Backing Up Your Statements

We have spoken about conducting discussions about important topics and how we can use the SPIRAL model as a guide for better discussions. We have spoken specifically about:

·         Categorizing the statements (claims) made into one of four categories.

·         Formulating good questions to investigate the basis for statements (questions are based on the statement’s category)

·         The three categories into which the responses to those questions will fall.

In other words, we have gotten through asking good questions and being given a response. We still have a very important part of the model to consider – analyzing the logic, the validity…the weight of the responses and the argument.  We will now start discussing how we analyze the logic of the statement(s) made in a discussion.

 There are five skills in which you will need some expertise, and each of them is easy to understand. Remember that you are likely already doing these things, but you may not know EXPLICITLY how you do them. Until you develop clarity regarding these elements, it is unlikely that you are consistent in your application and are not getting optimum results. Developing your skills in these areas will bring you an exceptional amount of confidence and credibility. We will discuss them one by one over the coming weeks.

 

They are:

1.       Accurately determining the threshold of acceptance of evidence (Certainty vs. Likelihood)

2.       Listen critically to what is being said

3.       Evaluating the construction of what is being said; which statements are made as claims and which are offered to support the claims (mapping)

4.       Evaluating the strength of the support being given (the power of the support lies in its likelihood of providing a correct conclusion)

5.       Evaluating the strength of the connection between the statement being supported and the support itself (the power of the connection lies in its likelihood of providing a correct conclusion).

 

Threshold of acceptance of evidence (Certainty vs. Likelihood)

The first thing we must consider is the threshold we are trying to reach. Must we be CERTAIN that we are correct? Must it be HIGHLY LIKELY if not certain? More likely than not?

 If we demand certainty in a given situation, then the quality, volume, and rigor of analysis are paramount. There are few cases in business in which certainty can be achieved. This is possible through a process called “deduction” which is notoriously slow and requires a great deal of input – two things that are in short supply in most cases. Even a capital crime requires just enough evidence to squelch “reasonable doubt”, and those discussions can go on for many years.

Generally, the degree of confidence (likelihood) of correctness is directly proportional to what is at risk. This is why I tell my students that it is important to understand the IMPACT and CONSEQUENCES associated with a given situation, and for the various participants in the discussion to vet those before too much discussion takes place. This prevents us from discussing things that really don’t warrant discussion (no impact on our business, regardless of our outcome), or requiring an inappropriately high level of likelihood when the risks are low (and vice versa).

In some cases, a consensus of opinion between a few observers is acceptable (if not much is riding on the outcome), but in the event that the company’s future is at stake, we would surely aim for a higher threshold.

The generally accepted ranking of evidence (think of this as the nature of the response you are given to a question) is as follows (low to high):

1.       Lay Opinion (opinion of a single non-expert)

2.       Consensus of Lay opinion (consensus opinion of several non-experts)

3.       Reasoned Lay Opinion OR Expert opinion (opinion of a single non-expert that has been vetted with stringency OR the opinion of an expert)

4.       Consensus of Expert opinion (consensus opinion of several experts)

5.       A study of expert opinion (consensus opinion of several experts, vetted with stringency)

6.       A consensus of studies (consensus opinion of several studies)

This doesn’t mean that an opinion is usually wrong. It means that when deciding the sufficiency of evidence, it is more likely to get better guidance the higher up you go on this list. Decisions on high risk items would demand a higher level of evidence due to the potential impact.

 

When is Evidence Sufficient (in order of sufficiency, high to low)?

·         When it leads to a conclusion with certainty

·         When it leads to a conclusion that has the force of probability

·         When it leads to a position that is demonstrably more reasonable

o   That means demonstrating stronger reasoning

Otherwise, it must be considered insufficient

Next time, we will talk about the most important skill you will ever develop.
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Answering Questions about Claims

In recent newsletters, we have covered the four types of claims and the questions that one asks in order to clarify and gain a better understanding of what is meant by the claim. With this newsletter, we will cover what we should expect (and what we should accept) as a response to those questions. I will lay this out in a model called the SPIRAL model.


