Monday, January 19, 2009

A Poll Question

The online classes I promised are in production. The online forum I promised is about ready to go. I am training instructors to provide more live classes. My question is: How else can we connect so that you all are getting the ongoing practice and instruction? Leave me some comments.




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A BIG Lesson

At this point in this series (started 12/29/2008) we have begun discuss ways to unilaterally lead conversation AWAY from unproductive advocacy debates and towards a collaborative flow of ideas that serve a mutual purpose. We are in the process of learning to direct collaborative discussions even as we participate in them. It seems a little unsettling, because it requires the practice of actually helping our counterparts strengthen their positions and finding flaws in our own, but that is the way it may go when you value the RESULT and the RELATIONSHIP more than “winning” an argument.

The most frequently asked question of me? “How do I do this when emotions are running high?” The message from last time was to build collaboration by building safety. This time, more details – ‘nuts and bolts’ stuff – both about building safety and trust AND how to keep emotions from interfering. I say “keep emotions from interfering” rather than “conduct a discussion without emotions” for good reason. Sometimes, the discussion IS about emotions. Sometimes, the trouble we have in speaking with each other IS mainly emotional. So we have to talk about them; we just don’t have to get swept away by them.

Let’s start with unilaterally building safety and trust. Why do we care if our counterpart feels safe in a discussion? We have all seen people bullied into doing someone else’s will, right? IT WORKS! So why not learn how to fillet your counterpart’s perspective, embarrass and humiliate them until they concede your position?

BECAUSE IT IS NOT ABOUT YOUR POSITION ANYMORE. It never was. It is about getting all the information out on the table. ALL of it (some of which is partially in your counterpart’s head). You want it given to you with willing assent. You want it given to you because you are going to do the right thing with it; something both of you want done and to do it right, we all have to know exactly what we are dealing with and we all have to participate willingly in a discussion about what the information means.

We already talked about how to sort through the CONTENT of the conversation (9/26 – 12/29) to challenge the data as a group. Now we are talking about CONDUCTING that conversation so that people will share and participate fully. So we need make a specific set of things known in every conversation we have. We need to live it and breathe it so that we are credible when we do. When asked, we need to know just what to say about any of the following items so we need to understand them thoroughly. I will now present about 20 concepts that you will come to know as your TOOLBOX in unilaterally conducting a collaborative critical discussion. I will give you the basics today, and refer back to them over the course of this series.

Defensiveness – This is why we care about safety. If the participants in a conversation feel adequately safe, they won’t feel defensive. If anyone, including you, starts to feel defensive the collaborative part of the discussion is over until YOU (the communications guy) restores safety.


Purpose – There are many purposes for having discussions, but the purposes for having COLLABORATIVE discussions are simple 1) to understand someone else’s point of view; 2) to express your OWN point of view (or facilitate someone else in doing so; 3) to work through differences (gaps) between each other’s perspectives.

Mutual Purpose – Mutual purpose is more specific than the purpose of the conversation (see “Purpose”). Mutual Purpose is what you stand to gain from fulfilling the purpose. For example, the purpose of a given conversation is to understand the other person’s perspective on a given issue. The Mutual Purpose at work might be that understanding their point of view may improve a relationship that you both care about, or that it may fill gaps in your knowledge of something that will help the company you both work for. If we don’t work for the same company, our Mutual Purpose may be celebrate their expertise or develop a relationship based on their credibility. You and your counterpart stand to gain if the Mutual Purpose is achieved and it is important that you learn to identify it and how to communicate it to your counterparts so that you are actively working together to achieve it.

RespectFour kinds of respect at work in collaboration and they are unilateral – your counterpart does NOT have to share them. 1) Respect for content – you respect that the thing you are talking about is worth talking about and that, since it is natural for people to have different perspectives on most things, respect that your current understanding of the content is ALWAYS just a starting place and that your mind could be changed at any moment IF you are successful in finding a piece of mind changing information. 2) Respect for process – you respect the fact that Plato and Aristotle argued over the principles contained in these lessons and that Aristotle and countless great minds since have refined them to the state they are in now. That most of the time, if we follow the principles of communication that we are learning, we will come to the very best answer. That advocacy is NOT the best way to resolve business issues, but collaboration yields better decisions and preserves and promotes good relationships. 3) Respect for counterpart – you respect that the counterpart (in the absence of diagnosed mental illness) is a rational human being and is doing their best to stay with you in the collaboration. The difficulties they seem to have are simply differences which they lack the skills to overcome but YOU POSSESS. You maintain curiosity about their perspective and you NEVER assume that they are malicious in their intention unless you have strong evidence. You treat them as if their ideas COULD be exactly correct, because you can’t determine otherwise until you fully understand them. 4) Respect for self – You respect that you are intelligent and have skills in communication that others desperately need. You share them. You don’t allow yourself to bully or be bullied, manipulate or be manipulated, judge or be judged. When your counterpart violates these rules, you address it with compassion understanding that they don’t know any other way, or they would use it.

