Chapter 1 — What’s a Crucial Conversation? And Who Cares?
A crucial conversation is defined by three conditions arriving at once: opinions vary, stakes are high, and emotions run strong. You’re talking with your boss about a possible promotion — she thinks you’re not ready; you think you are. You’re in a meeting with four co-workers trying to pick a new marketing strategy, and you’ve got to do something different or your company is in trouble. You’re in the middle of a casual discussion with your spouse when he or she brings up an ugly incident from yesterday’s neighborhood party. What makes each of these conversations crucial — and not simply frustrating, frightening, or annoying — is that the outcome could have a huge impact on either relationships or results that affect you greatly.
The topics that lead to conversational disaster form an enormous and ugly iceberg: ending a relationship, talking to a co-worker who makes offensive comments, asking a friend to repay a loan, giving the boss feedback about her behavior, approaching a boss who’s breaking his own safety or quality policies, addressing racist or sexist behavior, critiquing a colleague’s work, asking a roommate to move out, resolving custody or visitation issues with an ex-spouse, dealing with a rebellious teen, talking to a team member who isn’t keeping commitments, discussing problems with sexual intimacy, confronting a loved one about substance abuse, giving an unfavorable performance review, asking in-laws to quit interfering, talking to a co-worker about a personal hygiene problem. Defined precisely, a crucial conversation is a discussion between two or more people in which they hold opposing opinions about a high-stakes issue and where emotions run strong.
The root cause of many — if not most — human problems lies in how people behave when they disagree about high-stakes, emotional issues. George Bernard Shaw identified the trap cleanly: “The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place.” What happens in the absence of candid dialogue? Contention. Resentment. Gamesmanship. Poor decisions. Spotty execution. Missed opportunities. You can measure the health of relationships, teams, and organizations by measuring the lag time between when problems are identified and when they are resolved. If you fail to discuss issues with your boss, your life partner, your neighbor, or your peer, those issues will not magically disappear. Instead, they will become the lens through which you see the other person. And how you see always shows up in how you act. Your resentment will show up in how you treat them — you’ll snap at them, spend less time together, be quicker to accuse them of dishonesty or selfishness, withhold information or affection. The problem persists, and acting out your feelings instead of talking them out adds strain to an already crucial situation. The longer the lag time during which you act out your feelings rather than talk them out, the more damage you do to both relationships and results.
Our natural tendencies in moments that seem threatening lean toward fight or flight rather than listen and speak. Two tiny organs seated neatly atop your kidneys pump adrenaline into your bloodstream. Your brain diverts blood from activities it deems nonessential — like thoughtfully and respectfully opening a conversation — to high-priority survival tasks such as hitting and running. As the large muscles of the arms and legs get more blood, the higher-level reasoning sections of your brain get less. You end up facing challenging conversations with the same intellectual equipment available to a rodent. Your body is preparing to deal with an attacking saber-toothed tiger, not your boss, neighbor, or loved ones. And the problem becomes self-defeating. The more you snip and snap, the less your loved one wants to be around you — so they spend less time with you, you become even more upset, and the spiral continues. Your behavior is now actually creating the very thing you didn’t want in the first place.
In the worst companies, poor performers are first ignored and then transferred. In good companies, bosses eventually deal with problems. In the best companies, everyone holds everyone else accountable, regardless of level or position.
The research on relationships confirms this at every scale. When psychologist Howard Markman examined couples in the throes of heated discussions, he found that people fall into three categories: those who digress into threats and name-calling, those who revert to silent fuming, and those who speak openly, honestly, and effectively. After observing couples for hundreds of hours, Markman and his research partner Clifford Notarius predicted relationship outcomes and tracked their subjects’ relationships over the next decade. Remarkably, they predicted nearly ninety percent of the divorces that occurred. More importantly, they found that helping couples learn to hold crucial conversations more effectively reduced the chance of unhappiness or breakup by more than half. Mountains of research also suggest that the negative feelings we hold in and the emotional pain we suffer as we stumble our way through unhealthy conversations slowly eat away at our health. “Our lives begin to end,” Martin Luther King Jr. warned, “the day we become silent about things that matter.”
Chapter 2 — Mastering Crucial Conversations
He didn’t resort to silence like his colleagues, nor did he try to force his arguments on others. Somehow Kevin managed to achieve absolute candor in a way that showed deep respect for Chris. His contribution was not his insight — almost everyone in the room could see what was happening. People knew they were allowing themselves to be steamrolled into making a bad decision. But all of them except Kevin believed they had to make a choice between two bad alternatives: speak up and turn the most powerful person in the company into their sworn enemy, or suffer in silence and make a bad decision that might ruin the company. Kevin saw a third option and took it.
