Can We Talk?
In our work with leaders and teams lately we’re seeing a trend that we want to talk about. We’re noticing that more people and teams are afraid to have the “crucial conversations” required to get business results. They’re afraid to risk personal relationships for the good of the organization or they’re unwilling to try because they don’t know how to play hard when needed.
So just what is a crucial conversation? In their bestselling book by the same title, Patterson, et al, define a crucial conversation as a discussion between two or more people where the stakes are high, opinions vary and emotions run strong.
What happens in those situations? We’ve noticed three kinds of behaviors:
- People avoid the conversations, wanting to “play nice, not hard.”
- People resort to emotion, usually anger.
- People engage in the crucial conversation and handle it well.
Interestingly enough, the frequency of these three actions tends to be in the same order.
Lots of people value their personal relationships so highly that they’re afraid to risk a crucial conversation. Unfortunately, this behavior puts important relationships at great risk and causes you to miss out on many opportunities to achieve the business results you want.
Some people respond with emotion because they don’t know how to use other strategies. This makes it more difficult to have those crucial conversations, putting the relationship at even greater risk and further jeopardizing those business results.
A few people know exactly how to have those conversations and use effective strategies to handle what needs to be handled.
The first step of any journey is awareness, so…how about you?
Can you talk honestly with anybody about almost anything? Does your team play nice, or are you willing to play hard? Can you play hard and maintain the trust, commitment, accountability and attention to results that you need?
What do you think?
