Saturday, July 24, 2010

Next Speaking Engagement

I will be speaking to Tech America at their Operations Roundtable on August 11 at 7am. the event is held at:
HME (HM Electronics)
14110 Stowe Drive
Poway, CA 92064-7147

The topic is "Productive Business Communications with THE SCORE - Building Great Working Relationships"

for more info, http://www.techamerica.org/operations-roundtable


Insist on great business results! Go to Pathfinder Communication

Assessing a Speaker's Credibility

What are we looking for when we question a claim during a critical conversation?

We are looking for some kind of credible backing to support the claim. We ll call it evidence, support, backing, or validation as we go through these next few newsletters, but it s all the same thing - reasons. That is why we call it "reasoning".

The first place we look for backing is with the speaker. Are they credible? In order to answer the question, let's review the elements of credibility:
  • Competence - are they generally capable in their areas of expertise.
  • Trustworthiness - do they have competing interests or opposing beliefs that could cause them to emphasize or de-emphasize important information or lead you toward or away from an objective discussion?
  • Good Will - are they disposed favorably to your organization?
  • Dynamism - a speaker's body language can indicate their engagement. Are they engaged (vs. passive)?
  • Eyewitness Access to information - are they relaying facts about things that they have actually seen?
  • Background and Training - are they adequately credentialed and knowledgeable in the topic at hand?
  • Good track record - do they have a history of coming to well-reasoned conclusions? Getting successful results?

In looking at these items, the uninitiated tend to believe that these are all or nothing kinds of qualifications. That is, either a person is trustworthy or not, competent or not, or has a good track record or not. I would debate that, but not here because I don't need to. All I have to remember are these two things:
  • We have the responsibility to determine the other party's credibility. Decisions made with credible data tend to yield better results.
  • It doesn t have to be perfect. In other words, we can t require expert level credibility as prerequisite to speaking on a subject.
I don't have a degree in meteorology, but I can still make a claim about tomorrow's weather. Why should you believe me when I do? Ask me! "What makes you say that?" is a simple question that can be used to inquire about my evidence.

If I say that "I heard it on the news" then you may be satisfied. I got the information from a recognized authoritative source.

If you feel that I may not be accurately reporting what I heard (for whatever reason) and it is important, you may double check. It doesn't matter if i was mistaken, or if i was trying to mislead you. Double checking will take care of the question regarding the correctness of the data.

If I say "I heard it from a friend" then the source may be less credible. If this is an important issue, then you may ask for more information like "how does your friend know?", or "Is your friend a meteorologist?"

If I say that "I am an amateur meteorologist with a weather station at home that I use to generate my own forecasts." , you may ask questions that help you understand my level of expertise and track record ("Where did you get the equipment (determine the level of commitment)?", "How long have you been doing it?",  or "How accurate are you compared to the National Weather service?") .

These questions don t have to be asked in a rapid fire interviewer fashion. They can be friendly and conversational. The purpose is to come to understand where the speaker's credibility on the topic may be lacking and more information is needed. The more important the information is with respect to the discussion at hand, of course, the more rigorous this process tends to be. It is not necessary for all evidence to be "iron clad" or "air tight". the more important the issue is, and the more critical the individual evidence is to the issue, the more we may press for solid evidence.


Note that if you are the speaker, you will become recognized as credible by anticipating these kinds of questions. Being prepared for this will make your perspective more believable and adoptable because YOU are more credible.

Next time, we will discuss Social Consensus (common knowledge, shared beliefs) as a form of evidence and how to analyze it.


Insist on great business results! Go to Pathfinder Communication

Monday, July 12, 2010

Speaking July 23 in Rancho Bernardo

I will be speaking at the Project Management Institute's breakfast meeting at Coco's locates at 16759 Bernardo Center Dr in Rancho Bernardo on Friday, July 23 at 7:30 am. Great bunch of people. I will be speaking on creating Bipartisanship (getting on the same page).

I make this announcement because when I fail to, I get mail indicating that people want to come see me but they never know where I am speaking. So here you go.
Insist on great business results! Go to Pathfinder Communication

Answering Questions

In the last newsletters we have come to understand that, in a critical conversation, one side makes claims and the other side asks questions about the claims. The purpose for this seesaw is to generate understanding about each side’s perspective. The role of claimant and inquirer change places throughout the conversation until, ideally, there is a clear understanding of the available perspectives and a resolution is reached. Following the model I have been writing about recently will help you not only to come to understand other perspectives, but to prepare yourself before you present a new idea. Prepare you to understand what questions are likely to be put to you, and to respond with credible and solid information.


The purpose of the next few newsletters will be to help categorize the three types of supporting evidence that are used to justify claims just as we categorized the four kinds of claims that can be made. Most people, including myself, have experienced some degree of nervousness when being asked for justification of a certain point of view, but being asked for it is certainly to be expected and, in fact, to be encouraged in order to promote a full understanding of one’s perspective. By developing these evidence categories, I hope to focus the way you look at the types of responses for which you would ask for or would be asked. This will reduce the difficulty in preparing for or responding to instances when you either need to ask for clarification, or may be asked to supply it. Being prepared is an important aspect of maintaining a confident attitude.

For now I want you to adopt a certain attitude about the questions that you ask, or are asked, that relate to a critical conversation. I want you to view them as requests. They are requests for further information regarding a claim being made. They are not attacks, or tricks, or attempts ot make you look foolish (not that they can’t be, but I want you to lose the attitude that they are). Just view them as unbiased requests that are either relevant to resolving the matter at hand or not. Further, recognize that even if they answer is obvious to you, it may not be to the person asking. So give them the benefit of the doubt and answer it as if they truly need the answer to understand your perspective.

Finally, for this week, view them as requests for one of three specific kinds of information:

1) Information that you have because of your expertise and credibility

2) Information that you have because you possess some kind of tangible item (data, statistics, photographs, recordings, printed material, etc) that they don’t have and making It available to them will increase their understanding.

3) Information that is common knowledge, but that they somehow are unaware of or fail to connect with the issue at hand.

Your job is to respond to their request with one of these types of information. We will go into detail next time.


Insist on great business results! Go to Pathfinder Communication