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