Openness – Openness is the state in which you believe that your counterpart might be right and you might be wrong even if nothing you have heard YET indicates it. You are willing to be persuaded; even hopeful to be persuaded because if you are, it means you didn’t bail out too soon but held on until the ONE important piece of information was finally put into the collaborative “pot”.

Empathy – The state in which you are trying hard to see things from your counterpart’s perspective, even describing things that they haven’t mentioned that support their perspective. You recognize that they have a right to feel the way they do, even if you feel differently.

Curiosity – The state in which you continue to ask questions about why your counterpart holds a given belief until you understand why as fully as you can.

Presence – The state in which you are not distracted from the discussion, either by things going on around you, by the voice in your head, or by your desire to interrupt.

Engagement – The state in which you are really invested in your counterpart – you want nothing more than for all the information to be surfaced and a GREAT informed decision to be made.

Depth – The state in which you show willingness to ask – respectfully and humbly – about things beneath the surface (feelings, beliefs) that may be important to understanding each other.

Humility – Humility is the natural position to assume when you approach a discussion with curiosity, empathy, openness, and respect because you realize that you are FALLIBLE and could very well be wrong until you have used your skills to elicit all of the needed information. The opposite of arrogance, this is KEY in promoting safety.

Tentativeness – Like Humility, this is a state that promotes safety because it shows that you are not completely sure and are anxious to change your mind if you are changing it for good reason – that your mind is not made up until all of the information is available and has been vetted.

Recognizing unexpressed emotions – For now, we will say that like the three primary colors, there are three primary emotions (Fear, Anger, & Embarrassment) that people feel when threatened. Which ones, in what mix and proportion, to what degree, and how they are expressed vary due to the many variables that make us who we are as individuals. They are frequently expressed in collaborative critical discussions (withdrawal, name-calling, sarcasm, personal attacks, crying) when the sense of safety is removed. Learning to recognize them and use them as triggers to step out of the content conversation and into a safety creating conversation will be discussed in one or even two special newsletters.

Subverting Safety – There are things that you will learn how to suppress but your counterparts will do to you (either on purpose or because they are feeling emotional) that can throw a conversation into a tailspin. When your counterpart does these things, you may become defensive; you must first forgive them and then start rebuilding safety for YOURSELF. These things include:
***Judgment (You’re just saying that to hurt me! You always try to hurt me)
***Insincerity (I would never lie to you)
***Manipulation (You should go ask him and then tell me what he says)
***Threats (if you don’t, I’ll make it tough on you)
***Competition (Your idea will never win if you tell everyone about it’s weaknesses)
***Raising Voices – Many times, people raise their voice in a conversation as a signal that they don’t believe you are hearing them. Frequently they are right; while they are talking, you are not listening but waiting for them stop so you can say something. At that time, it is a great idea to NOT raise your voice in retaliation, but instead to pause and acknowledge that your mind has been racing to keep up with theirs. Repeat back what you think their position is an a respectful way, asking them to tell you if you have it right and if not, to clarify their position.

This may seem like a lot for one newsletter, but I am having a little surgery done and I am not positive that I will be able to write next Sunday night. I will be writing again soon, though – forgive me missing a week. Take the time to catch up.

Insist on great business results! Go to Pathfinder Communication

Sunday, January 11, 2009

Getting to Collaboration

Last week, I said we were going to learn to conduct both Advocacy discussions and “Hard” Collaborative discussions with the aim of converting them to “Soft” Collaborative discussions. We want to do this because a “Soft” collaborative discussions are 1) most useful in getting input from all participants and, 2) least destructive (most supportive) of the relationships with the people involved. I also mentioned that we are going to learn to do this unilaterally, meaning we will be the only one in the discussion that is consciously guiding it towards this end. If there is someone that is helping, so much the better – but we won’t count on it because we can’t.

To begin with, recognize that doing this is a form of “leading from within” – leading without being a formal leader. In this effort, our objective as the leader is singular; get all the information on the topic out on the table so that we can examine it, critique it, and use it to make the best possible decision. The difficult part in doing this is that, for more reasons than we can count, people are reluctant to share information unless they feel it is safe to do so. Our main job, therefore, is to create safety. If we fail to do that, the people with whom we are speaking will not be able to share.

