Change management hints
Change management hints
● Share what is changing and what is NOT changing –
clarifying what aspects are constant might be
reassuring
● Provide multiple paths for exploring
● Communicate rollback scenario
● Don't assume you understand where the other person is
coming from. Ask clarifying questions.
● Be open to feedback. Assume positive intentions
(perhaps masked by frustration or poor communication
skills).
● Use an active rather than passive voice
● Agree to disagree, if you're at dead end. Let them have
the last word.
PV237 Strategy and Leadership
CRUCIAL CONVERSATIONS
Crucial Conversations
The Principles of Crucial Conversation
The Law of Crucial Conversations
● Anytime you get stuck, there’s either
a crucial conversation you are not
holding or you are not holding well
Stuck – chronic inability to solve problems or achieve
aspirations or goals
● At the core of every successful crucial
conversation lies the FREE FLOW OF
RELEVANT INFORMATION
Crucial Conversations
BEFORE
the conversation
WORK ON ME FIRST
Silence to Violence Continuum
We often do our worse during crucial conversations
We make a Fool’s Choice – Silence or Violence
We assume we can either share our honest opinion
OR be respectful and we are blind to dialogue option
Faced with danger, adrenalin prepares our brain and
muscles for “fight” or “flight” - we get dumbed down
SILENCE – Withdrawing, Avoiding, Masking
VIOLENCE – Controlling, Labeling, Attacking
Skill#1 Identify When you are Stuck
Skill #1 IDENTIFY WHEN YOU ARE STUCK
- What bad results do you want to fix?
- What good results are you unable to achieve?
- What problems are you always trying to fix?
- What do people complain about at home or at work?
Reflect and write the answers down
Skill#2 Unbundle with CPR
Skill #2 UNBUNDLE COMPLEX PROBLEM
CONTENT – core of the problem
PATTERN – a recurring problem – a pattern of
behavior over time
RELATIONSHIP – how the problem is affecting our
relationship – e.g. trust or competence is in question
Workshop #1
Your boss has grown accustomed to asking you to produce complex reports for her.
Not because it is part of your job but rather because you know databases and how to work
with your system.
To make matters worse, it’s often a last-minute request that takes you away from other
priorities.
She’s just asked for “a special” last-minute one off report that is very time consuming to
produce.
She wants it by noon (way too condensed a time frame).
To top it all off, you don’t believe it will provide her with the information she really needs.
Your task in a group: name the Content, the Pattern and Relationship you see in this case
The Principles of Crucial Conversation
Workshop #2
- Work in pairs
- Review the areas you’ve listed when identifying where you are
stuck
- Select one or two you’ll work on during the course
- Unbundle with CPR – identify content, pattern, and
relationship issues
- Pick the issue you think you should address to get unstuck
Workshop #3 Identify your Style
Unders Stress
Answer the questionnaire to identify your style under stress:
http://rleeconsulting.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/Style-Under-Stress-Survey.pdf
First 12 questions only, we will do the rest next time
- Decide if you want to focus on work or home
- Think of a specific person or topic where you have trouble
staying in dialogue (perhaps your Crucial Conversation)
- Candidly answer the questions while keeping your select
situation in mind
- Evaluate your score (clue on next page)
Workshop #3 Identify your Style
Unders Stress
SCORING SHEET
SILENCE VIOLENCE
1 T 7 T
2 T 8 T
3 T 9 T
4 T 10 T
5 T 11 T
6 T 12 T
Workshop #3 Identify your Style
Unders Stress
Any score in silence or violence comes with a cost.
A high score means you use that technique fairy often.
When you move to silence or violence, what are the negative
consequences?
START ON ME FIRST
Problem
When it matters the most and our emotions kick in, we often do
our worse – and we feel like we are doing the right thing.
Solution
Learn how to create emotions that make you want to return to
healthy dialogue.
START ON ME FIRST
Avoid moving to silence or violence by learning:
-> How to get our heart right by understanding what it is we
really want
->How to get our head right by mastering our stories and
creating new emotions that help us return to dialogue
The first thing that deteriorates during crucial conversation is
not our behavior (that comes second) but our motive.
START ON ME FIRST
The Path to Action
First, you see or hear.
You are working on a report, and your manager checks up on you three times
in an hour, offering suggestions
Second, you tell a story.
