Sunday, December 18, 2011

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.


Insist on great business results! Go to Pathfinder Communication

Saturday, November 26, 2011

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

Sunday, November 13, 2011

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

 

Sunday, October 30, 2011

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

 

Sunday, October 16, 2011

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.


Insist on great business results! Go to Pathfinder Communication

Sunday, October 2, 2011

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.

Insist on great business results! Go to Pathfinder Communication

Sunday, September 18, 2011

Collaborate More, Defend Yourself Less

I have written a lot about moving from an Advocacy (also known as adversarial) type of discussion to a Collaborative type for a long time. Advocacy discussions are the kind we see most often, in which we make claims and defend them, and attack the claims made by the other side. This style is not as productive for many reasons (search on “collaboration” in this blog), and has two key weaknesses:


1. It sets up a “winners and losers” situation that leads to obvious negative impact on teamwork, integrity, listening, and “buy-in” do to the emphasis on winning. People will do surprising things to “win”.

2. It drives us into defenses that tend to drive us away from the reality of the situation and towards a distortion of that reality in order to reduce our anxiety regarding the potential of “losing face” associated with being wrong. It can cause a disconnection in relationships as well, and that makes it useless as a long-term strategy for solution generation.



The defenses to which I refer are classic positions that we all tend to choose from in cases where “winning” is at risk, and disconnect us from the reality of the situation. They protect us from changing our opinion publicly, which is often falsely seen as “unacceptable”. There are seven and they are:

1. Denial – The act of refusing to admit that an opinion that differs from ours is relevant, or conceding its relevance but expressing that the consequences can be postponed until they are moot.

2. Avoidance – Refusing to face a weakness in our argument. We may ignore it, change the subject, or refuse to discuss it.

3. Rationalization – Easily our favorite! Making excuses and explaining away any opinion that threatens to expose our weaknesses.

4. Intellectualization – View this as “rationalization for the well-educated”. The excuses and explanations are just more complex. They still serve the sole purpose of distancing the speaker from any perceived weakness of opinion or of character.

5. Displacement – Redirecting our reaction to being threatened away from a more formidable party to a less formidable one. Instead of standing up to the boss, we go home and yell at the kids.

6. Projection – Rather than deal with our negative emotions, we blame them on other people. Even more common, we simply blame others for our problems.

7. Regression – This is a specific behavior, and may be a pattern for some, in which we revert to childlike behaviors when facing stressful or unhappy situations. “I don’t want to talk about money problems tonight – let’s go out and party!”



These tactics from facing weaknesses in our own positions only postpone our having to deal with the underlying issue. Therefore, they promote wasting time and are only useful in the short-term if at all. Learning to find ways to use a collaborative model as often as possible will help us to neutralize these defenses and move us more quickly into finding solutions that improve teamwork and “buy-in” across stakeholders.


Insist on great business results! Go to Pathfinder Communication

Monday, September 5, 2011

The basics of Personal Excellence - part two

This is the final part of a two part article on the basics of Personal Excellence. Quite a lofty title, but I just mean that we are talking about starting from where we are today and getting better. Last week we covered the basics of Goal Setting and Mental Rehearsal, two very important elements. This week, we’ll cover Self-Talk and Arousal Control.


1) Self-Talk

I want to be careful here… ALL the elements I am mentioning here are fundamentally important and all of them need attention, but Self-Talk is the one element that will support the others when all else is going against you. For most of us, our self-talk is a parental voice, one that admonishes and reprimands, even scolds. Our self-talk usually doesn’t contain “attaboy’s” or “attagirl’s” and frequently contains such negatives as “idiot”, “moron”, “loser”, and other harsh terms that do little to encourage. There are two immediately dire consequences of this: a) we cause ourselves to think we can accomplish less than we actually could with a more generous perspective and b) at those times when others disappoint us, our immediate and primary urge is to use this kind of talk on them. We may or may not always be successful in censoring ourselves, but we FREQUENTLY transmit messages with our body, face, and tone that communicate our initial feeling very clearly. This causes a separation between us that we do not intend and that is not productive. Learning to conduct positive self-talk will cause us achieve more than we dreamed, not because “happy talk” makes us more productive, but because it replaces the destructive negative self-talk with which we have been punishing ourselves (and others).

2) Arousal Control

When I am teaching classes on conducting High-Performance Communication, one of the most common comments I hear is “I never can seem to remain calm in the ‘heat of the moment’ in an argument.” I usually ask what kind of thing the person would be talking about, and they reply with something about their dignity being impugned or their integrity being questioned. I then ask them to imagine they are talking to a judge with the option of giving them a year in jail, a boss that could and would fire them, or a 300 pound felon with a gun and ask them again what it would take for them to fly off the handle and be unable to control themselves. Those that answer honestly say, “Well, under THOSE circumstances, I could.” I point out to them that the judge’s presence is NOT what censors them – the censoring is done by a CHOICE. So the first thing to recognize is that you CAN control yourself if you CHOOSE to.

