Sunday, April 22, 2012

Evidence

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 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

Listen (4 of 5)

We’ve been talking about the fine art of listening for the last few newsletters because of its critical importance to being a good communicator, and we have progressed to talking about how to sense problems in our communication. It is important to be keenly aware of when a problem in a given communication starts, because they seldom get better with more talking. In fact,they can often escalate very quickly.

As you talk to your counterpart, you pretty much stay on the subject. If, for instance, you are talking about a project at work, then the discussion stays on a factual exchange about things related to the project – due date, deliverables, requirements, budget, resources – things like that. That is the kind of discussion we are hoping for, and many times we get it. But sometimes we hear things that don’t fit exactly when, say, we are proposing an idea ….like these:

1.       Our counterpart responds sarcastically, saying “Oh SURE, why don’t I just do that TOO?”

2.       Our counterpart starts avoiding giving direct responses, instead favoring language that doesn’t help us make decisions. They are RESPONDING, but not ANSWERING.

3.       Our counterpart starts “building suggestions” into questions, like saying “Well, you aren’t going to let them get away with that, are you?” In other words, telling you but NOT telling you.

4.       Our counterpart makes a statement and we become annoyed or uncomfortable and no longer feel safe to answer as we would like, so we stay silent.

As I teach in my classes, these changes are due to the meaning that the LISTENER attaches to whatever the SPEAKER has said. The LISTENER interprets the SPEAKER’S words and reacts. The LISTENER, then, has the power to determine if they will continue to move towards the desired outcome, or divert the conversation.  In the first three examples above, our counterpart is reacting to us in an unexpected way and we can see that they have “shifted away” the mutually beneficial, fact-based discussion we had been enjoying and towards a more guarded or cautious mode. In the fourth example, WE are the ones doing the shifting.

It is important to be observant for these kinds of shifts as we talk. In the next newsletter, we will talk about THE SCORE, which is a method to reduce the likelihood of our counterpart shifting away from us. When we see our counterpart shifting away from “responsible adult communication” it is important to try to remedy the situation. We will learn to re-engage them by asking some specific questions about their reaction. This is an activity called “Name the Game” and we will talk about it in the next newsletter. It is easy, non-confrontational, and has a good success rate for putting things back on course.



When we feel ourselves shifting, however, it is critical that we address ourselves right away. Our counterpart is not skilled in trying to prevent our shifting, and may unwittingly press our hot buttons. When they hit one and feel ourselves moving out of the “safe zone” and into either fear or anger, we need to be able to re-center ourselves quickly. So we have certain stories we will tell ourselves about what the counterpart just said in order to allow us to change the way we feel about it.



Next time will talk about the following four things to close on the topic of listening for now:

1)      How to reduce the likelihood of our counterpart “shifting away” by knowing THE SCORE.

2)      How to remedy things if they DO shift away.

3)      How to reduce the likelihood of shifting away from our counterpart by using active inquiry.

4)      How to re-center ourselves after we have inadvertently shifted away from our counterpart.

Insist on great business results! Go to Pathfinder Communication

Sunday, April 1, 2012

Listening (3 of 5)

Think of a time when you were exchanging perspectives with someone, and it was important to you to be “right” (that is, for your counterpart to accept your perspective as the better perspective). If you are like most of us, you were only thinking about what YOU had to SAY. You may have told yourself you were “listening”, but you were likely only listening selectively, waiting for them to say something you could attack. As soon as they said it, you either interrupted them, or began formulating what you were going to say as soon as they stopped talking.

This is the way MOST of us get through these discussions because we are not trained in how to conduct them and, because MOST of us do it that way, we think it is alright. It isn’t, and if you have been reading my articles, attending my presentations, taking my classes, or talking to me you already KNOW it isn’t alright. It is actually one of the big reasons your conversations fail to get the results you want.

You aren’t listening, your counterpart KNOWS it, and it justifies them not listening to you – so they don’t.  The conversation is hardly a conversation at all – it is like two televisions facing each other…two talking heads and NO communication. Since YOU are the one that wants to get the good result, YOU need to be the one to break the “not listening” cycle.

 When the other side is talking, clear your mind regarding what your perspective is (you already KNOW what you think, and you will get time to share it). Listen to THEIR side. If they are saying something you don’t understand (never mind about agreeing or disagreeing… only if you don’t understand), ask them what they mean.

 “When you say ‘the best way for us to control our expenses is by simplifying our needs’, what do you mean by that?”

No preconceived notions, no accusation, no predicting their answer, no judgments, and most of all NO COMPARISON to your position – just a simple question to help YOU understand where they are coming from. Your listening to them does NOT mean you are agreeing with them, it JUST means you want to know what they have to say. You’d be surprised at the number of people that say they NEED to interrupt their counterpart because listening to them after they say something you disagree with ‘feels’ like you are indicating agreement by being silent. The truth is that you are permitted (and responsible) to LISTEN to the other person fully before deciding if you agree, disagree, partially agree….whatever. IF you choose to interrupt, however, you are telling the person that their continuing to speak is unnecessary and unwanted. And that’s how they will feel and act. And we're back to two televisions.

Watch your counterpart’s eyes, hands, and mouth as you speak. They may begin to speak and then stop themselves – obviously they want to interrupt. They may “goldfish” (open and close their mouth without making a sound) – again, they want to interrupt. Usually a hand that touches the mouth (or look like they are going to touch their mouth) is a body language cue that indicates they want to interrupt but are stopping themselves. Their looking away as you speak may mean the same thing – or they may be giving you a cue to stop talking.

The best way to prevent them from being distracted while you talk is to give them your full attention while THEY talk. Likely, if they are a new acquaintance or you have not worked through a disagreement with them before, they may not initially recognize the need to reciprocate your good listening skills. I recommend that you take the initiative and tell them that “I think this exchange will get the best result if we treat it like that – like an exchange in which I listen to YOUR side and you listen to MINE….fully. Then once we feel we understand both sides, we can talk about the differences, OK?”

They likely feel (like most people do) that continuing to listen after you say something with which they disagree is like agreeing. If they behave that way, tell them that you recognize that this a disagreement; that is you both have different opinions on the topic and that in order to resolve it you both need to understand what the differences are.

There is some old advice that says “Don’t ever argue with a fanatic” and I have come to believe that in most cases that is a good policy. My test for a fanatic is to ask “is there ANYTHING I could say, or is there ANY information that you could hear from ANY source, that would tell you that there is a possibility that a perspective exists on this subject besides yours that might be valid?” If the person says no, then I usually choose to end the discussion. In many cases, I find that my time is best spent discussing the situation with people that CAN accept alternate perspectives on the subject AND that have influence on my counterpart. Usually, once they see a couple of people whom they consider respectable or powerful adopt a new perspective, they either “see the light” or figure “if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em”.

Insist on great business results! Go to Pathfinder Communication