You decide that your manager is questioning your capabilities. She doesn’t
believe you can do it on your own. She thinks you are incompetent.
Third, you generate a feeling.
You feel hurt and defensive. This leads to anger – your manager clearly
disregards all the reports you’ve successfully generated in the past.
Fourth, you act.
You hold a grudge and don’t listen or respond to your manager’s suggestions.
START ON ME FIRST
The Path to Action
We guess.
We try to figure out motive. We pass judgment, leading to a
feeling, and, finally, to action.
We do so quickly.
Often we don’t even notice we are doing it.
We are our own worst enemy.
Our negative story escalates our emotions and we act our worst
when it matters the most.
Skill#3 Start with Heart
My left-hand column case
1. Recall a tough conversation – ideally linked to your Crucial
Conversation list but the one you’ve actually had that left you
frustrated. Perhaps you didn’t say what you wanted to or what
you said didn’t work.
2. Divide a sheet of paper into two columns. Reconstruct the
conversation, write actual sentences of both parties in the
“Right-hand Column”.
3. In the “Left-hand Column”, write what you were thinking but
didn’t say. This is likely to be unflattering but be realistic and
honest about your hidden thoughts and emotions.
Skill#3 Start with Heart
Learning sharing: My left-hand column case
1. What kind of things did you not say? Why?
2. What was at the heart of the conversation that was never
spoken?
3. How did your unspoken motives affect the conversation?
“If you don’t talk it out, you’ll act it out”
If you don’t first change your heart, any effort to change your
actions are likely to be insincere, shallow, and doomed to
failure
Skill#4
Focus on What you Really Want
Restart your brain by asking:
1. What am I behaving like I want?
2. What results do I really want:
- for myself?
- for others?
- for the relationship?
- for the organization?
3. How would I behave if I really did?
Skill#4
Focus on What you Really Want
Refer to your Left-hand Column situation and discuss with your
partner:
1. What were you behaving like you wanted?
2. What did you really want
- for yourself?
- for others?
- for the relationship?
- for the organization?
3. What could you have said to make what you really want
clear?
Skill#5 Master my Stories
RETRACE YOUR PATH TO ACTION
Skilled people cut off their unhealthy emotions at the source.
They stop telling and believing the story.
Instead, they retrace their path to the source – what they saw
and heard.
Skill#5 Master my Stories
MASTER YOUR STORIES IN THREE STEPS
1. Separate Facts from Stories
2. Watch for Three Clever Stories
3. Tell the Rest of the Story
MASTER MY STORIES
Step#1 Separate Facts from Stories
What is a fact?
How are stories different from facts?
Stories are judgments, conclusions, and attributions that we
make from the facts.
Judgments determine whether the facts are good or bad.
Conclusions help us fit elements together.
Attributions tell us why people do what they do.
MASTER MY STORIES
Step#1 Separate Facts from Stories
Once you separate facts from stories, you realize that the
same facts could be used to tell an infinite number of
stories.
MASTER MY STORIES
Step#2 Watch for Three Clever
Stories
Victim Stories
“It’s not my fault!”
With these stories, we are innocent sufferers.
Villain Stories
“It’s all your fault!”
These stories emphasize others’ nasty qualities and typically rely
on ugly labels.
Helpless Stories
“There is nothing else I can do!”
These stories convince us that we have no healthy option for
taking action.
MASTER MY STORIES
Step#3 Tell the Rest of the Story
Victim Stories
Assess your role. Ask yourself:
“What am I pretending not to notice about my role in the
problem?”
Villain Stories
Humanize others. Ask yourself:
“Why would a reasonable, rational, and decent person do this?”
Assume positive intentions.
Helpless Stories
Commit to corrective action by asking:
“What should I do right now to move towards what I really want?”
MASTER MY STORIES
Work in pairs
- Refer back to your Right-hand Column conversation.
- Tell your experience to your partner
- Together, separate facts from stories
- Watch for three clever stories. Which, if any, did you tell?
- Tell the rest of the story with your partner: Ask:
“What am I pretending not to notice about my role in the
problem?”
“Why would a reasonable, rational, and decent person do this?”
“What should I do right now to move towards what I really want?”
- Go back to your Path to Action and tell a more complete and
accurate story. How will you feel and act the next time you face
this person if you tell yourself the rest of the story?
The Principles of Crucial Conversation