The second issue is what to do INSTEAD of losing control. That takes practice. In any kind of martial arts training, there is an activity called “sparring” in which combatants use their skills on each other in order to practice them AND to be in the flow of the activity. These are not fights, but they aren’t quite mock fights either. They are practice sessions in which we develop skills in “supervised combat” against an opponent that has the same goal – to improve their skills. As a martial artist gains skill, they gain confidence in their ability to apply the skills they have learned. They feel less panic and more confident that little can happen that will catch them off guard.

It is important to notice the moment we begin to feel threatened or concerned and study it; understand objectively what has happened, and determine what it is about the situation that threatened us. Usually, the threat comes from our fear of something that might happen. We need to learn skills that help us understand that while certain consequences are usually preceded by specific events, they do not necessarily follow with certainty and that we need to analyze the specifics to determine the fear of those consequences are warranted in this case.

For you and I, the idea of physically fighting someone may be very frightening, especially if we know that person is trained. But if we are also trained, does that change the way we look at it? If we have trained longer? If we have fought them before and won? All of these specifics alter the way we apply a general feeling about fighting.

In a communication situation, I generally recommend to students that they take a deep breath before they respond to something that immediately triggers a fear reaction and that their response should be aimed at trying to discover precisely the topic of the conversation. So if I were told “You know, others have lost their job over doing just what you have done”, I would take a deep breath (to try to center myself and suppress any kind of knee-jerk reaction) and ask “What is it that I am supposed to have done?” This could be followed with other questions aimed at trying to determine the extent and the quality of evidence, the impact of my actions, and the consequences.

The point is that controlling one’s arousal reaction and reacting in the best way automatically takes time and practice, and is critical in gaining self-awareness and executing self improvement.


Insist on great business results! Go to Pathfinder Communication

Sunday, August 28, 2011

Personal Improvement

For some of my students, learning High Performance Communication is part of a larger objective. They express to me the desire to be more in many ways, not just to become better communicators, but to develop an advanced degree of competence on many levels. Call it “personal excellence”. And while they see improved communication, collaboration, and persuasive skills as a big part of the picture they know they need to develop more than those to be all they intend to be. I say good for them and I’d like to suggest some areas in which they can focus to get better. There are four areas I want to discuss – two this week and two more next week.
1) Goal Setting


Being able to select goals allows us to focus and prioritize. The most difficult part for most people is being willing to spend the amount of reflection required to truly “select” an end goal. It is certainly worth getting in touch with your desires and determining what really makes you happy. Volunteer work is a good way to do this. If you suspect you are a charitable type, you may volunteer to local organizations that expose you to lots of different experiences. I found that professional organizations were best for me (my goals centered on contributing to the success of people in a business setting). Your aspirations may differ, so find a way to volunteer and do something that you find satisfying and fulfilling. Volunteer organizations are frequently open to allowing people to develop experience in something they’ve not done before but would like to try.

With your goal set, you will be able to focus on finding the “small steps” required achieve the goal. This is the act of “bringing order out of chaos”. As we develop our goal, we can start to categorize our attitudes and behaviors as either “supportive to our goal” or “not supportive of our goal. We can then choose what to work on. It can be discouraging to try to achieve your goal in one leap. I have found it very helpful to talk with people that have done what I intend to do, and to watch how they go about it. I try to detect differences between how they do it and I do, and then try to “key in” on those things that I am not doing that seem to contribute to their success.

I also try to determine what they do to recover if they encounter the unexpected (recovery failures). It helps to recognize that unexpected results are where the most important learning opportunities come from. It is best NOT to ignore them or try to sweep them under the rug, but to examine them openly especially with others. Talking about one’s goals, failures, plans and such help to keep us motivated because by declaring our plans out loud to people we care about, we are less likely to want to give up (and lose face) and more likely to get encouragement.

2) Mental Rehearsal


In performing my “small steps” towards my goal, I visualize myself doing what it is I intend to do. In a deep state of concentration, your brain doesn’t fully distinguish between visualizing doing something and actually doing it. As you see yourself performing over and over, you become comfortable with the activity. OF course doing it is likely different than visualizing it, but as you start to do both you will find yourself developing mastery faster.

Next time I will talk about the next to components of learning new skills – Self Talk and Emotional Control.

Insist on great business results! Go to Pathfinder Communication

Thursday, August 11, 2011

We Need to Express the "Inexpressible"

A few key points that I have made over the years:


1) We are often harder on ourselves that we are on others. This is in large part because the standards to which we hold ourselves are many times irrationally stringent, and the work of recalibrating them is often difficult.

2) Unresolved feelings are often communicated non-verbally (tone of voice, facial expression, body language). I have expressed this as “We either SPEAK up, or we ACT up”

3) The “Actor-Observer Bias” is the widespread tendency to think: "If others have trouble or make mistakes, it's due to their actions. If I have trouble or make mistakes, it's not my fault. It's due to the situation I'm in."