Imagine that there is something, perhaps a piece of sculpture, sitting on a pedestal. There are several people standing around it in a circle, all viewing it from a distance and from different angles. If asked what they see, it is unlikely that all of them will report seeing the same thing because they all have a different view of it. If they are allowed to move around it, approach it and study it from ALL of the available angles it becomes much more likely that they will begin to reach consensus about what they are looking at because they all have the same information. This is the advantage of SPIRALLING in on a topic in a discussion; we get to exchange viewpoints and “see other sides”.

The other reason I call it the SPIRAL model is to help remember the sequence of actions that allow us to evaluate a topic:

1. Someone makes a Statement (a claim). If there is no problem with the claim (that is if we understand and accept as spoken) we move to the next claim.

2. If there IS a Problem with the claim, then we raise an Issue (a question) based on the type of the claim.

3. When we raise an issue, the party that made the claim needs to provide a Response.

4. Once the response is provided, we Analyze the Logic of the response. That is, we determine if the response supports the claim.

Statement. Problem? Issue! Response. Analyze Logic…….SPIRAL

Graphically stated…

We have spent some time covering the types of claims AND the stock issues related to each type of claim. So let’s talk about those responses.

Formally, the response is called “evidence” and that is one way to look at it, but the word implies a certain kind of courtroom methodology that we really don’t mean here. Think of the response as just that – a response to a question about a claim.

For instance, your friend comes in and says “Make sure your windows are rolled up. It’s going to rain.” The Statement here is that it going to rain. This is the first you’ve heard of it, and maybe you saw no sign of rain, so in your mind there is a Problem with the claim and you want to take Issue (question) as to whether the claim is true, so you ask “What makes you say it’s going to rain?” Your friend’s response could be many things:

1. My joints always ache just before a rain, and they are aching right now.

2. Everybody knows it rains this time of year.

3. It was raining 10 miles up the road when I came in to work, and the clouds were moving this way.

4. It is Tuesday. It has rained the last 4 Tuesdays in a row.

5. The weather report said so.

These are all responses meant to answer your question, but how would we sort through them or compare them? It seems like you can answer an Issue with anything!

Just like there are only four types of claims that we have to deal with, there are only three categories of evidence, each with their own evaluation schemes that will be important to us when we begin the “Analyze Logic” step of SPIRAL model. The categories are:

1- Objective Evidence: Something we can examine or test. Example - an object (a wet car or a cloudy sky for response 3 above) or testimony (a weather report for response 5 above). Objective evidence is something that we can look up or review or somehow further examine independently. It doesn’t mean that, for instance, that the item being examined is objective (that is, unbiased). It means that the item being examined is an object, as opposed to the other two forms of evidence (below). Testing objective evidence is done by examining it using the same two questions we would use for testing a claim of fact. That is, we would ask “How would we know if the weather report was credible?” and “Does it meet that test for credibility?” for response 5 above.

2- Social Consensus: These are those things that we decide to agree on generally. For instance, if someone were to claim that “democracy is better than tyranny”, we might ask what they mean by better, but we wouldn’t generally disagree in principle. There are many times when we believe things are generally accepted only to find out they are not. For instance, you may believe that it is common knowledge that people don’t wear white after Labor Day. I would contest that saying that it may be true in some circles, I don’t think it is GENERALLY true at all. When reasons are offered because “everybody knows…” (like response 2 above), that is using Social Consensus as evidence. Testing Social Consensus is done by asking explicitly

3- Credibility: The speaker’s credibility can play a role as evidence as well. Are they knowledgeable in the subject being discussed (training, education, background)? Are they trustworthy (biased or untruthful)? Do they have access to the information they are talking about (the activities going on in private or ‘secret meetings’)?

So there are the three categories of response that are given to back up a claim. When you ask a question, you should try to view the answer in light of one of these categories and, if necessary, ask further questions to clarify the claim.
In the last few newsletters, we have discussed all of the elements in the SPIRAL Model EXCEPT the last one – that is, how do we Analyze the Logic to decide if the statement is cogent and logical? We will cover that next time.