We have been trained since kindergarten in NOT sharing information, and we have received NO training in creating safety, so the odds are stacked against us UNTIL we learn how to create and maintain an environment in which people feel safe. Fortunately, there are lots of easy techniques to do it. The most important thing is to develop your own personal mindset that seeks to be collaborative and supports others in doing so. In this series, I will describe in detail what that mindset consists of and how to express it.

Not today though. Today, there are just a few things that I want you to get your head wrapped around; things that challenge the way you look at participating in these discussions.

It is a process of guiding people through the model for content exchange that we discussed in the last series of newsletters (9/26/2008 – 12/29/2008). Remember that in that model, we start by understanding and making clear what the controversy is about (we make the resolution explicit). Then we make (and ask for) claims, raise issues, offer evidence, and supply and weigh inference. So how will we lead from within? We will behave as if they know the model, and when they fail to perform as the model would dictate (e.g., they fail to ask for evidence) then we will do it for them. I know it sounds crazy, but it will start to become clear in a moment.

First, I want you to understand the objective of the collaborative conversation. There are 3 acceptable objectives for these conversations; 1) to understand the other person’s point of view (this should ALWAYS be your primary objective), 2) to express your point of view to the other person so that they understand it, and 3) to troubleshoot or come to a mutual understanding about something (in which case we have to do the first two).

The exchange is not complex, but it is different than usual because it is about building safety FIRST. We want to understand the other person’s perspective. We want to be curious about it. We want to understand it the way an interviewer wants to understand the inner thoughts of a politician or celebrity – NOT to compare them with ours, but to understand THEM - fully. We want to ask questions (remember the 3 ways to formulate issues?). We want to offer thoughts that support their perspective (to offer supporting evidence and strengthen inferences). We then may want to express OUR perspective. We will follow the rules for exchanging content and offer evidence and inference. We will ask them about the weaknesses in OUR idea. We will ensure that they understand our position. We will then discuss the differences in our two perspectives. We will talk a lot about this technique over the next few weeks, but for now understand that we will build safety and trust.

To illustrate how we know that this objective is achieved, I want you to recall a time when you took a position that you were CONFIDENT was right. You felt very sure that you are on the right side of the issue, and then you found a piece of information that indicated you were wrong. I want you to remember that as clearly as you can, in that it is very instructive in learning how to conduct a collaborative discussion. You are on a hunt for THAT piece of information – “What would indicate that we are on the wrong track? How can we find it? Let’s look everywhere for it”. This is the purpose for raising issues, questioning inference, evaluating evidence, all of it – because we want to know if we are on the wrong track and get OFF of it as soon as we can. We want that “A-HA” moment as soon and as often as we can get it. Once we exhaust those pieces of information, we can be on the right track. You may recall that this is the opposite of an Advocacy discussion, in which we hide information that subverts our position. Here we want to subvert ALL positions as soon as we can and get to the one that is most sound. Then we have a collective win.

I also want you to remember that, until you got that piece of information, your analysis of all the other data led you to a wrong conclusion. In other words, that you are fallible. If you can remember that, then you can accept that it is appropriate to be tentative and humble, rather than arrogant or even bold. When you are in a collaborative discussion, there can be lots of wrong positions. Since you are trying to build safety, you have to make it possible for someone to be wrong and not lose face. You need to make it possible for someone to disagree. Boldness and arrogance work against that – tentativeness and humility work in favor. There is a lot to building safety that we will cover in the coming weeks, but this is the starting place.

In closing for this week, I want you to remember is that it is NOT a requirement that we settle an issue in one conversation. I can’t tell you the number of times I sit in a meeting with 10 minutes left and someone raises an interesting, but complex, issue. The natural inclination is to try to settle it in the time remaining in that meeting. Fight that urge. Recognize that it is unlikely to reach an adequately vetted position and properly supported decision on anything of complexity in one conversation. Fight the urge to shortcut the process. It needn’t take a long time, either. My experience is that I have seen more harm caused by discussing too little than delays caused by discussing too much.

Insist on great business results! Go to Pathfinder Communication

Monday, January 5, 2009

Types of Critical Discussions

Last week marked the beginning of a new series of newsletters dealing with improving communication skills. The main ‘take-aways’ were:

  • We are not naturally skilled and having critical conversations, so we need some training.
  • There are always two things being exchanged during a critical conversation – Content and Attitude.


