Saturday, September 27, 2008

The Debates

If you have taken any classes thorough Pathfinder, you may remember me saying that this is the season for rhetoric and persuasive speech. As we enter the last 40 days before the election, things will reach a pitch. It will be fun to see what you remember from class. For instance:

· Can you restate the controversies in one to three simple sentences?

· To what issues would the topoi lead us in the various controversies? (example - for a claim of fact, the topoi would suggest the questions "How would we know if it is true?" and " Have those conditions been met?")

· Are the candidates meeting their burden (Burden of Proof, Burden of Supporting Assertions, Burden of Rejoinder)

· What kinds of claims are being made? (Fact, Definition, Quality, or Policy)

· What kinds of evidence are used? (Objective evidence, Credibility, or Social Consensus)

· What inferences are being drawn? (Example, Cause, Sign, Analogy, Narrative, or Form)

· Do they see value in having strong relationships, or do they believe that relationships get in the way of good communication?

· When they speak in the past tense, is it usually for blame? Present tense for values or duty? Future tense for choices?

Even though these debates will be about advocating positions instead of collaborating, see if you can tell which of the candidates are more likely to collaborate once elected. You can judge this by trying to detect which one tends to project that they have all of the answers, and which tends to project that they would likely draw opinions from other sources in order to arrive at the best possible decision.

NOTE – this forum is not a political forum and Pathfinder won’t endorse either candidate. The purpose of this article is to point out that the candidates debates and speeches use the same rules as business speech and can be helpful in illustrating concepts that you have learned in our classes or at my speaking engagements. Feel free to leave some comments.

Monday, September 15, 2008

Public Workshop 9/19 is full

Actually, the workshop isn't public - a local company booked the time for some training. So the 9/19 class is full. I am considering revamping my current classes (and adding some new ones) and making them available as Webinars. I attend Webinars all the time and love them. Please give me your thoughts or share some experiences so I can make them just the way you want them. Also, give me some general guidance - what subjects, what times and days, etc. Where are you having your communication issues at work these days?

either add your comment in the blog or email me at gregg.oliver@PathfinderCommunication.com


Thanks to all of you!



Insist on great business results! Go to Pathfinder Communication

Defensiveness

Last time I wrote about Advocacy as an impediment to the logical give and take that distinguishes collaboration. I characterized it as a learned behavior, and one that can be partially or fully managed by a skilled communicator that recognizes it and knows how to steer a group around it. I also mentioned another impediment - Defensiveness. That is the subject this week.

First of all, I know it is a little obvious that these are learned behaviors. I mean, we are not born knowing how to communicate a position as an advocate. Our natural position (so I am lead to believe) is simply to want to do what is best for us, and we are not at all picky about being the author of the idea. Early in life, it seems that we become aware that what is often best for us is to be the author of good ideas. And not just a few, but a LOT. And we should have them frequently. And they should outstandingly productive and profitable. This is recognized as competitive advantage and one highly sought. We learn this in school – that we are rewarded for having the best ideas. This teaches us that it is wise to be able to advocate a position, and exclude others. There comes a time in everyone’s life when they are presenting their idea, sure that it is the right one, and we hear another one – a better one. If at that moment, you begin to support the better idea, or you choose to question it to see if it is really better, or you begin mixing the best parts of your idea with the best parts of theirs; CONGRATULATIONS! You are collaborating.

If (on the other hand) when faced with the better idea, you dismiss it, or discredit the person presenting it, or use half-truths to make your idea look better, or omit important unknowns about your idea to make it more likely to be accepted (and therein increase your competitive advantage), you are advocating.

Defensiveness is just as universal as Advocacy, but not nearly as simple. Defensiveness comes into play when some parties in the conversation feel that an open and authentic exchange of information is not safe. They begin to tailor their words and their level of participation because they feel a need to defend themselves from some threat, real or imagined.

So Defensiveness is the impediment to a collaboration resulting from a real or imagined lack of safety. What causes that?

