In this episode, I unpack the lessons from “Crucial Conversations” by Joseph Grenny, Kerry Patterson, Ron McMillan, Al Switzler, and Emily Gregory.
You can watch the episode here:
Full Transcript:
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, from our companies, to our careers, to our communities, to our relationships, to our personal health. And the longer the lag time, the more room for mischief. So that was a little bit from the book Crucial Conversations, written by a handful of people, Joseph Graney, Kerry Patterson, Ron McMillan, Al Switzler, and Emily Gregory.
and it gets into what is the difference between a crucial conversation and other conversations. How do you know when you’re having one? So they kind of lead with that. Like the first title, the subtitle of the first chapter is called, and who cares? Like what is a crucial conversation? They say, what makes each of these conversations crucial and not simply frustrating, frightening, or annoying is that the outcome could have a huge impact in either relationships or results that affect you greatly. They also say 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.
So they kind of dig into what are crucial conversations and then how do know them and how do you execute them and all that kind of stuff. We’ll get into that as we go through here. So the second chapter kind of begins with a quote from Martin Luther King Jr. saying, quote, our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter. So it’s not about avoiding conversations, but just handling them properly. They say, quote, the mistake most of us make in our crucial conversations is we believe that we have to choose between telling the truth and keeping a friend. So you feel like you have to kind of lie to keep friendship going or tell the truth and.
There’s ways to do both. It’s not easy to do. They share a story from the book that a group of people talk about the fool’s choice. They said, how can we be 100 % honest with Chris and at same time be 100 % respectful? And so we’ll get into ways to do that. But it’s tricky. But really, there’s one main piece here. They say when it comes to crucial conversations, skilled people find a way to get all relevant information from themselves and others out into the open. That’s it. The other problem then is when people aren’t involved, if you don’t get the information out, they’re going to have
kind of quietly resent you. say in the book, conversely, when people aren’t involved, when they sit back during touchy conversations, they’re rarely committed to the final decision. Since their ideas remain in their heads and their opinions never make it into the pool, they end up quietly criticizing and passively resisting. In there, they drop a quote from Samuel Butler that says, he that complies against his will is of his own opinion still. So if you kind of just sit in the back and grumble and just begrudgingly agree, you didn’t change your mind. You’re still going to have your own opinion that you think it’s wrong. And so if you’re able to speak up, if you
set up conversations where people are willing to speak up, has a much better result. So part one of the book as they get into it, part one they call What to Do Before You Open Your Mouth. So before you even start, what’s going on? They say, they share a quote from Charles Kettering. says, a problem well stated is a problem half solved. It reminds me of the movie Moneyball, if you’ve seen that. Early in the movie, they’re all sitting around and Billy asks all the scouts in the room, they’re trying to figure out what players to draft. What’s the problem? And they all say, well, here’s the problem, here’s the problem. said, no, no, guys, what’s the problem?
and they give some other answers and he has to go through it three or four times before they even realize what the problem is they’re trying to solve. They’ve been spending weeks trying to solve a problem and they weren’t even clear what the problem is. so again, that Kettering quote was, yeah, problem well stated is a problem half solved. So having the right conversation is kind of a key to having it work out well for you. So they say three signs that you’re having the wrong conversation. They say your emotions escalate, you walk away skeptical, or you’re in a deja vu dialogue. So if you’re getting too emotional or if you’re not,
confident things happen or if you keep having the same conversation over and over, it’s problematic. Something you can see that will help you understand this topic and seeing this problem is if you can say succinctly. know, word, they say in the book here, the more words it takes you to describe the topic, the less prepared you are to talk. You so people have to ramble on and on and on. They really don’t know the answer. And there’s a lot of quotes that talk about that. I’ll share a few of them here. I think in the book they shared the one from Blaise Pascal that I love.
It simply says, if I had more time, I would have written a shorter letter, meaning it’s easier to blab out a big long letter. But if you really want to make it concise and accurate, takes more time. Or Winston Churchill has been quoted as saying, I’m going to make a long speech because I’ve not had time to prepare a short one. And then Mark Twain is credited with saying, if you want me to give a two hour presentation, I’m ready today. If you want only a five minute speech, it will take me two weeks to prepare. And so again, it’s not easy to get things concise, but it’s huge. It’s important to do that.