The mistake most of us make in our crucial conversations is believing we have to choose between telling the truth and keeping a friend. We begin believing in the Fool’s Choice from an early age. When Grandma served an enormous wedge of her famous brussels-sprouts pie à la mode and asked, “Do you like it?” — she really meant, “Do you like me?” When we answered honestly and saw the look of hurt and horror on her face, we made a decision that affected the rest of our lives: from this day forward, I will be alert for moments when I must choose between candor and kindness. The question skilled communicators ask instead is: “How can I be one hundred percent honest with Chris and at the same time be one hundred percent respectful?”
Each of us enters conversations with our own thoughts and feelings about the topic at hand. This unique combination makes up our personal pool of meaning. This pool not only informs us but also propels our every action. When two or more of us enter crucial conversations, by definition we don’t share the same pool — our opinions differ, our histories differ. People who are skilled at dialogue do their best to make it safe for everyone to add meaning to the shared pool, even ideas that at first glance appear controversial or wrong. Not everyone agrees with every idea; people simply do their best to ensure that all ideas find their way into the open.
The Pool of Shared Meaning is the birthplace of synergy. As people sit through an open discussion, they understand why the shared solution is the best option and they’re committed to act. Conversely, when people aren’t involved — when they sit back during touchy conversations and their ideas remain in their heads — they end up quietly criticizing and passively resisting. When others force their ideas into the pool, people may say they’re on board but then walk away and follow through halfheartedly.
Sometimes we move to silence. We play Salute and Stay Mute — we don’t confront people in positions of authority. At home we may play Freeze Your Lover, giving loved ones the cold shoulder in order to get them to treat us better. Sometimes we rely on hints, sarcasm, innuendo, and looks of disgust to make our points. We play the martyr and then pretend we’re actually trying to help. Or, afraid to confront an individual, we blame an entire team for a problem — hoping the message will hit the right target. Whatever the technique, the method is the same: we withhold meaning from the pool. In order to move to our best, we have to find a way to share what is in each of our personal pools of meaning — especially our high-stakes, sensitive, and controversial thoughts and opinions — and to get others to share theirs. To achieve this, we have to develop the tools that make it safe to discuss these issues and to come to a shared pool of meaning.
Chapter 3 — Choose Your Topic
Seventy percent of the success of a crucial conversation happens in your head, not through your mouth. As Charles Kettering observed, “A problem well-stated is a problem half-solved.” Crucial conversations are most successful when they’re focused on one issue, and because human interactions are inherently complex, focusing on a single topic takes effort. It requires thoughtfully unbundling and then prioritizing the issues at hand. Skilled communicators can distill a complex situation into a clear, concise problem statement — they take far fewer words to say it than the rest of us. The more words it takes you to describe your concern, the less prepared you are to talk about it.
Three signs tell you when you’re having the wrong conversation. The first is that your emotions escalate. When you’re addressing the wrong issue, even if that conversation is going well, you know on some level that you’re not resolving the real concern — so you come in feeling frustrated, and that feeling increases as the conversation progresses. The second sign is that you walk away skeptical. You reach an agreement but even as you leave you think to yourself that nothing is really going to change, or that the solution you settled on won’t address the actual problem. Whatever agreement you came to is only so much window dressing. The third sign is that you find yourself in a déjà vu dialogue. If you ever have the same conversation with the same people a second time, the problem is not them — it’s you. You’re on the wrong topic. If even as you say the words they feel familiar because you’ve had this conversation before — maybe a dozen times — you’re addressing the wrong issue.
To identify the right topic, think in terms of CPR: content, pattern, and relationship. The first time a problem comes up, talk about the content — the immediate pain. Your co-worker failed to get you the marketing analytics you needed in order to finish a report for your manager, and now your neck is on the line. If this is the first occurrence, it’s a content problem. The next time the same issue arises, think pattern. The concern is no longer just a single incident but a developing trend. The first time something happens, it’s an incident; the second time, coincidence; the third time, a pattern. Address patterns early and candidly, before they become entrenched. Finally, as problems continue, they can begin to impact the relationship itself. Relationship issues get to deeper concerns about trust, competence, or respect — you may begin to doubt someone’s competence, question whether you can trust a person to keep commitments, or conclude that a person doesn’t respect your role or contribution. With these doubts at the forefront of your thinking, you begin to relate to them differently, subtly or overtly.