If we take these separately, they are interesting tidbits and we can use them to improve our communication. When we take them together, it becomes very clear that by working to notice when they are happening and learning to respond differently, we will view others in a different light. These simple aspects of communication interact powerfully.

We will begin to see that our standards are only ours and that if we hold others to them (“that guy never really does it as good as the way I would”), WE will developed unresolved feelings (“he is incompetent, but I won’t say anything”) and will transmit those feelings via non-verbal means. Those feelings will send a clear message of how we feel and who we blame (“it’s his fault of course”).

From our counterpart’s perspective, we will have “as much as said” these things to them because they are hardwired to interpret non-verbal communication. Of course, they are operating under the same rules as we are, and will begin to view US as lacking integrity or being “two faced” because we act one way and say another.

Our perspective will be something like “I really don’t want to push my own standards on the guy, but he never gets very good results because of his methods. I don’t want to make a big deal out of it, though”.

Our counterpart will be thinking along the lines of “What is UP with that guy? I can tell he uncomfortable talking to me, but I can’t figure out why. It’s like he has a problem with me.”

This kind of misunderstanding is due to a lack of clarity between the two parties and it only takes one of them to become a bit more aware and change the experience for both. As we pratice our skill at expressing what we previously kept to ourselves, we will begin to move towards engaging our counterparts in the most productive way.


Insist on great business results! Go to Pathfinder Communication

Monday, July 25, 2011

Relationship for Results

The four elements for building productive relationships. Think of these as the "Four R's" of relationships.

1 - Rapport
  • You build rapport by being:
    • Competent (able to speak knowledgeably and be capable of doing)
    • Trustworthy (Honest; acting with your counterpart's interests in mind)
    • Engaged (interested)
    • Accessible (available to talk)
2 - Reciprocation
  • You develop confidence in each other by reciprocation; that is, doing for each other what the other needs to have done. This is an ESSENTIAL step and is the often left out because sometimes it has to be done with "blind faith". Do it anyway. You may not always be paid back by the one with whom you are trying to build the relationship, but you reputation as a "do-er" will drive many great returns for you. 
3 - Respect
  • Respect for another person is shown in many ways. Three I would highlight are:
    • Courtesy - People have different perspectives on how they like to be treated, so "Treat others as you would like to be treated" doesn't always apply. I would say "Treat others as THEY wish to be treated". It takes more listening to do, but we all need the practice with that AND it is really the best long-term strategy especially for an important relationship.
    • Encouragement - Being a person that mentors others brings great rewards, and encouragement is a subset of that. Helping someone to see their own capability is critical to showing how you respect them for their competence.
    • Empathy - Critically important to showing respect for your counterpart is demonstrating your understanding for their situation. Celebrating their successes and regrouping after a failure and everything in between is key to great relationships.
4 - Recognition
  • Be free in giving credit to others whenever it is appropriate. Feeling appreciated is a big part of working in a team and few things raise more controversy than seeing the credit for an achievement go to someone that doesn't deserve it. One way to have "Important Friends in High Places" is to help them get there by ensuring that others know of their capabilities.

Insist on great business results! Go to Pathfinder Communication

Monday, July 11, 2011

What to Say in Difficult Conversations

As we develop our skills as a communicator, it is common to focus on what we will say as if “saying” was the most important part of communicating. As if crafting a message as if it were a single entity and delivering it was the act that causes the listener to understand it. The listener, however, has much to consider BESIDES the message before they can truly understand what we mean in an even moderately complex message.

We have all experienced being told something about ourselves that we didn’t want to hear – that we didn’t accept at the first mention. “Your work quality doesn’t justify a raise at this time”; “You aren’t someone with whom people like to spend time”; “You are not carrying your share as a parent”. Is there ANY WAY that someone could craft that message in a way that you would accept it at face value and say “I suppose that is true.”?

The idea here is that when you have a conversation about a topic in which the other person is going to be faced with the prospect of looking at something from a new (and potentially uncomfortable) perspective, you need to be prepared to deal with MORE than just the message. They will be looking for you to not only to justify your words with logic, but also to lead them through the difficulty of hearing the words. So we have two messages; a content message and a relationship message.

Regular readers of this newsletter (and I am SO grateful for the many of you that there are) will recall that I have described a model called the SPIRAL model that defines the four basic elements of a content message (claims, questions, evidence, and inference). I will recap that model in the next newsletter. This week, I want to talk about the relationship message.

The relationship message is built on three principles:

1) Use THE SCORE to reduce defensiveness in your counterpart(s)

2) Pay careful attention to the LISTENER, whether it is you that is listening at the moment or your counterpart. The speaker usually understands their own message; it is the LISTENER that needs extra help especially if the content is complex or “difficult to hear”.

3) It is important to demonstrate attention-to-detail regarding the relationship message AND to guide your counterpart(s) in showing the same attention to detail as you (the skilled communicator).