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Claims of Quality and Claims of Definition

Last time, we covered how to analyze the two main things we talk about at work (the way things are, and the way they should be) and I gave the methods for analyzing those questions that were written down by Aristotle 2500 years ago. I promised that this time we would talk about how to resolve the two “subtype” claims – those of quality and those of definition. Let’s do it.

Claims of quality (also called claims of value) are, not surprisingly, claims that attempt to attribute a quality or a value to something. When we refer to things as being “good”, “best”, “healthy”, “kinky”,“large”, “difficult”, “worst”, “regrettable”, and so on, we are attributing a quality that has either a) a non-specific or relative meaning, or b) a meaning that is not easily definable on its own. When we refer to a car as “large”, for instance, what do we mean? How big is a large car? A test that I use for this kind of thing is a test of universality. That is, if I hear a claim and think that in the context it was made that anybody would get more or less the same picture in their mind, then I don’t make much of an analysis. On the other hand, if the claim is subjective and I think it is important for all the parties to have a clear understanding of exactly what is meant, I begin to ask clarifying questions.

The first question is – “Which value should be used to evaluate the subject?”

A claim of value might state that “Quality is more important than on-time delivery”. The phrase “more important” is the “value” phrase here. It could be “more difficult” or “more profitable”. The point is that it is a phrase that has a clear meaning to me, but maybe not the SAME meaning to everyone. So we need to question what is meant by “more important”. Is it more important to the customer? To us? And HOW is it more important - in what way? To the customer’s desire to do business with us? To their ability to be profitable? To our need to meet certain contract requirements? We would hopefully be able to come up with a statement like “Quality is critical to our customer because they don’t have equipment to do rework. It would be better to be late and of good quality than on-time and need to be returned"

This statement still has a problem; it says “it would be better…” which is another claim of value. We would like to have a standard to which we can measure that value. Therefore…

The second question is – “What standards are used to measure competing values?” Are we comparing this to customer needs? Industry norms? Military Standards? Our own business restrictions?

We may ask the customer for a guideline in our case statement. Let’s say that we tell them that we need a guideline to help us with these decisions if we are faced with a minor quality discrepancy, how much time would you be willing to risk? Let’s say they answer “Five days. It would be better for a shipment to be five or fewer days late and be of good quality than for us to have to find a local supplier to do the rework for us”. Now we have a customer supplied guideline. We could revise the statement to say “Quality is critical to our customer because they don’t have equipment to do rework. We may ship up to five days late if it means they receive quality goods”.

After the second question, we have transformed our claim of value into a claim of fact. We can therefore test it the same way – now that we have a standard, we ask if that standard was met. Therefore…

The third question is – “Have those standards been met?” Whatever standards we settled on at the second question must be measurable to the degree that we can settle the question. In our test case, we ask if we meet the five day window or not.

A claim of definition is one in which a word is associated to a definition. You think this is not complex, but it is at the center of argumentation. Developing definitions is CENTRAL to controlling the flow of a discussion and much time is spent in developing evidence to support them.

To resolve a claim of definition, we follow the same strategy (convert it to a claim of fact) but with different questions.

The first question we ask about a claim of definition is “Is it relevant if the term is defined?” If it doesn’t matter, then let it pass. If we need to know what it means, then this is a CRITICALLY important question. If we say “Capital Punishment is murder”,then we are saying that capital punishments is illegal (‘murder’ indicates a life taken unlawfully). If we say “Capital Punishment is killing, and killing is wrong”, then we are offering a moral rather than legal definition but we have to then support attacks on our position like “is it wrong for a soldier to kill? Or in self defense? Because if it is alright to kill in those cases, then not ALL killing is wrong. And isn’t capital punishment more like societal self-defense?”as I said, definition (and learning how to RE-define things in an argument) are critical when it comes to persuasion.