When contact is infrequent — in virtual or remote settings — it’s essential to talk explicitly about how you will communicate. How will you make sure everyone has a turn to speak? How will you make space for people to pause and think? What tools will you use? What norms should you establish? How will you accommodate different time zones and work patterns? Start by asking yourself when virtual conversations work well for you, and when they don’t.
Creating a simple problem sentence helps you start with a clear purpose and hold yourself accountable. It gives you a standard by which to measure whether you told your full truth. Don’t worry about how you’ll say it — just tell yourself the truth about what you want to say. Having done that, you can address the next problem: how can I both tell the truth and strengthen the relationship?
When you start a conversation focused on one issue and new issues emerge, place a bookmark. When you place a bookmark, you verbally acknowledge where you’re going in the conversation and what you intend to come back to. You make a conscious choice about what to talk about, and you register clearly with the other person that you will return to the bookmarked issue later. Never allow the conversation to shift or the topic to change without acknowledging you’ve done it.
Chapter 4 — Start With Heart
Change begins with your heart. The first step to dialogue is to get your heart right. People who are best at dialogue understand this and turn it into a principle: work on me first, us second. They realize not only that they are likely to benefit by improving their own approach, but also that the only person they can continually inspire, prod, and shape with any degree of success is the person in the mirror. As much as others may need to change, or as much as we want them to change, the only person we can directly control is ourselves.
When you find yourself moving toward silence or violence, stop and pay attention to your motives. Ask yourself three questions: “What do I really want for myself?” “What do I really want for others?” “What do I really want for the relationship?” Once you’ve honestly answered these, present your brain with a more complex problem. Combine the two into an “and” question that forces you to search for more creative and productive options than silence or violence: “How can we have a candid conversation and strengthen our relationship?” As you consider what you want, notice when you start talking yourself into a Fool’s Choice. Break free of these false dilemmas by searching for the “and” — clarify what you don’t want, add it to what you do want, and ask your brain to start searching for healthy options to bring you to dialogue. Ask yourself: “What should I do right now to move toward what I really want?”
Chapter 5 — Master My Stories
Emotions don’t settle upon you like a fog. They are not foisted upon you by others. No matter how comfortable it might make you feel to say it, others don’t make you mad. You make you mad. You make you scared, annoyed, insulted, or hurt. You and only you create your emotions. Once you’ve created your upset emotions, you have only two options: you can act on them or be acted on by them. When it comes to strong emotions, you either find a way to master them or fall hostage to them. People who stay in dialogue when they have strong feelings influence and often change their emotions by thinking them out.
Just after you observe what others do and just before you feel some emotion about it, you tell yourself a story. You add meaning to the action you observed, make a guess at the motive driving the behavior, and add a judgment — is that good or bad? Based on these thoughts or stories, your body responds with an emotion. This intermediate step is why, when faced with the exact same circumstances, ten people may have ten different emotional responses — some feel insulted, others merely curious; some become angry, others feel concern or even sympathy. Since you and only you are telling the story, you can take back control of your own emotions by telling a different story. Until you tell a different story, you cannot break the loop.
Stories provide your rationale for what’s going on. They start by helping to explain what you see and hear, but they usually take the what a step further and give voice to why something is happening. Your stories contain not just conclusions but also judgments about whether something is good or bad, and attributions — interpretations of others’ motives. Be careful when you argue for your story that you first examine whether you might be creating the reality you claim to describe. Joseph might be right that Celia is judging him and being unappreciative — but what he’s missing is the fact that he is part of the story. His actions helped Celia tell the kind of story that created her upset emotions and led to her behavior. He was a full partner in the downward spiral.
To slow down the lightning-quick storytelling process and the subsequent flow of adrenaline, retrace your Path to Action one element at a time. Notice your behavior and ask: “Am I acting out my concerns rather than talking them out?” Put your feelings into words: “What emotions are encouraging me to act this way?” Analyze your stories: “What story is creating these emotions?” Get back to the facts: “What have I seen or heard that supports this story? What have I seen or heard that conflicts with it?”
Identifying your emotions is more difficult than you might imagine. Many people are emotionally illiterate. When asked to describe how they’re feeling, they use words like “bad” or “angry” or “scared” — which would be adequate if those were accurate, but often they’re not. Individuals say they’re angry when they’re actually feeling a mix of embarrassment and surprise, or they suggest they’re unhappy when they’re feeling violated. Words do matter. Knowing what you’re really feeling helps you take a more accurate look at what’s going on and why. When you precisely articulate what you’re feeling, you put a little daylight between you and the emotion — this distance lets you move from being hostage to the emotion to being an observer of it. When you can hold it at a little distance from yourself, you can examine it, study it, and begin to change it. Take the time to get below the easy-to-say emotions and accurately identify those that take more vulnerability to acknowledge, like shame, hurt, fear, and inadequacy.