You can’t really solve the problem if you don’t choose the right topic. Next, ⁓ they talk about staying focused on what you really want, and the chapter starts with heart. Make sure you’re doing things the right way. They share a quote from Ambrose Beers. I love this book. They share a ton of quotes from great people here. it says, speak when you are angry, and you’ll make the best speech you will ever regret. And so again, getting your emotions under control, so having the right problem in mind and keeping your emotions in check really work out well. They talk more about mastering your feelings.
And this is an interesting piece about how we see feelings. It kind of goes back to stoicism almost a little bit, but from the book here is a fairly long quote. says, stories create feelings. As it turns out, there’s an intermediate step between what others do and how we feel. Just after we observe what others do and just before we feel some emotion about it, we tell ourselves a story. We had meaning to the action we observed. We make a guess at the motive driving the behavior. Why were they doing that? We also had judgment. Is that good or bad? And then based on these thoughts or stories, our body responds with an emotion.
Notice the order of events in both of the examples. And they had given some examples there between those. They said, what came first, the story or the sellout? Did you convince yourself of the other driver’s selfishness and then not let him in? You talking about merging? Of course not. You had no reason to think he was selfish until you needed an excuse for your own selfish behavior. So you kind of start telling yourself stories. We do this in our lives. When people do something bad, you’ll tell a story to make ourselves look better. And it’s easy to fall into. It’s very problematic if you’re trying to have a good, clear, critical conversation, crucial conversation.
There’s three types of clever stories that are problematic. There’s victim stories, villain stories, and helpless stories. So victim stories are, it’s not my fault. I think those are pretty clear, but from the book they say, not all tales of victimization are so clear cut and one sided. Within most crucial conversations, when you tell a victim story, you intentionally ignore the role that you played in the problem. And then there’s villain stories where it’s all your fault. So one is it’s not my fault. The second one is it’s all your fault. They say here in the book, quote,
For example, we describe a boss who is zealous about quality as a control freak. When our spouse is upset that we didn’t keep a commitment, we see him or her as inflexible and stubborn. You kind of see people in other lights. know, a boss that’s zealous about quality is probably not a bad thing, but you could see them as a control freak. Is that accurate? I don’t know. You’re making a story about them that may or may not be true. So you have the victim’s stories, the villain’s stories, then also helpless stories. There’s nothing else I can do. A helpless story might suggest, if I didn’t yell at my son, he wouldn’t listen. Or on the flip side, if I told the boss this, he would be so defensive. So of course I say nothing.
So while villain and victim stories look back to explain why we’re in the situation we’re in, helpless stories look forward to explain why we can’t do anything to change our situation, or at least why we think we can’t do anything. And it could be the boss or someone that has more pull than you is not good at crucial conversations. And maybe that’s accurate. Maybe there is nothing else you can do, but it’s important to try to understand how to get the right kind of conversation to make this happen. So that was kind of before you do anything. Part two is how to open your mouth.
The first one, the first chapter in here is learn to look and notice when safety is at risk. And they talk a lot about safety in these people need to be safe in these conversations. They think things may go poorly. They’re going to clam right up. And so it’s important to do that. So a big piece of this chapter here was to learn to look for safety problems. And here’s what the quote says. It says, when it’s safe, you can say anything. Here’s why gifted communicators keep a close eye on safety. 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 of these reactions, flight and fight, 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 that you’re being attacked or humiliated, you yourself can hear almost anything and not become defensive. So it’s important just to keep things where people feel safe, where feel they won’t be attacked or humiliated or…
can actually speak up honestly and you’ll have better conversations that way. It’s a little bit more about making things safe, how to make it safe to talk about almost anything. There’s really just two conditions of safety here. The first one is you care about the concerns and you care about them. So caring about concerns is mutual purpose. You want to the same purpose, know, understanding their concerns and you care about them is mutual respect. And purpose and respect can go a long way. Even if you don’t necessarily agree, as long as you’re on the same page with each other and you respect each other, you can do more.
They summarize this book in the chapter, his little summary for some of the chapters, says, when others move to silence or violence, step out of the content of conversation and make it safe. When safety is restored, go back to the issue at hand and continue the dialogue. And so they’re saying if things start slipping, don’t push forward in the conversation, go out of that conversation, focus just on the safety of it, get everyone on the same page and then go back into the issue and continue from there. If you just keep plowing forward, it’s all just gonna fall apart and not work too well. Next they talk about stating your path to speak persuasively, not abrasively.