I have developed a matrix that describes 10 common activities that a skilled communicator will use in a conversation. Depending on the difficulty level of the conversation, you may use just one, or you may use all 10. The matrix shows an activity (for instance, Clarification) and describes the essential elements you need to convey when demonstrating clarification. The third column shows the words I might use in clarifying something (that is, demonstrating clarification. The fourth column shows words I would use to guide a counterpart into giving clarification. Many times, people don’t communicate as effectively as they could because they don’t know how or they don’t know that it is alright. So the fourth column contains what I might say if I were guiding them to do that. The matrix is here.

I stress that the third and fourth columns contain words that I would use, and they may not be the words that YOU would use. IT IS CRITICAL that you convey SINCERE emotions using words that come naturally to you. If you try to read from a script, you will sound like it. Determine the words you would use and use those – they are the BEST ones for you.


Insist on great business results! Go to Pathfinder Communication

Sunday, June 26, 2011

Come See Me!

Speaking at the Society for Software Quality on June 28 - come see me. Details at http://www.ssq.org/sd/
Insist on great business results! Go to Pathfinder Communication

Why Is The Other Guy Such A Problem?

One of the major obstacles I encountered in learning collaboration and in teaching it was overcoming the desire to see the other guy as the problem. Seeing the other guy as the problem leads us to thinking that we need to somehow change them in order to be successful. I can’t urge you strongly enough to abandon any efforts aimed at changing another person’s beliefs. We need them to believe just as they do in order to maintain a useful level of diversity in the perspectives we solicit to evaluate complex problems. Also, it is very difficult for someone to change their beliefs and seldom sustainable.

However, it is not to difficult to explain where all these different beliefs come from, why we find them difficult to deal with, and how we are going to be able to collaborate successfully by acknowledging them rather than contesting them.

Conditioning, Beliefs, and Heuristics

We come by our beliefs honestly enough. We develop them based on what we see and what we are told. If someone tells us “people that are smart are not good athletes”, we may just believe that if it is told to us by someone we trust or is founded in some experience that would tend to support it. Most beliefs are formed early on, are not based on data but emotion, and are as a result of something called “conditioning".


Two forms of conditioning are Operant and Avoidance. Operant conditioning is the way we learn to do something by receiving a reward for having done it well. This is called “reinforcement” and what constitutes a reward is based on – our beliefs. Maybe money, praise, recognition, love, or anything else the individual values. If you ever worked for prize, and were disappointed by it, you know how much the perception of a reward can vary. Avoidance conditioning is about avoiding something we perceive as negative, based again on our beliefs. If you have ever started talking about politics or religion and had a negative experience, you may choose not to talk about those issues again. BOOM! A belief is born! And it may have all kinds of subtleties based on your existing beliefs (never discuss politics in a public setting, or with a woman, or with a guy wearing a suit, or whatever) because beliefs are highly interactive.


The significance of avoidance conditioning is that AVOIDING the negative reaction is the reinforcement. So, if you have a conversation with someone about, say, the weather and it is a wonderful conversation you might think “boy, I am glad they didn’t bring up politics – that would have been a disaster”. That reinforces the belief not to talk about politics, but should it?


We take our beliefs and package them up into informal models called “heuristics” for the sake of convenience. Rather than analyze each situation we encounter, we process them using these heurisitics. If we see a person acting in a way that our heuristic tells us is suspicious, we act in the way the heuristic tells us to. We may avoid the person, crossing the street; we may smile at them to show them we are friendly; we may scowl to show them not to approach; we may overtly threaten them to keep them away. We do what the heuristic says to do. If it works, it reinforces itself. We cross the street and there is no trouble, and our mind says there was no trouble BECAUSE we crossed the street. Is that what really happened?


In communication, people say what they say and do what they do from these heuristics. They treat the specific situation as if it conforms to their heuristics because that is how we problem solve. The methods I teach do some pretty powerful things in some simple ways:

1) Assure the person that their perspective, as it is, doesn’t have to change in order to collaborate. I want it just as it is.

2) Help them analyze the subject - at - hand as a specific instance and not necessarily a perfect example anyone’s heuristic model (i.e., talk about the issues surrounding THIS SPECIFIC production problem, not general production problems) in a way that guides them to use the heuristic in a tailored way and welcomes their input.

3) Help condition them to conducting relationships using a specific model by rewarding them with better results and guiding them out of “avoidance” behaviors.

Using THE SCORE sets the stage for this. The next newsletter will start a series of concrete examples for how managing the content of the conversations and the contributions of the participants.

In the interest of brevity, this newsletter makes some claims for which I offered no backing. I am counting on you, the inquisitive participant, to be curious and write comments here. I PROMISE I will answer each one.


Insist on great business results! Go to Pathfinder Communication

Sunday, June 12, 2011

Just Getting Started

Often we don't speak up about how we feel because:

1 - We are afraid to express our anger
2 - We are afraid to make someone else angry
3 - We are afraid we may become embarrassed
4 - We are afraid we may embarrass someone else
5 - We are afraid to open up publically
6 - We are afraid to reveal too much of ourselves

You get the idea.....