The second question we ask is “Is the definition fair?” That is, does it represent a biased point of view or not? Sometimes we might not like the definition, but if it is unbiased we need to consider it. For instance, in the case of “the product is ready to launch”, we may be listening to an engineer who means that “the design is complete” or a marketing manager describing that“the campaign is designed”. Both of these could be true, but the bias may lead us to believe that more has been done than truly has been.

The third question we ask is “How do we choose between competing definitions?”You say the product is ready to launch, and I say it’s not. How do we choose? We may suggest that we defer to an authoritative source like a Systems Engineering definition, or a Project Management definition, or just a dictionary if it applies. We may agree that we need some criteria that define what“product launch” means to us. We may defer to the definition that the company president uses. Maybe we’ll ask our customers what would constitute readiness, like“is the training ready yet?” Whatever method we use to make the choice, the choice needs to be made.

Again, we are converting the claim of definition to a claim of fact by asking these questions, and testing it by asking for evidence.

Oh, yeah – evidence. This week, all I want you to ponder about evidence is that there are only three kinds of evidence. Ever.

1 – Credibility: The person making the statement is credible, and because they are, we accept what they tell us.

2 – Objective Evidence: This is something we can examine or review, like something tangible or testimony.

3 – Social Consensus – This is something we all agree to. If we don’t agree to it, then we have to find one of the other two kinds of evidence to support it. Think about a statement like “Democracy is better than Tyranny”. We accept it at face value because we all agree with it.

Since there are just three kinds of evidence, I will get through them all next time AND be able to describe how you rate the strength of a specific piece of evidence.

Insist on great business results! Go to Pathfinder Communication

The Way Things Are and What We Should Do

Write me or leave a comment to congratulate me on my 150th article!

In the last newsletter, I invited you to take some time in your workplace and try to categorize what you heard into the two main types or two subtypes of claims. They were:

• Claims of Fact (the way things are)
• Claims of Definition (the way we define things)
• Claims of Value (seeing things and good vs. bad (absolute values) or better vs. worse (relative value))
• Claims of Policy (what we should do)

 Judging by the mail I got, some of you were able to pick them out readily, and some had trouble hearing them. That’s because, in real life, people generally don’t organize their sentences in the form of claims (unless they are trained communicators). The words flow like thoughts and listeners, if trained or very interested, will organize the words into claims in order to process them. Said another way:

 

• A trained communicator will express claims in the simplest form to promote understanding in the listener.
• A trained listener learns to use a few techniques to help clarify and organize an untrained speaker’s words so that a clear meaning is shared between them.

The readers of this newsletter are getting the training and, judging by the email, the next thing I need to do is describe how to categorize claims.

 

 Writers master the art of creating dialog that is simple to follow and still mimics natural speech. This is so regular people can remain interested in what characters have to say, understand their meaning, and feel what the emotions that the writer intends to convey. This task takes talent, training, and practice to perfect, and I don’t intend to turn anyone into a screenwriter (not that I could). However, I CAN show you how to listen and use the inquiry model to dissect normal unscripted speech into the correct claims. Let’s start with some talk I heard this week at work:

 
 

“We thought the changes in the customer’s budget would cause a slowdown in new contracts, but they seem to be coming in faster. I think, though, we are going to keep hiring at the same rate we planned. I think we should hire at the same rate that the contracts come in.”

  These three sentences represent a typical natural language thought being expressed – maybe between two people or even in a small group. You know from experience that this just comes gushing out of people all day and that when you hear it, you process it in silence – making a number of assumptions about what the person means and what the impact is. Our assumptions usually are incorrect. Often they are not SO wrong that we have a negative effect on the company operations, but sometimes they are.

 

 First we learn to listen. The key to being a good listener is to focus on the speaker and their words. Don’t try to analyze and “mentally argue” while they are speaking. Just try to understand their perspective, and put them in the form of claims.

