Crucial_Conversations

4
Learn to Spot Crucial Conversations
First, stay alert for the moment a conversation turns from a routine or harmless discussion into a crucial one. In a similar vein, as you anticipate
entering a tough conversation, pay heed to the fact that you’re about to enter the danger zone. Otherwise, you can easily get sucked into silly games
before you realize what’s happened. And as we suggested earlier, the further you stray off track, the harder it can be to return and the higher the
costs.
To help catch problems early, reprogram your mind to pay attention to the signs that suggest you’re in a crucial conversation. Some people first
notice physical signals—their stomach gets tight or their eyes get dry. Think about what happens to your body when conversations get tough.
Everyone is a little bit different. What are your cues? Whatever they are, learn to look at them as signs to step back, slow down, and Start with Heart
before things get out of hand.
Others notice their emotions before they notice signs in their body. They realize they are scared, hurt, or angry and are beginning to react to or
suppress these feelings. These emotions can also be great cues to tell you to step back, slow down, and take steps to turn your brain back on.
Some people’s first cue is behavioral. For them it’s like an out-of-body experience. They see themselves raising their voice, pointing their finger
like a loaded weapon, or becoming very quiet. It’s only then that they realize how they’re feeling.
So take a moment to think about some of your toughest conversations. What cues can you use to recognize that your brain is beginning to
I have known a thousand scamps; but I never met one who considered himself so. Self-knowledge isn’t so common.
—OUIDA
Learn to Look
How to Notice When Safety Is at Risk
Let’s start this chapter by visiting a failed crucial conversation. You’ve just ended a heated debate with a group of people you supervise. What
started out as a harmless discussion about your new product timelines ended up as a nasty argument. After an hour of carping and complaining,
you finally went to your separate corners.
You’re now walking down the hall wondering what happened. In a matter of minutes, an innocent discussion had transformed into a crucial
conversation and then into a failed conversation—and you can’t recall why. You do remember a tense moment when you started pushing your point
of view a bit too hard (okay, maybe way too hard), and eight people stared at you as if you had just bitten the head off a chicken. But then the
meeting ended.
What you don’t realize is that two of your friends are walking down the hallway in the opposite direction conducting a play-by-play of the meeting.
They do know what took place.
“It happened again. The boss started pushing so hard for personal agenda items that we all began to act defensively. Did you notice how at one
point all of our jaws dropped simultaneously? Of course, I was just as bad as the boss. I spoke in absolutes, only pointed out facts that supported
my view, and then ended with a list of outlandish claims. I got hooked like a marlin.”
Later that day as you talk to your friends about the meeting, they let you in on what happened. You were there, but somehow you missed what
actually happened.
“That’s because you were so caught up in the content of the conversation,” your buddy explains. “You cared so deeply about the product
timelines that you were blind to the conditions. You know—how people were feeling and acting, what tone they were taking, stuff like that.”
“You saw all that while still carrying on a heated conversation?” you ask.
“Yeah,” your coworker explains, “I always watch two elements. When things start turning ugly, I watch the content of the conversation (the topic
under discussion) along with the conditions (what people are doing in response). I look for and examine both what and why. If you can see why
people are becoming upset or holding back their views or even going silent, you can do something to get back on track.”
“You look at the ‘conditions,’ and then you know what to do to get back on track?”
“Sometimes,” your friend answers. “But you’ve got to learn exactly what to look for.”
“It’s a form of social first aid. By watching for the moment a conversation starts turning unhealthy, you can respond quickly. The sooner you notice
you’re not in dialogue, the easier it is to get back and the lower the costs.”
“But,” your friend continues, “the sad corollary is that the longer it takes to notice you’re not in dialogue, the harder it is to get back and the higher
the costs.”
You can’t believe how obvious this advice is—and yet you’ve never thought of such a thing. Weirder still, your friend has. In fact, he has a whole
vocabulary for what’s going on during a crucial conversation. It’s as if you’ve been speaking another language.
WATCH FOR CONDITIONS
In truth, most of us do have trouble dual-processing (simultaneously watching for content and conditions)—especially when both stakes and
emotions are high. We get so caught up in what we’re saying that it can be nearly impossible to pull ourselves out of the argument in order to see
what’s happening to ourselves and to others. Even when we are startled by what’s going on, enough so that we think, “Yipes! This has turned ugly.
Now what?” we may not know what to look for in order to turn things around. We may not see enough of what’s happening.
How could that be? How could we be smack-dab in the middle of a heated debate and not really see what’s going on? A metaphor might help.
It’s akin to fly fishing for the first time with an experienced angler. Your buddy keeps telling you to cast your fly six feet upstream from that brown trout
“just out there.” Only you can’t see a brown trout “just out there.” He can. That’s because he knows what to look for. You think you do. You think you
need to look for a brown trout. In reality, you need to look for the distorted image of a brown trout that’s underwater while the sun is reflecting in your
eyes. You have to look for elements other than the thing that your dad has stuffed and mounted over the fireplace. It takes both knowledge and
practice to know what to look for and then actually see it.
So what do you look for when caught in the middle of a crucial conversation? What do you need to see in order to catch problems before they
become too severe? Actually, it helps to watch for three different conditions: the moment a conversation turns crucial, signs that people don’t feel
safe (silence or violence), and your own Style Under Stress. Let’s consider each of these conversation killers in turn.