When we DON'T speak up about how we feel, we betray the fact that we haven't by expressing our emotions in other ways. We may:

1 - Withdraw entirely from the discussion - shut down
2 - Use phrasing and "word games" to avoid saying what we'd like
3 - Use sarcasm or humor to convey what we feel from behind a "mask"
4 - Use passive-aggressive words to convey an implied meaning ("Are you going to wear THAT?")
5 - Use labels to imply things, rather than define them precisely ("He is SUCH a company-man!")
6 - Attack others with our words, rather than address the specific issue ("You must be an idiot!")

I am saying that when we don't SPEAK up, we often ACT up - and in doing so, we cause huge issues in our communication. As soon as we start to ACT up, we begin losing interest in the content of our communication and start focusing on how lousy the other person is to deal with. We stop solving the problem we wanted to work on because we created another.

Because we ACTED up instead of SPEAKING up.

We never learned how to conduct a conversation that has significant importance for one or more participants in such a way that everyone feels safe to speak up. We know enough to say "Watch Your Step" when we are working with others in a difficult terrain, in order to preserve safety. So what do we say to them when we are working on a perilous topic, in which someone is likely to become anxious?

1 - "I recognize that we may touch on some difficult subjects. We all need to keep in mind that we are here to address [define specific issue] and NOT to fault."
2 - "We need to cover some pretty sensitive topics and i suppose that some of us may feel like we are being chastised. I want us all to keep in mind that this is to remain constructive and respectful."
3 - "We all know that errors were made on this project, but knowing it isn't enough to prevent them from happening again; we need to address them. To do that, we need to identify them in a caring and respectful way. We need to keep this a safe place to bring these things up with each other."
4 - "I don't know how we can do it without hurting some feelings, but we are going to need to talk about this. Let's make a promise to be honest, extend each other the benefit of the doubt, and recognize that each of us have been doing what we think is right. We need to help each other understand what the full impact of our actions has been."
5 - "I don't know how to say this without just saying it, but I first need you to know that I believe that you have been doing what you think is right and don't believe that you have any ill will about anything that I know of."

In other words, we convey that the topic is important enough to discuss honestly and that we know it might be controversial. We convey that we know that it could make others feel unsafe, betrayed, or feel as if they should not speak up. We convey that it is ok to feel that way and still ok to speak up so long as it is done respectfully and without malice. That will get us started.

Next time we can talk about how the next few statements are handled.


Insist on great business results! Go to Pathfinder Communication

Monday, May 30, 2011

Come get some Face Time on June 24

We find ourselves differing with people all the time. Let’s talk about the subset of time when we feel the difference is important – maybe about how to pursue a particular business strategy or how to discipline our child. Sometime if the opposition is too strong, we will choose not to speak up.


Think of that! Here we are, differing on something you feel is very important, and you won't speak up because your counterpart has some kind of mojo that keeps you from challenging them! Maybe you worry that they will embarrass you, or will bully you, and have the kind of power over you that can make things difficult for you if you were to make them angry. So you don’t speak up.

Let’s say, though, that you DO speak up. You challenge their position. You show just how formidable you can be - and they force you into saying something you regret. All the blood drains from your face as your worst fears are realized and you wish you had never said anything. THIS is the memory that haunts many people. This is the reason they don’t speak up.

Let me retrace a few things:

1) The worry is baseless. You can conduct this conversation and manage it even if it is a very sensitive or emotional topic. The mojo you think your counterpart has is not their own.

2) You don’t have to challenge their position. You can help them formulate a new one.

3) You don’t have to show anyone how forceful or formidable you can be. You don’t have to apply force to move through these discussions.

4) You can conduct these discussions and lead them just where you want them to go. You may not always get your way, but you usually will if your way is reasonable.

5) Your counterpart will respect the way that you conduct yourself even if they disagree with your perspective. That will make subsequent discussions much easier.

One of the hardest things to do is to start saying the RIGHT THINGS to make all this happen, because you haven’t learned how to construct the RIGHT THINGS in your own voice, or even what makes them right.

I’d like to help and will be sharing some information along these lines at the June 24 PMI Breakfast event in Rancho Bernardo (info at http://www.eventbee.com/member/pmi-sd/event?eventid=832818314).
Please come out to get your questions answered.


Insist on great business results! Go to Pathfinder Communication

Sunday, May 15, 2011

Hats Off to PMI- SD

I just want to take a couple of lines to Congratulate the Project Management Institute regarding their 2011 Conference in San Diego. The team was very well organized and I can't say enough good things about the execution of every aspect. You should spend the entire next meeting celebrating this achievement.
JOB WELL DONE!