And state is an acronym, so they say share your facts, is the S. T is tell your story. A is ask for others’ paths. T is talk tentatively and E is encourage testing. So yeah, S, share your facts. Start with the least controversial, but get your facts on the table. T is tell your story, which you’re beginning to conclude from the facts. A is ask for others’ paths. Encourage others for their stories. You wanna hear what’s going on. It’s not all about you here. Talk tentatively, give your opinion, not facts.
Encourage testing, seek opposing views to test your theory against additional information. They also talk about being tentative but not wimpy. You don’t want to be too aggressive, you don’t want to be a wimp either. And it’s a tough line and a lot of people trying to be polite end up being just pushovers. The book here says, quote, some people are so worried about being too forceful or pushy they err in the other direction. They wimp out by making still another fool’s choice. They figure the only safe way to share touchy data is to act as if it’s not important. They’ll say things like, I know this is probably not true or.
call me crazy, but kind of hedge their bets on things. And no, you don’t want to be wimpy. You want to be tentative and be polite and certainly understanding, but don’t dilute your own facts. Now they say in the book here, when you have a tough message to share, or when you’re so convinced of your own righteousness that you may push too hard, remember to state your path. So it’s important to be there. ⁓ The next chapter is about exploring others’ paths. And so we’ve talked about this a little bit already, but listening is a big piece. They share a quote from Dean Rusk here. It simply says, quote,
One of the best ways to persuade others is with your ears by listening to them. And we’ve seen this in other books about negotiations and that kind of stuff that people that are better negotiators, better salespeople, all that kind of tend to listen more. The people that aren’t as good talk more. And so being willing to listen actually makes you better at persuading other people because you can understand what’s going on with them. So they give four listening skills, AMP, A-M-P-P. A is for ask, is to mirror, to acknowledge your emotions. P is to paraphrase, restate what you heard. And P, the other P, the second P is to prime.
to offer guesses to what they may be thinking and feeling to get the discussion started. So, kind ask them a question, mirror their emotions. When they say what’s going on, restate what you heard in your own words to make sure you have it right, and then offer a guess to where you think it may be going, kind of get the discussion started. Because if you’ve paraphrased correctly, you at least have some idea of what’s happening, and maybe your prime is wrong, you may be wrong where you think it’s going, and that’s okay. That’s starting the conversation starting on the right foot too, because you’re understanding them before you dig in too much. And then sharing your views, they just give the ABCs here to agree.
build and compare. So agree versus arguing over minor points. know, agree when you can. Certainly don’t give in, but don’t, don’t pick at minor points too much. B is to build, build on things that I agree completely. In addition, I noticed that, you know, you can kind of go from there, but build, build on agreement and go further and then C is compare. So I see things a little bit differently. Let me explain how I see them. So a longer quote from this that kind of sums it up pretty well. thought they said, quote,
To keep ourselves from feeling like sellouts while exploring others’ paths, no matter how different or wrong they seem, remember we’re trying to understand their point of view, not necessarily agree with it or support it. Understanding doesn’t equate with agreement. Sensitivity doesn’t equate to acquiescence. By taking steps to understand another person’s path to action, we aren’t promising we’ll accept their point of view, we’re promising to listen. And so listening’s a big piece of this, again, you don’t have to agree. I love the understanding doesn’t equate with agreement. You want to understand them, you should.
You should understand people you disagree with vehemently and anything from religion to politics to whatever you have at work. Like you should understand what’s happening. You don’t have to agree with them, but understanding is a huge step to, you know, to having a good conversation about it. If you don’t really understand what’s going on, it’s not going to work. They say at end of the chapter here, they say to encourage the free flow of meaning and help others leave silence or violence behind, explore their path to action. Start with an attitude of curiosity and patience. This helps restore safety.
The next chapter is about retaking your pen, how to be resilient when you hear tough feedback. Because some of these, I mean, it’s not going to all go your way. And that’s okay. They have a quote from Gandhi in here that said, no one can hurt me without my permission. You know, it’s about how you respond to things. ⁓ They had an analysis here that was interesting. They said, our analysis of the 445 episodes people reported in a study showed that immediate threats are a rare exception. In most cases, it is our defensive, combative, or resentful response to feed that.
that puts us at risk more than the feedback itself. And one reason we become so defensive is that we underestimate our capacity to protect ourselves. You don’t get angry when you’re confident, you get angry when you’re scared. And so just, yeah, they give four skills you can help to manage how you receive information you get from others. One is to collect yourself, two is to understand, three is to recover, and four is to engage. And so kind of going through those, again, retaking your pen, collect yourself, you’ll breathe deeply, name your emotions, present yourself with soothing truths, establish your safety and worth.