To avoid confusing story with fact, watch for “hot” terms. When you assess the facts, you might say “she scowled at me” or “he made a sarcastic comment” — words like “scowl” and “sarcastic” are hot terms that express judgments and attributions and create strong emotions. Stories are rarely purely right or purely wrong; they are more or less accurate. Considering additional context can change how you feel about a situation entirely. Pay close attention to an insidious and common type: the self-justifying story. You tell a clever story when you want self-justification more than results. In Villain Stories, you ignore any of the other person’s virtues and turn their flaws into exaggerated indictments. In Victim Stories, you exaggerate your own innocence. The antidote is to ask: “What am I pretending not to notice about my role in the problem?” This question jars you into facing the fact that maybe, just maybe, you did something to help cause the problem — perhaps through a thoughtless omission rather than malicious intent, but you contributed nonetheless.
With experience and maturity, we learn to worry less about others’ intent and more about the effect others’ actions are having on us. Mastering your stories isn’t about letting someone off the hook for bad behavior — it is the first step toward addressing that behavior through dialogue. When you master your stories, you take ownership for the emotional energy you bring to the conversation. And when you do that, you begin to change the conversation. Ask yourself: “What should I do right now to move toward what I really want?”
Chapter 6 — Learn to Look
The best at dialogue immediately turn their attention to why others might not feel safe. Dialogue calls for the free flow of meaning — period. And nothing kills the flow of meaning like fear. When you fear people aren’t buying into your ideas, you start pushing too hard. When you fear you may be harmed in some way, you start withdrawing and hiding. Both reactions — fight and flight — are motivated by the same emotion: fear. On the other hand, if you make it safe enough, you can talk about almost anything and people will listen. If you don’t fear being attacked or humiliated, you yourself can hear almost anything and not become defensive.
Think about your own experience. Can you remember receiving really tough feedback without becoming defensive? Instead, you absorbed it, reflected on it, allowed it to influence you. Why? Because you believed the other person had your best interest in mind. You respected their opinion. You felt safe because you trusted their motives and ability — you didn’t need to defend yourself from what was being said, even if you didn’t like what you heard. On the other hand, if you don’t feel safe, you can’t take any feedback. It’s as if the pool of meaning has a lid on it — even well-intended comments become suspect.
By pulling yourself out of the content of an argument and looking for signs that safety is at risk, you reengage your brain and your full vision returns. When you give yourself a new problem to consider — is safety at risk right now? — you actually affect your brain functioning. Turn on your capacity to recognize and respond to safety problems, and you can imagine what becomes possible: increased influence, enhanced relationships, stronger teams, more effective leadership.
Silence consists of any act to purposely withhold information from the pool of meaning. It’s almost always done to avoid potential problems, and it always restricts the flow of meaning. Methods range from playing verbal games to avoiding a person entirely. The three most common forms are masking, avoiding, and withdrawing. Masking consists of understating or selectively showing your true opinions — sarcasm, sugarcoating, and couching are among the more popular forms.
Violence consists of any verbal strategy that attempts to convince or control others or compel them to your point of view. It violates safety by trying to force meaning into the pool. Methods range from name-calling and monologuing to making threats. The three most common forms are controlling, labeling, and attacking. Controlling consists of coercing others to your way of thinking — through forcing your views on others or dominating the conversation by interrupting, overstating your facts, speaking in absolutes, changing subjects, or using directive questions. Labeling is putting a label on people or ideas so you can dismiss them under a general stereotype or category. Attacking moves from wanting to win an argument to wanting to make the other person suffer — through belittling and threatening.
When you see signs of silence or violence in virtual communication, ask for more data. In email, note that you haven’t heard back and ask how they feel about the proposal. On the phone, acknowledge that you wish you could see their face and ask what they’re thinking. In direct messaging, flag that a comment seemed off and ask whether they’re upset. When you can’t read the room, ask for what the room can’t show you.
Chapter 7 — Make It Safe
If you spot safety risks as they happen, you can step out of the conversation, build safety, and then find a way to talk about almost anything with almost anyone. The key is to step out of the content of the conversation — literally stop talking about the topic — and rebuild safety. Human beings are wired to look for threats. When people feel threatened, they move to silence or verbal violence, to flight or fight — none of which are great for problem solving. The best at dialogue don’t play games. They know that in order to solve their problem they need to talk about their problem with no pretending, sugarcoating, or faking. So they step out of the content, make it safe, and step back in. Once safety is restored, they can talk about nearly anything.
