Managing Crucial Conversations: Talking when stakes are high

About the Speaker –

Protima Sharma is Managing Partner at PeopleWiz Consulting Firm. Founded in February 2011, PeopleWiz Consulting is a management consulting firm, dually headquartered in Pune & Singapore, focused on providing Organization Building solutions for growing organizations. She has done MBA in Human Resources from Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bangalore. After getting a good grounding in HR while working with Thermax & Business Transformation consulting while working with TCS, she founded PeopleWiz.

Below article is extract from the lecture given by Protima Sharma as a part of Startups 101 Lecture Series at Venture Center, Pune.

Lecture:

Why Are Communication Skills Important?

Communication is a most important skill. Communication skills are not only needed in daily personal life, but also required in the profession, workplace and in business. Communication is the heart of every organisation. Everything you do in the workplace results from communication. Reading, writing and listening carefully are the three most important communication skills. Good communication skills require you to being able to listen to others. In our busy, world, sometimes we forget that simple fact.

This video from Big Bang Theory is the best example of poor communication and social skills.

What are Crucial Conversations?

Discussions where stakes are high, opinions vary, and emotions run strong. These could be day-to-day occurrences that affect lives, and in many cases, these are pivotal conversations whose results may be extremely significant.

  • Opinions vary: You’re talking with your boss about a possible promotion. She thinks you’re not ready; you think you are.
  • Stakes are high: You’re in a meeting with four coworkers and you’re trying to pick a new marketing strategy. You’ve got to do something different or your company isn’t going to hit its annual goals.
  • Emotions run strong: You have just completed the annual salary revision and given best possible salary raise according to your ability to pay. Your highest paid employee walks in and resigns because he feels the salary raise is poor and unjustified.

Why can’t we handle these conversations?

People generally choose to at least try to handle such situations as well as they can. However most of the times they don’t do very well, for the following reasons:

  • Physiologically, human beings are designed to handle stressful situations with fists and feet, more than intelligence and attentiveness.
  • Most of such situations spring up unexpectedly, and most of us can come up with only a knee-jerk response to them because of the pressure.

The consequences of either avoiding or messing up these conversations can be severe and can affect all aspects of life – personal and professional.

Protima also talked about how to prepare for Crucial Conversations. She explained 7 ways for it. But most important thing is first find out your style of behaving and talking and ask your friends for feedback.

1. Get Unstuck

Spot the conversations that are keeping you stuck and ask critical questions to yourself: What conversations am I not holding or not holding well? Am I holding the right crucial conversations? Find out your style under stress and then work on your skills to improve.

2. Start with your heart

  • Work on me first, Us second. Remember that the only person that you can directly control is yourself.
  • Focus on what you really want. When you find yourself moving towards silence or violence, stop and pay attention to your motives
  • Refuse the Fool’s Choice. Watch yourself, see if you are telling yourself to choose between peace and harmony, winning and losing.

3. Make it safe

Make it safe, when it is safe you can say anything. Establish mutual purpose and show mutual respect. Say you are sorry when you have done something wrong.

4. Master Your Stories: How to stay in Dialogue when you are angry, scared or hurt

Stories provide our rationale for what’s going on – Why?  Judging! What? We do it without realizing it.

5. STATE your path

Be persuasive not abrasive. Always share your facts because facts are least controversial and gives you safe beginning to start conversations.

6. Explore others path : How to listen

Be curious and listen to others honestly. You can say- “I’d really like to hear your opinion on this”.

7. And finally move to ACTION!!

Suggested Book by Protima –

  1. Crucial Conversations: Tools for Talking When Stakes Are High by Al Switzler, Joseph Grenny, and Ron McMillan
  2. The High performance Entrepreneur by Subroto Bagchi

      

About the Author:  Pramod Bhurji, BIRAC Social Innovator at Venture Center, Pune