 

1 - New contracts are coming in faster than we expected

• Claim of quality (due to the word ‘faster’ - need clarification on what ’faster’ means)
• Need to clarify what ‘we’ means
• Need to question if why the situation is different than we expected is relevant

2 – We are going to keep hiring at the planned rate 

• Claim of fact
• Need to clarify what ‘we’ means (same ‘we’ as above?)

3 – Our hire rate should match the rate of incoming contracts

• Claim of policy (note the word ‘should’ – denotes a claim of policy)

Now the analysis:

 

#1 - With a claim of quality or definition, we try to convert it to a claim of fact by working through the value or word meanings until we agree on their specific meanings. In our example, we will ask questions about the words ‘we’ and ‘faster’ until we arrive at a statement like this:

• New contracts are coming in at the rate of $300K per week
• Our department manpower budget was set for the work associated with a $200K per week rate

By using this method (more on that next time), we create two claims of fact to examine.

 

To examine a claim of fact, we ask just two questions (formally known as "raising issues"):

• How would we test the claim to know if it is true? (what evidence will we accept?)
• Does it pass that test? (is there adeuquate evidence?)

Going back to our example, how would we test the claim that new contracts are coming in at the$ 300K rate? Well, we could ask accounting if we are averaging that rate over some period (like 90 days), or we could ask them what a fair test is to determine that. We would be wise to ask them to use the same test as we used to determine that the old rate was $200K. Let’s say that the calculation accounting always uses is to take total sales for the quarter and divide by 13 (weeks in a quarter) to get the weekly rate. That is the test we will use.


Next, we have to determine if the claim passes that test. Let’s say that when accounting makes the calculation, we find that the average is $291K for that last two quarters. We decide to agree that it passes the test and now we know that the incoming contract dollar rate is $291K. If it wasn’t true – if the actual number was still at the planned rate – then we might stop here and wonder” how do these rumors get started, anyways?” Let’s say you didn’t like my suggested test, and I don’t like yours. We might agree to seek someone out that knows more about it than we do about how to determine these things


The second claim of fact is tested using the same two questions, So How would we test to determine is the manpower budget was set to handle $200K per week? Easy – that one we could probably look up. When we look it up, we find that is correct. We were set to handle $200K per week. So the WAY THINGS ARE is that there is a difference between the budgeted and actual amount. At this point, that is all we know.

 

 

 

#2 – “We are going to hire at the planned rate” is another claim of fact, so we test it the same way. First, clarify to see that ‘we’ in this claim is the same ‘we’ that is planned to hire for $200k per week and let’s say that it is our department. How would we test it to know if we are going to hire at that rate? I would want to ask the person that knows the rate at which our department (the ‘we’) is hiring and plans to hire. Let’s say that we decide that it is our boss. We ask the boss and they say we are adding people at the rate we planned – the $200K rate. So the WAY THINGS ARE is that there is a difference between the budgeted and actual amount of new contracts coming in and we are hiring at the lower rate.

 

 

 

#3 – The last claim is a claim of policy and that is the trickiest kind, although we have done some of the legwork already. A claim of policy has five questions associated with it. They are:

• What is the problem exactly?
• How big an impact does the problem have?
• What is it about our standard operation that keeps the problem from being solved already?
• What is the proposed solution and does it solve the problem?
• Does the solution cause problems?

Let’s step through these:

 

What is the problem exactly?
What we know is that contract dollars are coming in 30% faster than we planned. The unplanned work could outstrip our ability to perform it.

 

How big an impact does the problem have?
We don’t know, but at the worst it could cause us to deliver late, or to be rushed and inject defects into the system. All of the problems that come with dinge overwhelmed. At best, we can handle the work within the current hiring plan (if the work is different than usual and requires less resources OR if we find ways to do the work more efficiently than before OR if the new employees we hire come up to speed quickly OR…).

 

What is it about our standard operation that keeps the problem from being solved already?
There is no automated linkage that would make us review the hiring plan as part of reviewing incoming contract dollars.

 

What is the proposed solution and does it solve the problem?
We propose increasing the rate of hire to match the rate of incoming contract dollars UNLESS we analyze the cause deviation from planned hiring and find that somehow it is unwarranted.