People need to know two things about your intent: that you care about their concerns (Mutual Purpose) and that you care about them (Mutual Respect). If the other person doesn’t seem to care about your purpose, choose that as the topic of the crucial conversation you need to have. Your purpose is every bit as important as theirs, and you can and should hold that as a boundary: “It’s important to me that we have a collaborative and productive relationship. I’d like to talk about a pattern I’ve noticed in our conversations. I hope you know that I care about your goals as well as my own. Sometimes, though, I sense that you don’t really care about my goals, and that can make it tough for me to talk about things with you. I’m wondering if I’ve misread this.”
Respect is like air. As long as it’s present, nobody thinks about it. But if you take it away, it’s all that people can think about. Feelings of disrespect often come when you dwell on how others are different from yourself. You can counteract these feelings by looking for ways you are similar — without excusing others’ behavior, try to sympathize, even empathize, with them. A rather clever person once expressed this as a prayer: “Lord, help me forgive those who sin differently than I.” When you recognize that everyone has weaknesses, it’s easier to find a way to respect even the thorniest of people, and when you do, you feel a kinship that makes even the toughest conversations possible.
Four skills help the best at dialogue build and rebuild safety. The first is sharing your good intent. When you start a conversation by sharing your positive intent, you lay the foundation for safety. It doesn’t mean the other person won’t get defensive as the conversation progresses, but it gives you a touchstone to return to when safety is at risk. You might open with: “I love you, and I want to make sure we’re talking about things that impact our relationship, because our relationship is the most important thing in the world to me. I’m sure there are things you’d like me to change, and I want to understand those as well as share concerns I have. Could we talk?”
The second skill is apologizing when appropriate. An apology isn’t really an apology unless you experience a change in heart. To offer a sincere apology, your motives have to change — you have to give up saving face, being right, or winning in order to focus on what you really want. You sacrifice a bit of your ego by admitting your error. But like many sacrifices, when you give up something you value, you’re rewarded with something more valuable — healthy dialogue and better results.
The third skill is contrasting to fix misunderstandings. Contrasting is a don’t/do statement: in the “don’t” part, you explain what you don’t intend, addressing concerns that you lack respect or have a malicious purpose; in the “do” part, you clarify your real intention. Of the two parts, the “don’t” is the more important because it deals with the misunderstanding that put safety at risk. Contrasting can also prevent safety problems before they develop: “I don’t want you to think I don’t appreciate the time you’ve taken to keep our checking account balanced — I do appreciate it. I do, however, have some concerns with how we’re using the new online banking system.” Or: “My fear is that I’ll draw down on our relationship, and that’s not my intent at all. My goal in bringing this up is to strengthen our relationship.”
The fourth skill is creating a Mutual Purpose. You have to open your mind to the fact that there might be a third choice out there — one that suits everyone. By focusing on higher and longer-term goals, you often find ways to transcend short-term compromises. When you sense you and others are working at cross-purposes, step out of the content of the conflict and commit to seeking a Mutual Purpose — a unilateral public commitment to stay in the conversation until you find something that serves everyone. Recognize the purpose behind the strategy: ask people why they want what they’re pushing for, and separate what they’re demanding from the purpose it serves. If after clarifying everyone’s purposes you’re still at odds, invent a higher or longer-term purpose that’s more motivating than the ones keeping you in conflict. Creating safety doesn’t resolve all your issues — it simply creates the space to give dialogue a chance.
Chapter 8 — State My Path
Your heart needs to be in the right place, and your head needs to be focused on the right topic. To speak honestly when honesty could easily offend others, you have to find a way to maintain safety without compromising candor — and doing both at the same time requires blending three ingredients: confidence, humility, and skill. The five skills of STATE capture what that blend looks like in practice: share your facts, tell your story, ask for others’ paths, talk tentatively, and encourage testing.
The skill in sharing your facts is to share your facts, not the facts. You are sharing what you have seen and heard. When you acknowledge that these are your facts, you make space for other facts — things the other person may have seen and heard. When you tell your story, the goal of contrasting is not to water down your message but to be sure that people don’t hear more than you intend.
