, we're explaining our actions (elephant in the brain), free us from regret
State my path
- Work with
  - confidence - say it to the right person
  - humility - express and hear opinions
  - skill
- "STATE"
  - Share facts – least insulting/raw data backing story
  - The story – conclusions; use contrasting
  - Ask for other people's paths
  - The how – talk tentatively
  - Encouraging testing – check against reality
Strong belief
- Expressing strong beliefs forcefully
- Look out for this happening
- Tone down the approach
Explore others' paths
- Make a place of safety
- Listen
  - Be curious / stay curious
  - Retrace their stories / path
  - Be patient / let emotions subside
  - Inquiry - invite people to share their story
- Listening well
  - Ask
  - Mirror to confirm feelings
  - Paraphrase to acknowledge the story
  - Prime – add some meaning yourself
- Follow up
  - Agree – look for violent agreement, agreeing but for details
  - Build – start from the core and build out elements of agreement
  - Compare – compare the path with ohers'
Move to action
- Dialog is not decision making – dialog is building shared understanding
- Explain decision making / line of authority
- Mechanisms of decision making
  - Command – we decide how to make it work
  - Consult – collect information
  - Vote – selecting from good options, need efficiency
  - Consensus – everyone agrees; only for high stakes/everyone must agree
- Deciding
  - Who cares?
  - Who knows?
  - Who must agree?
  - How many people are needed?
- Assignment
  - Who / does what / by when
    - no "we" – needs a name
    - exact deliverable / use contrasting to explain what you don't want
    - assignments without deadlines produce guilt not action
  - Follow up mechanism – progress checks / milestones
- Document the work
  - review what was supposed to be completed
Adopting crucial conversations
- Learn to look – identify true dialogue
- Make it safe
Preparing for ccs – review skills
It's not about communication but about results

* *
Misc
- Style under stress:
  - 1 T
  - 2 T
  - 3 T
  - 4 T
  - 5 T
  - 6 T
  - 7 F
  - 8 F
  - 9 F
  - 10 F
  - 11 F
  - 12 F
  - 13 T
  - 14 T
  - 15 F
  - 16 F
  - 17 F
  - 18 T
  - 19 T
  - 20 T
  - 21 F
  - 22 F
  - 23 F
  - 24 F
  - 25 T
  - 26 F
  - 27 T
  - 28 T
  - 29 F
  - 30 F
  - 31 T
  - 32 T
  - 33 T
- Results
  - scores point to silence
  - no particular strengths