Insist on great business results! Go to Pathfinder Communication

What to Say When Feelings are at Stake

I had several very enjoyable speaking engagements last week, and I always like to hang around afterwards to talk to anyone that has a question or would like to share an experience. I was approached by one young man who asked an excellent question and I want to share this with all of you.


He explained to me that his boss is from another culture. His boss tries very hard to understand what is said to him, but sometimes has trouble and is slow to ask for clarification, presumably for fear of appearing somehow challenged by language or cultural differences. I couldn’t help but think to myself about the scores of coworkers I have had that demonstrated the same trait without the benefit of a good reason like being from a different culture.

The young man then told me that he was concerned that he had a moderately complex issue to explain to his boss, and was concerned that there was no way to talk to him about it without things getting difficult. He couldn’t think of any way to start the conversation without it sounding like he was” dropping a bomb”, and was looking for what to do.

I want to share with you all (as I did with him) the tool of “prefacing” in these situations. That is rather than start straight into the content, preface your statement with a short and sincere statement that prepares the listener for what you are about to say.

For example, the young man I was speaking to was afraid that his boss would take his as a personal attack, so suggested he say something like:

“Boss, I need to tell you something and I don’t really know how to start without just saying it. I want you to know that I am not in any way attacking you but that I mean to be constructive. I’m willing to discuss it as long as you like until you are completely comfortable that I am saying this for our mutual benefit. Can we talk now or would it be better to do it this afternoon?”

This is not a random statement, but one that thoughtfully uses several elements of THE SCORE to make the other party feel as comfortable as possible in hearing some rough news and keep them engaged until the issue is resolved. Let’s look at it:

1) We start out tentative and humble, letting the other person know that we are doing what we think is right and have their goodwill in mind.

2) We are sincere and state the situation as simply as we can. We are respectful.

3) We address the potential for being misunderstood by using a technique called “contrasting”, meaning that, more than saying we are not attacking, we contrast the idea of attacking with what we ARE doing (which is being constructive). This is a method of “hyper-clarifying”, making it simple for our intention to register with the person that we are addressing.

4) We are engaged and committed to solving this, NOT dropping a bomb on them and willing to stay and discuss this thoroughly.

5) We close by offering a share of the control in the selection in aspects of the conversation (could be time, place, attendees – in this case, we offered control of the time). This shows respect and openness to collaboration.

When something must be said, and we don’t know how to start, admitting that and starting anyway can be the most productive and the most human thing to do.


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Sunday, May 1, 2011

PMI Conference May12-14

I am flattered to announce that I am speaking at the PMI Conference in San Diego on May 14 at 2:30 pm. The presentation is called: Influence and Persuasion for Project Managers: Face to Face Communication Skills and I am eager to build somne bridges between some of the important communication practices I write about. The conference has a lot of great material presented by a number of experts, so the time will be well spent.

Please see the website at:
http://conference.pmi-sd.org/
http://pmi-sd.eventbee.com/event?eid=751294384
http://conference.pmi-sd.org/tutorials/



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Big Idea, Small Package

Last time we spoke about how difficult it is to get others (and ourselves) to change our minds once we have committed to a course of action, especially if we feel it will damage our reputation if we reverse field. I spoke about a few ways to help someone see that they didn’t have all the information at the time the decision was made and now, with “new” information, they can help make a more informed (if different) decision – one that better represents the new understanding.

A very small word that is very potent in these kinds of circumstances is “yet”.

When someone tells us that they really don’t understand what we are upset about, or what we are saying, or what we mean, we may feel a little twinge of upset. We may want to raise our voice, adopt body language that indicates we feel they aren’t paying attention, or try to re-explain what we have just said sloooower or LOUDER as if they were feeble-minded. As we send these signals, the other person is likely to feel our upset as an attack, and to become defensive. As all my faithful subscribers know by now, defensiveness kills communication.

An effective method of signaling that you understand that the other party does not fully understand your meaning yet is to acknowledge that there is still more to know by using the word “yet”.

I have found that saying “Oh, I don’t see how you COULD understand yet – I have only given you a fraction of the facts.” OR “I am sure my meaning will become clear in a second – I just haven’t found the perfect words to describe it yet.”

This indicates to the other party that you agree that they don’t understand and that you acknowledge that it is not their fault because you still have more to say.

This is a very helpful method for getting around a difficult problem and getting the other party to engage MORE deeply with you.

More next time.


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Saturday, April 16, 2011

Commitment, Consistency, Confidence, and Conviction

Commitment is a very powerful and misunderstood persuasive element. We are more likely to be persuaded by someone that is committed and consistent in their message than someone that isn’t. Many of us are taught to “sound confident and sure” and to be suspicious of people that “flip-flop” or “waffle” in their opinions. It’s almost as if being committed and confident are the same as being correct.


Well, they aren’t. They are just persuasive. You can be confident, committed, consistent, and WRONG quite easily. The problem with being in that position is that many of us find it impossible to “back up”, admit we are wrong, and get back on track.