One of the ironies of dialogue is that when there’s a difference of opinions, the more convinced and forceful you act, the more resistant others become. Speaking in absolute and overstated terms does not increase your influence — it decreases it. The converse is also true: the more tentatively you speak, the more open people become to your opinions. Useful phrases include “It appears to me that…,” “I’m starting to feel like…,” and “I don’t think you’re intending this, but I’m beginning to feel…”
If others have different facts or stories, you need to hear them to help complete the picture. Make sure they have the opportunity to share by actively inviting them: “Does anyone see it differently?” “What am I missing here?” “I’d really like to hear the other side of this story.” You might also say: “I know people have been reluctant to speak up about this, but I would really love to hear from everyone.” When you can tell others aren’t buying in but aren’t speaking up either, even after sincere invitation, play devil’s advocate. Model disagreeing by disagreeing with your own view: “Maybe I’m wrong here. What if the opposite is true? I know I’ve made the opposite case, but I really want to hear all the reasons my position could be dangerously wrong.”
Once we’re convinced it’s our duty to fight for the truth, we start pulling out the big guns. We cite information that supports our ideas while hiding or discrediting anything that doesn’t. Then we spice things up with exaggeration. The harder we try, the more forceful and nasty our tactics, the greater the resistance we create, the worse the results, and the more battered our relationships. Your willingness to use STATE skills is a reliable indicator of your interest in dialogue. The harder it is for you to use them, the more likely your goal is to win rather than learn.
Watch for the moment people start to resist — raising their volume, overstating the facts, or retreating into silence. Turn your attention away from the topic and onto yourself. Are you leaning forward? Speaking more loudly? Starting to try to win? As you consider what you really want from the conversation, ask: “How would I behave if this is really what I want?” If you want to stand a chance at influencing people, start by understanding them. Open yourself up to the belief that others might hold a piece of the puzzle, back off your harsh and conclusive language, and ask for their views. Hold to your belief — merely soften your approach. As Dean Rusk once observed, “One of the best ways to persuade others is with your ears — by listening to them.”
Chapter 9 — Explore Others’ Paths
Thoughts are all electricity. Emotions add chemistry. Once the chemicals that fuel emotions are released, they hang around in the bloodstream for a time — in some cases, long after thoughts have changed. Be patient while the chemistry catches up with the electricity. If you don’t get at the source of people’s feelings, you’ll end up suffering the effects of those feelings instead.
To encourage others to share their paths, four power listening tools work regardless of whether people are in silence or violence: ask, mirror, paraphrase, and prime — AMPP. Ask by simply expressing interest in the other person’s views. Common invitations include: “What’s going on?” “I’d really like to hear your opinion on this.” “Please let me know if you see it differently.” “Don’t worry about hurting my feelings. I really want to hear your thoughts.”
Mirror by describing how the other person looks or acts. Although you may not understand their stories or facts, you can see their actions and reflect them back. Mirroring is most useful when someone’s tone of voice or gestures are inconsistent with their words — when they say “Don’t worry, I’m fine” while frowning and kicking at the ground, you might respond: “From the way you’re saying that, it doesn’t sound like you are.” Mirroring magnifies safety because it demonstrates genuine interest. You are paying attention so closely that you’re noticing not just what the person is saying but how they’re saying it. You create safety when your tone of voice says you’re all right with them feeling the way they’re feeling.
Paraphrase by putting the message in your own words, usually in abbreviated form — be careful not to simply parrot back what was said: “Let’s see if I’ve got this right. You’re worried because the previous project manager was fired. You’re wondering if you or others on the project team might be at risk as well.” And when the other person continues to hold back, prime. The term comes from the expression “priming the pump” — with an old-fashioned hand pump, you often have to pour some water in before it will work. When it comes to power listening, sometimes you have to offer your best guess at what the other person is thinking or feeling before you can expect them to share. You pour some meaning into the pool before the other person responds in kind.
Understanding doesn’t equate with agreement. Sensitivity doesn’t equate to acquiescence. By taking steps to understand another person’s Path to Action, you aren’t promising to accept their point of view — you are promising to listen. As you begin to respond, agree when you share views. Don’t turn an agreement into an argument. When the other person has merely left out an element, agree and then build: rather than “Wrong. You forgot to mention…,” say “Absolutely. In addition, I noticed that…”
The pool expands only when their meaning is heard and when your meaning is heard. Your meaning needs to be in the pool as well — but you will create more safety for others by helping them share their meaning first, before you dive in. Start by listening, then sharing. You can’t force people to listen to you, and the fact that you listened doesn’t automatically mean they will reciprocate. But you can set that expectation up front: let the other person know you want to hear their perspective, and ask if they’re willing to hear yours in return.