The answer is that it depends on the individual, and I know that is a TERRIBLE answer so I will try to fix it. There are two general categories:
· Credibility – The person doesn’t feel safe because they perceive a problem with the credibility of someone in the collaboration. If someone thinks they are dealing with someone that isn’t credible, they often begin to censor what they say.
· Respect – The person doesn’t feel safe because they feel disrespected by or feel disrespect for someone in the collaboration. If someone feels they are being treated disrespectfully, or their dignity is being threatened, or that the person with whom they are dealing is unrespectable, they often begin to censor what they say.

These are the general categories, and their contents vary from person to person based on many things. I once worked with a person that kept me at arm’s length, never really sharing their thoughts on our business dealings with me. It was very uncomfortable for us both. After a series of talks about it, she admitted that she considered me unprofessional. I was very surprised. We had done a lot of good things together and I considered myself to be VERY professional in all if my dealings with her. After a few more conversations, she told me it was my appearance. My hair was long for her tastes, and I seldom (very, very seldom) ever wore a suit or even a tie. We had some conversations and eventually we agreed that I could be very effective in doing my job and would wear a tie on any occasion she felt would be enhanced by that level of “professionalism”. We further agreed that she would tell me when those occasions arose.

My point is that the root causes of Defensiveness in communication vary, but fall into a small number of general categories. In the next few newsletters, I will describe the most common things that underlie defensiveness and ways to create sufficient safety to overcome them.

This is very important because keeping Defensiveness under control is the way to keep collaboration productive.

Insist on great business results! Go to Pathfinder Communication

Sunday, September 7, 2008

Advocacy

In communication, the single largest difficulty for nearly everyone comes when a critical discussion transforms from the logical "give and take" that I described in my last newsletter into something less productive. Two familiar forms of this are Advocacy and Defensiveness. I will talk about Advocacy today.

Advocacy is the situation where, instead of coolly examining alternatives, one or more participants begin advocating a single position to the exclusion of any other and are not open to modifying that position. To others in the discussion, it feels as if that participant has made up their mind and that the discussion has shifted from "mutually finding a best solution" to "defending a given idea as the best solution". This begins a polarization that is needed in the final decision making process, but is counterproductive before then. This is why it often "feels" that the discussion is over and it is time to decide before any one position is mutually acceptable. People will in fact say at this point that "I guess there is no sense in discussing this further; your mind appears to be made up".

The mindset of the advocate is based on years of conditioning that "the rewards accrue to the person that owns the best idea", like the smartest kid in school. It is very tempting to re-live the joy of being the one to have the best idea, because we have seen the individual rewarded for a good idea many more times than seeing a group rewarded for a GREAT idea. The job of collaboration is just that; producing GREAT ideas that are better than a single individual would produce and in less time. in other words, we are trained to advocate and be competitive rather than collaborative. In business, it is FAR better for the organization to be collaborative because we need the BEST ideas. So, the root of solving the advocacy issue is overcoming the conditioning that we have been immersed in since childhood.

The earlier you can spot advocacy in a conversation, the better, because you can deal with it before the advocate becomes so invested in a position that they can't change course without feeling weak or losing face (in their own mind). Here are two themes to employ in doing this:
· Trust - Ask the group (not singling out the advocate) to trust all the members and the process. That is, explicitly request that, even though it seems that we have mentioned an idea that COULD work, we trust that the people in the group and the process of inquiry COULD result in a better idea than any we currently have with little effort. Ask the group to stay open to being influenced and to try to be productive in creating and questioning all the ideas. If an advocacy begins to develop, ask the advocate to mention the downside of the position. This will help to keep their thinking fluid.
· Purpose - Ask the group to recall the purpose of the discussion; that is, to to create a great idea that has been thoroughly vetted through inquiry. This means we need all members to participate in the inquiry until we have found the idea with the best ratio of positive to negative points. Remind them that the purpose is NOT to "single-handedly" develop the great idea, but to contribute to its creation.

If you arrive at a point where one or more members feel that "their mind is made up", it is a good time to ask all involved for any downside risks associated the position and discuss if their manageability. If the downside risk is not manageable, the group needs to do more work or get some new perspectives.

Insist on great business results! Go to Pathfinder Communication