 

Does the solution cause problems?
The solution would cause problems if we hired more people than we need to do the incoming work.

 

RECAP – this week we learned that:

• Listening is the first key and remaining objective is the second key. Listen to ensure that the issue is important and work through the issue objectively to ensure that it is clearly understood.
• Natural speech doesn’t present claims on a silver platter, like a TV script might. You have to listen and then re-phrase definitions, values, and qualities to develop a common understanding of them. 
• The resolution of these issues can happen very quickly if you know how to work this model. It is a model called the SPIRAL model, for reasons that will become obvious in a couple more newsletters.
• Claims of Fact have just two questions that need to be answered in order to resolve them.
• Claims of Policy have five questions to resolve them. 

NEXT TIME - In the course of resolving the issues above, we asked people for information and they gave it to us. When you ask for information to resolve a claim, the information is formally called “evidence”. Next time, we will learn:

• What questions to ask to resolve claims of quality and claims of definition?
• What are the three kinds of evidence that we use and what are the rules for evaluating its strength?

 

 

Insist on great business results! Go to Pathfinder Communication

 

Two Types of Business Conversations (and two subtypes)

I wanted to make a stronger connection for you all in reference to a statement I frequently make when talking about business communication, Specifically, the following:

“Many of us have a ‘rule of thumb’ that supports a belief that there is a nearly infinite variety of things can be said in business communications, but in reality there are only TWO primary topics and TWO secondary topics (secondary topics being those that expound on the primary topics. This is a total of just FOUR categories”

I often feel badly when I say this, because the looks I get are either looks of disbelief, confusion, disagreement, or enlightenment. That means I am not doing a very good job with that and so I will try to fix that here, and hope for more enlightenment.

First, let’s discuss why it matters. Being able to categorize the types of conversations allows us to observe and establish theories about our communications. Theory is the part of science that supports analysis and prediction.

We can predict the path of a bullet if we know a few things about the context of the act of shooting. We can even determine things we don’t know about the act, if we analyze the path of the bullet. So first, there is the understanding that there is a science of communication that has robust theory that allows for prediction.

Imagine how useful it would be to recognize ANYTHING said in a business meeting as being one of four types of statements and YOUR method for analyzing it is the simplist and surest method for getting a good result, and using it promotes buy-in. 

My statement is that, in business, we are usually either talking about the way things ARE, or the way they SHOULD be – those are the two primary topics. We often hear assignments of definitions assigned to things (“Capital punishment is murder”) or values (“Greed is good”) when describing the way things are. These definitions and values are the secondary topics we talk about.

 

Next, we go to the classics – Aristotle. Aristotle wrote there are four types of claims (fact, definition, value, and policy). Claims are statements made in critical discussions (discussions in which we are being critical, otherwise known as “argument”). Information about each type is as follows:

• Claims of Fact attempt to describe ‘the way things are’. We recognize “Elephants are gray” as a claim of fact. It is a little more difficult to see the statement “Elephants are red” as a claim of fact, but it is. It is not necessary for a statement to be true to be considered a “claim of fact” – just that it asserts a fact. Part of the robust theory I mentioned earlier gives us tools to examine each type of claim and determine its degree of factuality.
• Claims of Definition attempt to attribute a particular meaning to something. “Late Shipments are epidemic” may be one that a customer might offer when finding out that another order is going to be late. This definition of a late shipment carries with it different meanings to different people. We will use some of our rules to transform this into a claim of fact (maybe several claims of fact in complex issues).
• Claims of Value (also Quality) attempt to assign a value to something. “Our competitors are irresponsible” assigns a quality to our competitors. “Being a vegetarian is better than being a meat eater” assigns a value. Both ask us to make a judgment that needs clearer understanding of the use of those qualities and values. Aristotle will show us the necessary tests.
• Claims of Policy attempt to determine a course of action – what we ought to do, or need to do, or should do. Most of my business discussions are based on this type of claim. It has the most rules of all of the claims (six rules) which are easy to memorize as are they all.

