Summary

Crucial conversations provides techniques for arguing effectively when opinions vary, stakes are high, and emotions run strong. Prepare by choosing an objective, remembering your motive, and controlling your emotions. Engage in conversation by keeping things safe, state your opinion, understand others’ opinions, and detach to receive genuine feedback. Finally, decide on roles, outcomes, and future decision processes.

Key Takeaways

• Preparation:
  • Objective
    • Talk about the right things
    • Unbundle: content, pattern, or relationship?
    • Choose: prioritize single objective
    • Simplify: State issue simply
  • Motive
    • Get motives right: truth seeking, not revenge
  • Emotions
    • Control emotions
    • Mental stories, not objective actions of others, drive emotions
• Conversation:
  • Safety
    • Watch out for silence or violence
    • Switch topics completely if necessary
    • Mutual concern, purpose, respect, understanding
    • Good intent, apologize
  • State:
    • Facts, story / tentative opinion, others’, testing (opposition)
  • Understand:
    • Explore others’ paths, restate, show understanding
  • Detach: you definite your own self worth, reaction
    • Resilience when handing tough feedback
• Action: Decide on
  • Roles
  • Outcomes
  • Future decision process:
    • Command, consult, vote, or consensus

Notes

Introduction

• Crucial conversation: opinions vary, stakes are high, emotions run strong
• How to argue effectively
• Don’t have to make choice between telling truth, keeping friend (honest yet respectful)
• ↑ create a dialog for the free flow of information (increases group IQ)

Part 1: Preparation

1: Talk about the right things

• Signs you’re talking about the wrong things
  • Emotions escalate
  • You walk away skeptical
  • Deja vu dialog - same topic keeps coming up
• 3 elements of choosing the right topic
  • Unbundle: CPR levels of conversation
    • Content → pattern → relationship
    • ↑ determine level of conversation
    • Choose the level and actively work to keep it there
    • Agree on rules, process of engagement, discussion
  • Choose: State highest priority of conversation as a single question
  • Simplify: State the issue simply

2: Get motives right

• Work on yourself first
• Keep in mind what your true motive is
• Eg. get revenge / teach a lesson or reach the honest truth?

3: Understand and control own emotions

• Temperance is key of emotional intelligence
• “You and only you create your emotions”
• Think through and choose emotions
• Mental stories, not objective actions of others, drive emotions
• Slow down and retrace path to action
  • Act: notice behavior
  • Ask: acting rather than talking it out?
  • Feel: put feelings into words
  • Story: what story is creating emotions?
  • See + hear: get back to the facts
• Separate facts from stories
• 3 common self-justifying scapegoat stories: victim, villain, helpless
• Acknowledge your role, put yourself in other person’s shoes to understand rationale

2: Conversation

4: Notice when safety is at risk

• Watch for moment a convo turns crucial
• Fear leads to poor communication
• Optimal: need to trust ability, intentions of other person (best interests at heart)
• Signs of others under stress, crucial convo: silence and violence
• Silence: purposely withholding info from pool or meaning
  • Masking, avoiding, withdrawing
• Violence: verbal strategy to convince, control others to your point of view, force meaning into pool
  • Controlling, labeling, attacking
• Be a good self-monitor, know your style

5: Make it safe

• When convo becomes unsafe, switch away from topic completely
• Need to assert that you have good intentions. Speech + body language
• Two conditions of safe dialog:
  • Mutual concern: Care about concerns
  • Mutual respect: Care about them
• Build mutual understanding
• Ensure they care about your purpose
• Tools to build safety up front:
  • Share your good intent
  • Apologize when appropriate
  • Contrast to fix misunderstandings
  • Create a mutual purpose
• To get mutual commitment: (CRIB)
  • Commit, recognize, invent, brainstorm

6: STATE: Persuasion, not abrasion

• Maintain safety while expressing candor
• Talk about most sensitive topics: (STATE)
  • Share your facts
  • Tell your story (don’t pile on)
  • Ask for other’s paths
  • Talk tentatively
    • Be confident but make clear only humble personal opinion
  • Encourage testing
    • Genuinely invite opposing views

7: Explore others’ paths

• Be curious
• Retrace their path: you’re only hearing the end of it
• Mirroring emotions, describe how you’re perceiving their emotions
• Priming: explain your assumptions of their thoughts, ask for confirmation to prime their contribution
• Compare paths and agree on difference

8: Resilience when handling tough feedback

• Who controls your sense of definition, self worth, well-being?
• You control your own reaction
• Detach yourself from feedback, be curious, ask for examples

3: Finishing

9: Move to action

• Decide roles, outcomes, future decision process clear
• Command, consult, vote, consensus
• ^ make this strategy clear up front