In the coming weeks, we will talk about improving our skills at exchanging content and being able to read and shape attitudes. I usually try to accomplish these kinds of lessons by using models and examples. For this series, I will use everything I can think of to clearly explain the mechanics of conducting real-life critical discussions. If anything is unclear, post a comment or email me at Gregg.Oliver@PathfinderCommunication.com and I will do all that I can to clarify.

This week, let’s talk about the categories of critical discussions we typically have at work. Not every discussion is a critical discussion. Recall that a critical discussion is defined as one in which we are being critical of something. I don’t aim to improve your capability in anything other than critical discussions. I say these discussions fall into 3 categories:
  • Advocacy discussions, in which (at least) two individuals are trying to convince one another as to the superiority of their own position in a given matter, without much regard as to the merit of the other position.
  • “Soft” Collaborative discussions, in which (at least) two individuals that are generally not adversarial are trying to come to an understanding about a given matter.
  • “Hard” Collaborative discussions, in which (at least) two individuals that become adversarial are trying to come to an understanding about a given matter.


Advocacy discussions are contests. The individual is a spokesperson representing a given position. The purpose of the contest is to “win” by achieving acceptance of their advocated position. Period. These are the most common types of discussions we have in business and, while they do have a place, they are poorly suited to 1) developing a common understanding of a position or, 2) promoting group problem solving.
Their weaknesses are many. It is beneficial for a contestant, for instance, to withhold weaknesses in a particular position in order to increase the likelihood of its acceptance. So while there may be known deficiencies in an approach, those deficiencies will not be disclosed UNLESS raised by participants other than the presenter. Likewise, strengths of the idea may be overstated; opposing or tangential opinions may not be considered for “blending” with the original idea in order to preserve the value of the “win” associated with its adoption.


The basic flaw in an advocacy discussion is that it is by nature unbalanced. The presenter brings a fully formed position and views other positions as competitors to be beaten. So any means to preserve imbalance (in their favor) is justified.

Collaborative discussions seek balance. They are not competitive in nature, but cooperative. Many ideas are brought together by contributors and they are compared and reconstituted into a common understanding and perhaps a solution to a problem. There is no loser in this type of discussion. There is a shared solution.

You can get the right answer in either type of discussion, but the long term cost of Advocacy discussions are pretty high if one is trying to use them for things for which they are not suited. They tend to marginalize some participants, and promote and ‘Us versus Them’ mentality. In some cases, I have used them to great effect. Example – a company that was going out of business had used equipment for sale on an “as-is” basis that I wanted to buy. I was not making friends, nor did I see any chance for a long term relationship. I was, in fact, competing with them for my money. I took an Advocates approach to the negotiation. Without being unethical, I went after (and got) the very best value that I could.

They are also possibly useful in situations in which there are a small number of options that are well-defined. In other words, there are few other options. I would support advocacy from a medical provider dealing with a routine issue. No second opinion needed.

Most discussions in business, however, are not so isolated. There are relationships to preserve, credibility and reputation to protect, and important considerations that are different than (and sometimes opposed to) our own that should be considered. These are best reached using collaborative methods. We learned how to manage the exchange of content in the last series of articles. Content is seldom where the difficulty lies, however. The exchange of attitudes is where most of the skill is applied.

In some settings we have a group that gets along well, understands each other, has respect for each other and has respect for the importance and difficulty of the process of collaboration. They may or may not have been trained in collaborative skills, but can work together to come to an understanding. These are the situations that I call “Soft” Collaborative Discussions. If we follow the model for exchanging content in a critical discussion (covered in this blog starting 9/26/08), the temperament of the group will allow for easy management of the exchange of attitudes regarding the content and the process of collaboration.

In other settings, the management of the exchange of attitude is the most challenging. It is what makes collaboration difficult. These Hard Collaborations are difficult because they demand groups of people that may not like or respect each other to work together on ideas upon which they might completely disagree.

In summary, we have:

  • Advocacy discussions, which are by far the most commonly used, and simultaneously are the least useful in achieving the ends of most business discussions and are somewhat destructive to a business.
  • Soft Collaborative Discussions, which are the most useful, least destructive and least common.
  • Hard Collaborative Discussions, which are most useful in that they are collaborative, but potentially are the most destructive due to the difficulty of managing the exchange of attitudes. These are the discussions most of us avoid at all costs.


What we are going to learn in this series is how to turn Advocacy discussions and Hard collaborative discussions into Soft collaborative discussions by introducing Collaboration into the Advocacy format and by managing the exchange of attitudes. Oh, and we will learn to do it unilaterally – that is, without the support of others. This is no simple matter and will require your attention, but starting next week, we will begin reshaping your ideas on how to interact with your peers and superiors at work.

Insist on great business results! Go to Pathfinder Communication