Here is a complete toolkit for implementing one of my most powerful and versatile techniques, The Conversation Contract™. Leading psychologist Thomas Harris, author of the bestselling I’m OK–You’re OK, developed the basic process to help people conduct the most important and stressful conversations in their lives. I have refined it over the past fifteen years in my work with salespeople, managers, government officials, and CEOs to its present form. You can use it for better meetings, telephone calls, and family interactions.
Start with this video and reinforce your skills with the printouts linked below. You may also want to use my 12 Step Program for productive confrontation by clicking here, Conversations that Make a Difference.
For a group of people to work smoothly together, each member must understand what constitutes agreement. This understanding is often left in the background, unexamined, as everyone assumes their standards match those of other people. Fundamental to the success of the executive off sites I conduct is helping the group make these assumptions explicit so that everyone is playing by the same rules. If, in fact, everyone has the same standards, we finish this step quickly. If not, time invested early to clarify the ground rules saves a lot of time (and upset) later.
There are two essential parts: clarity and verity. First, everyone must be clear on what is being agreed. Second, the group needs a way to know if agreement has been reached.
I heard one CEO executive coaching client summarize the tremendous value of his coach’s listening and probing by saying, “This is where I come to get my answers questioned.” Top executives, especially those operating in a strong corporate culture, can find themselves in an echo chamber where everyone seems to be saying the same thing, thereby confusing their mutual agreement with reality. It is the most “obvious” assumptions that most severely constrict our thinking.
Gentlemen, I take it we are all in complete agreement on the decision here,” he started, and everyone nodded their heads in agreement. “Then,” he went on, “I propose we postpone further discussion of this matter until the next meeting to give ourselves time to develop disagreement, and perhaps gain some understanding of what the decision is all about.”
Years ago, when I was new to being coached, I experienced a fundamental attribute of transformational coaching. I was completing a fantastic call with my coach, Mary Arzt. I had done a lot of venting and whining. I had seen some new possibilities. I, ultimately, had gotten clear and excited about the steps I would take into my future. A fantastic coaching call. I thanked my coach for the generosity of her listening and the power of her insight.
At which point, everything had been said and there was nothing left to say. The coach let the silence continue and we sort of basked in that rare space of nothing to do and no place to go: just perfect. At some point, my ego started to second-guess the just completed conversation. My ego realized that I had revealed (more…)
An executive coach once asked me, “Is it ever appropriate to interrupt while your client is speaking?” My response is, “Yes,” for the following reasons:
There are some clients who just will not stop. If I do not interrupt they will talk to exhaustion. Often, they are talking about or around the issue and filling the bandwidth to subtly avoid dealing with the issue.
Sometimes I sense that the client is so immersed in the minutia that they have lost their point–and, often, are boring themselves, too.
The client may be demonstrating exactly the behavior that is keeping them locked in the situation we are working to release, so an interruption pointing to the behavior is the way to free the client. My interruption sometimes takes the form of, “You’re doing it right now.” or “Do you recognize that speaking in this way is exactly what keeps it the way it is?”
Still, I am certain that a big part of my value is intense, patient, appreciative listening. I can’t go too far wrong by listening a little “too long.” For coaches, silence really is golden. As one client told me, “I appreciate the way you let silence do the heavy lifting.”
Solid, basic advice on better business meetings from a business psychologist at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business is here in a column Reid Hastie wrote for the New York Times. Key pointers:
Set Explicit Objectives
Consider Opportunity Costs
Grade the Convener
I would add:
Use a Professional Facilitator (If the stakes are high enough).
Influence is written as a guidebook for the savvy consumer. The author’s conversational style and frequent sharing of personal experiences will certainly recommend it to that audience. My interest in the work is probably closer to that of the typical reader: as a persuasion professional I am looking for specific ideas to increase my effectiveness. My attention has been richly rewarded.
Professor Cialdini organizes decades of research and experience into six easily comprehended categories of influence techniques. Relevant examples from marketing and sales are used to (more…)
Lying is the toughest part of being a salesman. No, not me lying, but people like you assuming that I–the salesperson–am lying. Expecting the worst of salespeople seems to bring out the worst in prospects.
Years ago, I heard that one of my clients had been put in charge of a major new project. Expecting more business, I went to his office and said, “Congratulations on getting Project X.”
He looked me in the eye–looked me in the eye!–and said, “That’s not my project.”
“Who’s got it?” I asked.
“It hasn’t been approved,” he said.
I was in a meeting a few days later where he reported on (more…)
Charles Darwin’s depression left him “not able to do anything one day out of three,” choking on his “bitter mortification.” He despaired of the weakness of mind that ran in his family. “The ‘race is for the strong,’ ” Darwin wrote. “I shall probably do little more but be content to admire the strides others made in Science.”
Recently, I noticed that I was lethargic, frequently irritated, and found most thoughts of the future unappealing. At first, I was sure the circumstances were the cause. If you look closely enough at (more…)
Integrity is usually a major conversation when I coach groups of executives. It almost always comes up in the context of arriving to the meeting on time or returning promptly from breaks.1 This leads to a discussion of consequences, by which people mean punishments for not being on time: fines, humiliation, etc. This opens a powerful examination of monitoring, enforcement, and integrity throughout the organization.
Consequences come in two flavors. Imposed consequences are punishments contrived by an authority exerting its power to compel behavior. Natural consequences are what reality delivers in response to actions. If I (more…)
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An executive coach once asked me, “Is it ever appropriate to interrupt while your client is speaking?” My response is, “Yes,” for the following reasons:
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