For the next two weeks, just do this for me – Listen. Listen to the things people talk about around you and develop the skill of putting the ideas into one of the four categories. You will see that people sometimes use a lot of words to describe a simple thought. We will go over the importance of collaboratively condensing these “long concepts” into shorter statements to analyze and cover some methods for doing so.

 I promise that the methods I show you are well-understood and have been practiced for millennia. The reason you weren’t taught them in grade school is – well, they are very powerful and probably boring to someone that has not had exposure to critical conversations that were important to them and their livelihood. So, now that you are a person that has decided to tackle this aspect of leadership, it is your time. Start by LISTENING. Always.

 

We will begin learning the rules for testing these for types of claims next time.

 

 

Insist on great business results! Go to Pathfinder Communication

 

Managing Attitudes in Difficult Conversations

When we hold work conversations, there may think we there is just one subject and therefore just one topic to manage, but there are always two conversations in progress – the one about the topic, and the one about the relationships and attitudes held by the people in the conversation.


When I watch someone walk away from a conversation I judge how they appear and whether they appear upset or happy, I often ask them why (because I am a student of such things). Nearly always, the person will tell me the about:

• The way they had imagined the conversation going and how different it was from the way it ACTUALLY went, or

• The other person’s behavior, or

• The other person’s manner of speaking and attitude, or

• The other person’s listening skills (or lack thereof), or

… you get the idea.

We walk into the conversation and if we prepare at all, we prepare to talk about the topic. We evaluate what we know about it, we may research a little if we need to more before we can have a meaningful conversation, and then we consider what questions the other person may be able to answer in order to help shed some light on the topic for us. Seldom, if ever, do we prepare ourselves regarding the person to whom we are going to talk. This week, I want to talk about how to prepare for a conversation in which we anticipate some kind of controversy.


First, let me state that having this kind of conversation is REALLY good for us – we can’t master conflict by avoiding them, and mastering these kinds of conversations moves us from the 85% of leaders that DON’T know how to the 15% of leaders that DO. I suggest that the two most important activities that you seek to master are:

• Asking questions so that you understand just what your counterpart’s perspective, and

• Listening


Other things like understanding their non-verbal cues or learning logical fallacies or cognitive biases are all helpful, but listening and asking questions are foundational.

Some things you will need to ask questions about:

• Why is the topic important to you?

• What impact does the current situation have on you?

• What consequences do those impacts carry? That is, if things don’t change what is the likely outcome?

These are simple questions, and the answers are critical in being able to decide the weight and priority of the issue at hand. We don’t want to spend too little time on important issues nor too much time on trivial ones. This also helps “anchor” us to a given priority for an issue, so that later on we can refer back to the priority we first set and not leave to early nor hang on too long.

Also, it takes some skill to ask them effectively. We have lots of bad habits surrounding asking questions, mostly around the subject of listening.

• We begin to compare their answer with how WE feel about the topic, or

• We stop listening shortly after we ask the question and begin thinking about what we want to say next, or

• We start to judge or evaluate the “rightness” of their position

These habits just take time and effort to break. I started by trying to silence the “voice in my head” that was all that talking that makes it difficult to concentrate on the other person’s words, and found that very difficult. I found that if I guided that voice to be curious about what the other person was saying, it was far easier. That way, it was easy for me to keep my focus on learning the other party’s perspective as well as they do and not be distracted. So I learned to keep the voice curious and asking questions like ”that’s a very different way of looking at this. I wonder how they intend to handle keeping the customer in the loop?” Thinking like that INSTEAD of silently comparing my idea to theirs keeps me very focused on their perspective.