Because of this, we have to be careful in our conversations about how we ask questions about others positions and how we express our own opinions about things. Since the lessons about commitment are so powerful, we must be careful not to commit before we are ready. We must also know under what circumstances we can reverse a commitment and how to do it. Finally, we must be able to help others feel comfortable in reversing a position to which they have publicly committed.

Let’s recognize that sometimes we will behave as if we are sure when we aren’t. Later, when the weaknesses in our position are exposed, we spend a great deal of time trying to save face. Why? Because we were so committed in the first place. Had we been a bit more tentative, we may be better off.

It is a shortcut to persuade a group by saying something like “The conclusion is inescapable – we must pursue this as I have recommended” when a better expression of reality may be “to the best of my knowledge, I think I am on the right track here. I welcome any additional input on the subject”. The short cut helps us move to a conclusion faster, and if it is the wrong conclusion there is little benefit in doing that. I am not saying we should be meek in expressing our convictions, but rather that we should leave enough uncertainty in them to allow others to feel comfortable in contributing other viewpoints. Please search this blog for “THE SCORE” for more about this.

So we commit to things we feel certain about and not to those for which we still need data. Next, how do we help others to keep from committing to things for which they aren’t truly certain? First, before they start to speak publicly about their certainty, we ask them questions about what they are basing their opinions on. It is usually unnecessary to tell them that they are wrong and best if we could point out that there are other views on the subject and, even though we may have strong suspicions about the best view, we should remain open to other opinions so we don’t have to “untangle” ourselves from any rushed judgments. In other words, we help others see that there is still data on the subject that they haven’t considered and rather than rush to a conclusion, we can continue on recognizing that there is a likely outcome, but that it is not certain. Please search this blog for “THE SCORE” for more about this.

When we have committed to position and find that we need to reverse field, we need to understand that it is a good thing; the information we had put us on one path that seemed correct at the time. Now, we have better or more complete information and are on a better path. In many circles, this is called “learning” and it is seldom looked down upon.

That is also how you can help another person change their current committed opinion. You can explain to them that, based on the data they had when the opinion was formed, they had made the best possible call. Now that new information is available (and you tell them what it is and how it effects the decision), it is clear that changing their opinion is appropriate and reasonable. Note that the “new” information doesn’t need to be “new”; it may have been known when the opinion was formed. The thing that is new about it might be that now we understand the weight or significance of it, or that we now know that some of the beliefs underlying the opinion were believed to be true at the time, but now are known to be untrue (“flat earth”).
More Next Time


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Monday, April 11, 2011

Creating Relationships That Improve Organizations

The central theme in business relationship is credibility; if your competence, motives, and interest are suspect then it is unlikely that you will be a “first pick” when the names are tossed around for the next plum project. And it takes even a bit more to develop the “trust” in relationships that is required to move the organization (and ourselves) into the “consistent success” zone. The two elements that build that trust are Reciprocity and Liking. I will talk about reciprocity in this context today.

Reciprocity networks are not new; they are just not widely spoken of in our American. Interestingly, Asian cultures recognize openly the network of people to whom they owe (or are owed) favors. The effects of the reciprocity network are the same whether you talk about it or not. I will take this opportunity then to talk about with you.

The persuasive and relationship power of reciprocity is attributable to the desirability of being able to call on others for help, and to help others when you can. Each time we do this, we change the balance in the relationship such that one party is indebted to the other party to some degree. As our relationship carries on over time, we find that we can count on this person for things that we need, and we can repay them in such a way that we both feel we are getting more than we are giving, making this very valuable to both parties. This allows us to develop trust in the other owing to their demonstrated willingness to trade their help for ours. Trying to short change this action by either party will attack the trust and kill the value of the relationship.

It is important to note that westerners, in their bias against acknowledging their reciprocity network, often weaken the effects of it unnecessarily. We will tell someone “not to worry about” repaying a favor, or to just “forget about it”. If you have ever been told this, you know that there is a natural desire to repay the favor and sometimes it can cause some bad feelings. It is perfectly acceptable to say something along the lines of “Your welcome. I know you’ll do the same for me if I ever need it”.

We should also note that the feeling of reciprocity has a shelf life. As time goes on, favors seem less valuable to those that received them and more valuable to those that gave them. Based on this, it is wise to anchor the value of the favor soon after it is done – preferably when the maximum benefit has just been realized. So, when you spend a few extra hours working out a new format for a report for your boss that they asked for, find out what they are using it for and when they will know how well received it was. If they are going to be showing it on Wednesday at their staff meeting, for instance, ask Thursday morning “Was that format helpful for you?” Let them speak fully about it, and let them know that you are “glad it was such a success and that you were able to contribute to it.” This action will anchor the value in the boss’ mind when it is at its perceived highest point. If it isn’t a success, you might ask them what criticism was made and how to incorporate the improvements; then DO it.

There is a great deal of wisdom in doing what you can for others, delivering value in doing so and building a reciprocity network. These actions we take for one another build trust and are what we recall when we are justifying why a certain person should be considered for something special. It is the right kind of currency to have in your relationship “bank”.