Two is to understand, be curious, ask questions, ask for examples, and then listen. Ask for those things and then let people say them. Listen and see what’s going on. The next one, the third one here is recover. Take a time out if needed, recover emotionally and process what you’ve heard. And then fourth is to engage. Examine what you were told, look for truth rather than trying to poke holes in everything. If appropriate, reengage with the person who shared the feedback and acknowledge what you heard, what you accept and what you commit to do. So yeah, so if you find yourself in this kind of situation, collect yourself, understand, recover and engage.
And then lastly, they talk about how to finish. So moving to action. ⁓ they have a quote, they kick off here, a quote from Samuel Johnson. says to do nothing is in every man’s power. So you’re able to do nothing if you want, but that’s not good, but you want to make sure she taking action after the conversation. If you’ve got through this great crucial conversation and had decisions made so often those decisions, everyone would be happy leaving the meeting. And then they just kind of wilt. You want to make sure things actually happen. ⁓ so there are four common ways of making decisions. There’s command consult vote and consensus.
And so there are of different degrees of involvement about making that final decision there. Commanding, course, telling what’s going on, consulting, encouraging what’s happening, voting from everyone else, or consensus where you just let everyone decide together. So you decide depending how your organization is structured and how you make that final decision. But then you have to decide what happens. Again, things will sort of fall through the cracks after that decision is made so often. They quote an English proverb in here that says, everybody’s business is nobody’s business.
If you don’t make an actual assignment to an actual person, there’s a good chance that nothing will come of all the work you’ve gone through to make a decision. This is like to say, if you witness an accident, if you say, someone call 911, there’s a good chance no one will call 911. But you say, hey, you, John, call 911. John will call 911. Or do it yourself or make sure it happens though. Again, everybody’s business is nobody’s business. Someone else will take care of it so we’re all good. Especially at work. If have a meeting where you’ve come to this great decision, you had 12 people in the room, like, cool, someone’s gonna get this going. Maybe they won’t, you wanna make sure someone does it.
They shared another proverb in here. hadn’t heard before but I thought was great. They said one dull pencil is worth six sharp minds. So again, one person just writing down something even just on a scrap of paper say here’s what we’re gonna do is better than six people saying that was great and walking off and forgetting what happened and getting back to the life. So one dull pencil is worth six sharp minds. I really like that. thinking that stuff and then there’s some tough cases here too. Kind of the last piece we’ll get into as we start putting it all together. ⁓
I’ll just kind of share the quote from the book here. think this is the best way to go. I was going to kind of paraphrase, but it’s a good quote here. It says, quote, trust doesn’t have to be universally offered. In truth, it’s usually offered in degrees and it’s very topic specific. It also comes in two flavors, motive and ability. For example, you can trust me to administer CPR if needed. I’m motivated. I want to help. But you can’t trust me to do a good job. I know nothing about it. So you can trust people about what they want to do and trust people what they’re able to do. And they’re two different things. And understanding that
especially in tough cases, is interesting. I like the example with CPR. If you’re hurt, you can trust my motive. I’m going to try to help you. I’ll do all I can to help, but do I actually know how to do CPR? It’s kind of a different question. And same sort of thing with these conversations that come up. You want people to have, they have to have both. If they have the ability to do something and no motive, that’s problematic. But if they have the motive and no ability, that’s equally problematic. So unpacking that is important too. They get in on putting it all together. I love this. have a funny quote from the comedian Dave Barry.
He says, quote, I can win any argument. People know this and steer clear of me at parties. Often as a sign of their great respect, they don’t even invite me. So yeah, it’s not again about being right. It’s not about winning every time. Certainly if you’re believing what you believe in, you should try to fight to win, but you should also be respectful and lose if need be. If other facts come up that change it, you should be willing to change your mind. It’s very problematic if you don’t. And so we’ll kind of end with the last quote they have in the book here. I it was a great way to summarize what’s going on here. They say, quote,
One thing our research shows clearly is that you need not be perfect to make progress. You needn’t worry if you only make stuttering progress. We promise that if you persist and work at these ideas, you will see dramatic improvement in your relationships and results. These moments are truly crucial, and a little bit of change can lead to enormous amount of progress. So that’s a little bit from Crucial Conversations, a fantastic book. I encourage you to check it out for yourself.
Leave a Reply