My students sometimes express concerns that following along with their counterpart’s idea, that is considering it so fully while not mentioning their own, makes them feel as if they are falsely leading their counterpart to expect that at the end of the conversation, the idea will just be accepted because no opposing idea has been offered. The best way I have found to deal with that is to be explicit about stating that you have your own ideas on the subject, but would be interested to hear theirs. That way, it’s CLEAR that you each have perspectives, and that you are trying to understand theirs. MANY times, I have found that the other person’s ideas are very good just as they are, and find that I buy in to them completely. So, if the goal is that we end up with an idea that we both buy into, it does no harm to listen to their perspective first.

Even if our ideas are very different, the other person will find you to be a good communicator because you listened to them (people that DON'T listen are the ones most frequently labeled poor communicators). Also, you will find that IF you listen carefully to others and are genuinely interested and curious, your counterpart will usually extend that same courtesy to you. I you find this NOT to be true, write me. I can help you with that.

As far as what questions to ask, there is a model used forformulating questions depending on what it is you want to know about the topic. Here is a link to an article I wrote 3 years ago for that information.


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Understanding the Expressions of Defensiveness

Last time, we talked about the basic actions taken when one is defending oneself in a perceived attack. These actions drive us away from addressing the issue constructively, and towards escaping relevant discussion about it.


These actions are taken by us all, and our expressed in our own personal way. The graphic below shows how we express these actions on a continuum. In the middle is the “ideal” expression. Honest, adult, explicit, and empathetic so that our counterpart knows just how we feel AND that we don’t harm our relationship with them. This is sometimes difficult to do, especially if one feels fear about how the other party may take it and hasn’t developed the skill to express themselves using THE SCORE. If we fail to express ourselves (and keep others on track to express themselves) in the “ideal” zone, we will find ourselves in a conversation that is not targeted on collaboratively finding our best ideas. Instead, we are engaged in a “face-saving” activity.

The continuum ranges from very passive ways to act and react to very aggressive ways (from “silence to violence”).

For instance, depending on the severity of the threat we are feeling, we may choose to express our feelings using sarcasm. This is just to the “passive” side of ideal, a form of “masking” in which we don’t directly say what we mean but instead say the opposite of that we mean, but in a way that conveys our feeling. This is how we avoid confronting a perceived threat.

Let’s say coworker presents an idea that we feel isn’t practical. If we are timid about telling them the idea isn’t very good (for instance, we are afraid they will react badly) we may use sarcasm to avoid saying that the idea is bad. We might say “Oh …that’s a GREAT idea” in such a way that it is clear that we think it is a bad idea, but without really SAYING it. Sarcasm is a way of “masking” what we really mean, but in such a way as we are still expressing it.

Slightly more passive is “avoidance” in which we say something, but don’t even hint they we don’t agree. This often takes the form of wordplay. From the example above, instead of being sarcastic we might say “Very interesting idea…I wouldn’t have thought of it”. Here we have used ambiguity to avoid letting our coworker know our true feelings. Finally, the most passive position is “withdrawal” in which we simply don’t say anything, or we just “go along”.

Moving the other way on the continuum from ideal, we travel down increasingly more aggressive methods of defensiveness. “Controlling” is one in which we may ask a question in a loaded way (“You aren’t going to believe THAT, are you?”) in order to create uncertainty in another’s mind and encourage them to change without using reasons. This is what controlling is about.

Next stop is labeling, in which we affix labels usually emotionally charged labels, as a substitute for reason (“I can’t believe that you listen to NPR and all their socialist nonsense!” OR “I can’t believe that you listen to Fox News and all their fascist nonsense!”). The labeling is more aggressive than controlling because the labels are SUBSTITUTES for reasons; the emotional charge of the labels are intended to be enough to cause the counterpart to react as the speaker intends. Last stop is attack, in which there accusations made that do not address the topic, but perhaps the person making the suggestion. Google “ad hominem” attacks for lots of data on this.

The best way to deal with departure from the ideal is to ask questions about the topic; specificly about how your counterpart sees things, and to avoid becoming defensive yourself. Both take more skill as your counterpart moves down the continuum towards withdrawl or attack. We have recently talked about, and will talk next time about, the questions that one can askto draw the counterpart back to the ideal state in the continuum.

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