I just think you could be even better if you worked on your technical proficiency. You have incredible interpersonal skills and clients love working with you. I don't want you to think that you're not doing a good job as an Account Manager. For instance, if one of your personable team members needed to work on their technical skills, contrasting could sound like this: Let me put this in perspective.

Use contrasting to rebuild safety when others misinterpret your intent in the discussion. Contrasting sets the boundaries of your message by expressing what you DO mean and what you DON’T mean.

This shared purpose aligned both sides behind a common goal-despite the fact that they vehemently disagreed with each other on many other issues. Despite the fact that both sides had passionate opinions about abortion, they were collectively able to establish a mutual purpose of reducing teen pregnancies.

Example: “Pro-life” advocates were asked to partner with “pro-choice” advocates to establish a mutual purpose between their two groups.

“Mutual purpose means that others perceive that we are working toward a common outcome in the conversation, that we care about their goals, interests, and values.“.

To counter this unproductive tendency, establish mutual purpose in conversations with others.

When put into challenging situations, people often resort to silence or violence.

Perhaps we can express our candid opinion to our boss and be safe.”Ĭreate a Safe Environment for Voicing Productive Conflict For example, maybe there’s a way to be honest and respectful. The person making the choice never suggests there’s a third option that doesn’t call for unhealthy behavior. It’s the worst kind of either/or thinking.

“What makes these sucker’s choices is that they’re always set up as the only two options available.

Example: We think we need to choose between bringing up something important or being kind.

We often fall into the pitfall of making a “sucker’s choice” between two ugly options.

Click on the link for her site or the image above to see more of her work.Įmbrace “And” > “Or” When Making Decisions *Note: Jenna Ryan on The Self Love U Blog has more amazing Crucial Conversations sketchnotes on her blog. They are both totally frank and completely respectful.”

“The best at dialogue speak their minds completely and do it in a way that makes it safe for others to hear what they have to say and respond to it as well.

“It’s the most talented, not the least talented, who are continually trying to improve their dialogue skills.”.

More often than not, we do something to contribute to the problems we’re experiencing.'

“Although it’s true that there are times when we are merely bystanders in life’s never-ending stream of head-on collisions, rarely are we completely innocent.

Work on Yourself Before Working on Others

When a decision is finally reached, everyone knows why/how you got there and can be committed to the final decision.

“When people purposefully withhold meaning from one another, individually smart people can do collectively stupid things.”.

“As individuals are exposed to more accurate and relevant information, they make better choices.”.

Generating a shared pool of meaning has several advantages:.

“When it comes to risky, controversial, and emotional conversations, skilled people find a way to get all relevant information (from themselves and others) out into the open.” They ask clarifying questions to encourage others to add their knowledge to the “shared pool.”.

Crucial Conversation = A discussion between two or more people where.

'When conversations matter most, we're usually at our worst.'.

Crucial conversations book notes