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Sunday, March 20, 2011

Techniques to Steer a Conversation

I received a request to describe some ways to “steer” a persuasive conversation in a specific direction. I offer the following thoughts:


1) I frequently make reference to asking questions (inquiries) aimed at examining claims. When you want to explore a statement or perspective in more depth, a great way to do that is to ask questions about it.

a. ‘That statement you made about “x”…what makes you say that?’

b. ‘Tell me more about…’

c. ‘Is what you are saying that “x”…?


2) Another kind of steering question is called a “redefine” and it looks like this:

a. After your counterpart has delivered a perspective that ends with “x”, you would The issue is not so much “x” as it is “y” – what are we going to do about “y”.

For example, your counterpart ends with “…and that’s why it is critical that save social security”; you would say “The issue is not so much saving social security as it is the quality of life for our parents generation – what can we do to see that they are well cared for?”

The power of this method is that you can change the topic pretty radically, for instance; “The issue is not so much saving social security as it is unemployment – what can we do to get people working?”

The nature of question’s format, called a “pattern” in neurolinguistic programming (NLP), leads our brain into the second topic without much trouble allowing for a lot of flexibility in steering.

3) A third steering method is another NLP pattern called an “Agreement Frame”. The agreement frame is based on the fact that people enjoy listening to us when they believe we are agreeing with them, so we use the momentum of that enjoyment to introduce our own ideas. The added impact of this is that it is difficult for them to disagree with us, because they feel that if they do, they would also be disagreeing with themselves. It looks like this:

a. “I agree, and would add…” OR

b. “I almost agree, and would add…” OR

c. I could agree, and would add…”

Example – your counterpart says “We need to take steps to assure that we preserve social security.” YOU say “I agree, and would add that we need to get people back to work as well!”

You would use the variation of “I ALMOST agree” or “I COULD agree”, if you are seeking your counterparts assent to your perspective. They will almost automatically accept the perspective you append to the pattern, because to do otherwise would make them feel they were contradicting themselves.

4) A VERY powerful steering method is to combine the two patterns:

a. “I agree, and would add that the issue is not so much saving social security as it is putting people back to work…what are we going to do to get more companies to advertise employment opportunities in the newspaper instead of online?”

As you can see, you steered the topic from social security to advertising in the newspaper, which is quite a jump.

You might say that it is unlikely that such a technique would work, and I would say I agree, but the issue is not so much about a technique working but if communications techniques in general are fully appreciated…how are we going to get people to be better communicators? Maybe they should subscribe to a newsletter.


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Sunday, February 27, 2011

Persuasion Elements - Scarcity and Authority

Last week, I wrote a little about two of Cialdini's six elements of Persuasion. This week i will cover two more.


Scarcity - This principle is borne out by Cialdini's research that shows we want what we can't have and that objects, ideas, and information that we believe are rare or unique hold greater apparent value than they would if we believe they are common.

This fact is powerful on its own, but is supercharged when coupled with the perspective that LOSS is the ultimate form of scarcity. That is, we may strive for something that we don't have and think is rare but we will work VERY hard to prevent losing something that we ALREADY have if we feel it will be difficult to replace. Humans are generally more motivated by fear of loss than want of gain.

Implementing this knowledge in a business situation is critical. Stop talking about what your counterpart will gain in an arrangement, and tell them about the valuable things they will lose. this is illustrated in an example in which 50% of potential customers were told that if they insulate their homes better, they could start saving a dollar a day. The other 50% were told that if they FAIL to insulate, they will continue losing a dollar a day. The sales among the customers that were given the 'losing" language was 150% of the other sales from the other customers. 50% more persuasive, even though the amount of the savings was the same! People are more mobilized into action by the idea of losing something. Combining the idea of scarcity with loss language makes for a particularly powerful argument.

Cialdini says. "You simply register what things people might be losing in an arrangement, honestly, and bring them to the surface. When people are reminded of what they stand to lose, they are more motivated to act."

The word "honestly" is important to note. Long term benefits accrue only to those that are credible.

Authority - Another element of persuasion is rooted in the idea that people will tend to obey authority figures. A person can even be persuaded to do something they wouldn't normally do if it is made clear that they will not be held responsible for their action.

The business application for this kind of persuasion is generally made when you are having a hard time convincing people to do something and you are having the hard time because they don't really believe you know what you are talking about. In other words, they do not recognize you as an authority on the subject. Citing authorities or better yet, PRODUCING an authority that will actually endorse your recommendation can help tremendously.

Sometimes, though, people will still hesitate because they are concerned with the impact to them if something goes wrong. You will encounter less resistance if you can assure the person that what you are asking for is just their indulgence to allow you to try the course of action and that you will take responsibility if there is a problem. If they are clear that they will not be held responsible in any way in the event of an issue, they will often step aside and indulge your experiment.


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