Chapter 10 — Retake Your Pen
If you live by the compliment, you’ll die by the criticism. We lean too far forward and move from enjoying praise to needing it — sometimes out of a naïve hope that outside evidence will take better care of us than we can of ourselves, and other times it’s just a quick fix. We are unwilling to do the work required to steady ourselves, preferring to lean on approval instead. Others’ feedback is either pure truth, pure falsehood, or some mixture of the two — usually some mixture. The sensible response is what TOSA students learn to do: put it in a bag, sort out what’s true, and discard the rest.
The first step is to collect yourself. Breathing deeply and slowly reminds you that you are safe — it signals that you don’t need to be preparing for physical defense. Being mindful of your feelings helps too. Do your best to name them as you feel them: are you hurt, scared, embarrassed, ashamed? Naming them helps you put a little daylight between you and the emotion. When you can think about what you’re feeling, you gain more power over it. Identifying, examining, and critiquing the stories that led to your feelings can help. Some people collect themselves by consciously connecting with soothing truths — repeating affirmations like “This can’t hurt me, I’m safe” or “If I made a mistake, it doesn’t mean I am a mistake.”
Next, seek to understand. Curiosity can inoculate you against defensiveness — focusing on understanding helps interrupt the tendency toward personalizing, and it’s hard to beat yourself up when you’re busy solving a puzzle. The best puzzle to work: “Why would a reasonable, rational, decent person say what they’re saying?” Detach yourself from what is being said as though it is being said about a third person. That will help you bypass the need to evaluate what you’re hearing while you’re still listening.
Then recover. It’s sometimes best at this point to ask for a time-out. Feelings of control bring feelings of safety, and you regain a sense of control when you exercise your right to respond when you’re truly ready. Explain that you want some time to reflect and you’ll respond when you’ve had a chance to do so. Like TOSA students, separate the tasks of collecting and sorting — put it all in a bag and sort it out later. Give yourself permission to feel and recover from the experience before doing any evaluation of what you heard. Sometimes you might simply say, “I will take a look at that” — not agreeing, not disagreeing, simply promising to look sincerely at what you were told, on your own timeline.
Chapter 11 — Move to Action
Having more meaning in the pool, even jointly owning it, doesn’t guarantee that everyone agrees on what to do with it. We often fail to convert ideas into action for two reasons: unclear expectations about how decisions will be made, and a poor job of acting on the decisions we do make. The two riskiest times in crucial conversations tend to be at the beginning and at the end — the beginning is risky because you have to create safety or things go awry, and the end is dicey because if you aren’t careful about how you clarify conclusions and decisions, you can run into violated expectations later. You can solve both problems if, before making a decision, the people involved decide how to decide.
There are four common ways of making decisions: command, consult, vote, and consensus. Command means decisions are made without involving others. Consult means input is gathered from the group and then a subset decides. Vote means an agreed-upon percentage swings the decision. Consensus means everyone comes to an agreement and then supports the final decision. When choosing among these methods, consider four questions: Who cares? Determine who genuinely wants to be involved and who will be affected — don’t involve people who don’t care. Who knows? Identify who has the expertise you need and try not to involve people who contribute no new information. Who must agree? Think of those whose cooperation you might need — it’s better to involve them than to surprise them and suffer their open resistance. How many people is it worth involving? Your goal should be the fewest number of people while still considering the quality of the decision and the support people will give it.
While a conversation doesn’t necessarily need to end with a decision, it should always end with a commitment — whether to change, to take action, or simply to reflect sincerely on what was shared. As you close conversations with commitments, make sure you cover WWWF: who does what by when, and how will you follow up? One dull pencil is worth six sharp minds. Don’t leave your hard work to memory. Write down the details of conclusions, decisions, and assignments. Revisit your notes at key times — usually the next meeting — and review what was committed. When you hold people accountable, you not only increase their motivation and ability to deliver on promises, but you create a culture of integrity.
Chapter 12 — Yeah, but
Generally speaking, a vast majority of difficult interpersonal problems go away if they’re privately, respectfully, and firmly discussed. Your biggest challenge will be the respect part. If you put up with a behavior for too long, you’ll be inclined to tell an increasingly potent Villain Story about the offender. If you’ve tolerated the behavior for a long time before holding the conversation, own up to it. This may help you treat the individual as a reasonable, rational, and decent person — even if some of their behavior doesn’t fit that description.
