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.

 

 

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