When addressing uncomfortable behavior, share specific facts about what you’ve observed and explain that the behavior sends a message that makes you uncomfortable — then ask how they see it: “When I walk into your office, frequently your eyes move from my eyes downward. And when I sit next to you at a computer, sometimes you put your arm around the back of my chair. I don’t know that you’re aware you’re doing these things, so I thought I’d bring them up because they send a message that makes me uncomfortable. How do you see it?” The key is describing observable behaviors without judgment, then genuinely inviting their perspective.
When something bothers you, catch it early. Contrasting can help prevent escalation: “I’m not trying to blow this out of proportion. I just want to deal with it before it gets out of hand.” Share the specific behaviors you’ve observed. Tentatively explain the consequences: “I don’t think it’s having the effect you want. He doesn’t pick up on the hint, and I’m afraid he’s starting to resent you.” Encourage testing: “Do you see it differently?” When spouses stop giving each other helpful feedback, they lose out on the help of a lifelong confidant and coach — they miss out on hundreds of opportunities to help each other communicate more effectively.
Deal with trust around the specific issue, not around the person as a whole. Use Contrasting to explain that you don’t want to hurt the person’s feelings, but you do want to share something that could be helpful. Also explain that you’re reluctant to bring up the issue because of its personal nature, but since the problem is interfering with the person’s effectiveness, you really must. In personal and professional relationships alike, the conversation you’ve been avoiding longest is usually the one that would help most.
Chapter 13 — Putting It All Together
Perhaps the most common way that the language of dialogue finds itself into everyday conversation is with the statement, “I think we’ve moved away from dialogue.” What stands between us and what we really want is lag time — the gap between when we know we have a problem and when we find a way to effectively confront, discuss, and resolve it. If you reduce that lag time, everything gets better.
When stakes are high, opinions vary, and emotions start to run strong, casual conversations transform into crucial ones. Ironically, the more crucial the conversation, the less likely we are to handle it well. When we fail a crucial conversation, every aspect of our lives can be affected — our companies, our careers, our communities, our relationships, our personal health. And the longer the lag time, the more room for mischief. When we fail to discuss issues you have with a boss, life partner, neighbor, or peer, those issues become the lens through which you see the other person — and the damage compounds quietly, day after day.
When facing a crucial conversation, most of us unconsciously make the Fool’s Choice — we think we have to choose between telling the truth and keeping a friend. Skilled communicators resist this false tradeoff and look for ways to do both: to be one hundred percent honest and one hundred percent respectful at the same time. They look for a way to get to dialogue, a condition where meaning flows freely between parties, resulting in a larger pool of information shared by all. A larger shared pool of meaning leads to better decisions, better relationships, and more unified action.
You can’t solve the real problem if you choose the wrong topic. Learn to spot the three signs of the wrong conversation — escalating emotions, walking away skeptical, and déjà vu dialogue — and use them to course-correct. Unbundle the issues using CPR: content, pattern, and relationship. Choose the most relevant topic. Simplify your concern into a single sentence so you can stay focused once the conversation gets underway. And always, work on yourself first. The only person you can directly control is yourself, so when you find yourself moving toward silence or violence, stop and ask what you actually want — for yourself, for others, and for the relationship. Refuse the Fool’s Choice. Find the “and.”
When strong emotions keep you stuck, retrace your Path to Action. Examine your behavior, put your feelings into words, identify the story creating those feelings, and separate the facts from your interpretation. Watch for Victim Stories, Villain Stories, and Helpless Stories — you tell a clever story when you want self-justification more than results. Ask what you’re pretending not to notice about your role in the problem, and what a reasonable, rational, decent person might be thinking or feeling on the other side. Master your stories, take ownership for the emotional energy you bring, and then ask what you should do right now to move toward what you really want.
When caught up in the conversation itself, look for signs that safety is at risk. Learn to spot silence and violence in yourself and others, step out of the content to rebuild safety before returning to the issue, and deploy the four safety tools as needed: share your good intent, apologize when appropriate, contrast to fix misunderstandings, and create a Mutual Purpose when you’re at cross-purposes. When you speak, use STATE — share your facts, tell your story, ask for others’ paths, talk tentatively, and encourage testing. When you listen, use AMPP — ask, mirror, paraphrase, and prime — then agree, build, or compare rather than defaulting to unnecessary disagreement. When you receive feedback, collect yourself, seek to understand, and recover before you engage. And when the conversation ends, close with a commitment: who does what by when, and how will you follow up.
The measure of all of it is simple: how quickly can you move from the moment you know there is a problem to the moment you resolve it? Reduce that lag time — in your team, your marriage, your friendships, your organization — and everything gets better.