Conquering Courageous Conversations: 5 Practices to Keep in Mind.
Courageous conversations. For many leaders the thought of having difficult or tough conversations triggers fear, anxiety, and sheer panic. The problem is we’re wired to either get angry and argue, or we retreat to a passivity or distancing behavior. Neither are good solutions. And yet my experience with leaders is that leaders can increase their effectiveness individually, and with their teams, if they can start to model and coach others on how to have these conversations in a way that doesn’t send people running in fear.
And so, I want to share strategies and tactics that work well when facilitating these tough, emotionally packed conversations. Here are five things that will up your game:
- Focus on purpose and outcomes – focus on what you want to achieve individually, and collectively, with the other person. Effective leaders will directly address why they’re having the conversation and what they hope to achieve (a creative stance). This approach helps people get on a future-focused, forward trajectory vs. getting bogged down in the problems, differences, tension points, etc. (a reactive stance).
- Expand your perspective – we use a beach ball in our leadership sessions, and we ask each leader to hold the beach ball up close; and then we ask what they see – the response is typically “blue, red, green – one color.” Then we have them move the ball outward, so they can see the entire ball. What we stress is leaders need to explore other perspectives, and viewpoints. We have a tendency to see blue, red, orange – and we can’t see the bigger picture. Curiosity is a critical leadership skill to help “see other colors.” Curiosity sounds like: “I’m curious where you’re coming from…”; “I’m interested in how you came to that conclusion”; and “I am frustrated with the situation as well. Challenge me on what I’m seeing going on.”
- Suspend or avoid judgment and blame – If you want to trigger another person into a reactive, fearful, defensive state, all you have to do is start placing blame. With these conversations, it’s highly likely people will get into a defensive mode; and so, it’s important to be aware of judging and blaming. A practice to counter this tendency is to reflect on how you’ve contributed to the issue, and then take responsibility for what you own. It’s called personal accountability. When leaders take the lead in this area, others will often step forward and speak to what they are responsible for as well.
- Use the “Third Story” to set up the conversation – the Third Story is a strategy/tactic introduced in the book, Difficult Conversations by Douglas Stone, Bruce Patton, and Sheila Heen (highly recommend). The Third Story challenges leaders to step back from the situation and describe the issue as if they were a third-party, mediator type, looking at the situation objectively; and then describing the situation from that third-party perspective. What we’ve found is this approach helps people tee-up the issue with less emotion. See chapter 8 in Difficult Conversations.
- Be conscious, and I mean very conscious, about what’s going on with you – with our clients we talk a lot about conscious leadership, self-awareness, and recognizing the impact that your inner game has on your outer game. My last point is, be aware of what’s going on in you. Be aware of whether you’re feeling threatened, frustrated, fearful, tense? Be aware of emotions such as frustration, fear, anxieties, anger, etc. When you’re not in present mode and self-aware, you will not be successful in applying the ideas presented in #1-4.
Reformulate Your Schedule to Boost Productivity and Get Your Life Back
Productivity is perhaps one of the most sought-after things of the modern day. Our work lives have trespassed upon our personal hours, and time is an incredibly valuable resource. Moreover, mobile phones, email, social media, and the like have created innumerable distractions that make getting work done that much harder. If you’re like me, some days you find yourself delaying the big project until you can get all the little ones out of the way, and before you know it it’s 3 pm and you haven’t accomplished what you needed to get done. Add the afternoon drowsiness that follows and soon you find yourself clearing your calendar for tomorrow in hopes of achieving your project then. It can be a constant cycle, and yet all of us at one point or another fall victim. It isn’t procrastination in its truest sense, but poor prioritization can be just as unproductive.
So how do you spur creative thinking, efficiency, and productivity? An author by the name of Donald Miller has come up with a way to help us boost productivity in our daily lives that I think holds tremendous value. Miller was struggling with similar challenges as named above, and was in dire need of a creative boost to help get his writing career back on track. Lucky for you and me, Miller did the heavy lifting for us, reading countless books on the psychology of productivity and what drives us to accomplish certain tasks. He compiled his findings into a comprehensive Storyline Productivity Schedule that explains the theory and process in full. For the purposes of this post, however, I’m going to lay out what I believe to be his most valuable and applicable points:
1. Do your most important project first. Miller recommends that you attack your most pressing project first thing in the day. Establish a morning ritual, limit the points of contact with others, sit down, set a timer, and get to work. Thus, unless your project requires you to correspond via email, that means that email should not be the first thing you do in your day (though we all find ourselves checking email first!) There are a few advantages in doing so. One, your brain is the most alert and refreshed first thing in the morning, and thus likely to produce some of your best quality work. Two, it limits the possibilities of distractions that can majorly hamper productivity if its earlier in the morning. Three, it reduces the possibility of experiences that threaten to throw us off our rails, like a frustrating conversation with a coworker or a text message that rubs you the wrong way.
2. Number your three biggest projects in order of importance, and separate them from your other to-do’s. I mentioned this briefly in my last post, but let me expand upon this further, as I believe it is truly important. By separating the to-do’s (like responding to an email, picking up dry cleaning, etc.) from your important projects, you limit the possibility that your whole day slips by you without having done anything that is truly pressing and important. That requires, of course, that you dedicate time to your projects before anything else, or work in some to-do’s between projects to give your brain a break before setting a timer and beginning your next project. Miller recommends you limit your number of projects to three, as anything beyond that is likely to result in a shallow level of engagement and a large amount of task switching.
3. Track the time you spend on each project and log it in your calendar/planner. I can’t tell you the number of times that I have sat down and worked diligently on a project, only to not quite finish it and feel this awful lack of accomplishment. I am the guy that loves to finally check the box — the problem is that we can’t always do that for all projects that we work on throughout the day (don’t we wish!). However, what we can do is track the time that we spend (I like to set a timer for at minimum an hour) and log that as we work on each project. Doing so brings two points of value. One, there is still an inherent sense of accomplishment in dedicating time in your day to a project and being able to write that down. Two, by setting a period of time and keeping track, you are more likely to limit distractions and make that time valuable. It’s a win-win, and something that has dramatically changed how I think about my day and the amount of work that I can get done in a sitting.
Believe me when I say that these recommendations have the ability to absolutely change your day – boosting both quality of output as well as minimizing the time spent drudging through projects. If you are curious about more of Miller’s work and the other intricacies of his productivity schedule, I highly encourage you to click the link above and check it out for yourself. He even has templates that you can print for free that will help you structure your day in the way outlined above, plus other features that he cites add value to your level of productivity. At the very least, try the three points I have laid out above and take back those valuable hours of your day!
Don’t forget your top performers. They need feedback too!
Given my curious nature, I asked what made it so refreshing, as that is not typically an adjective that I hearwhenit comes to performance reviews. He responded that the reviewwas overall very good, and that what stuck out was the feedback on his performance that he received during the conversation. His new boss was very specific in what he was doing well, and sited several examples that he had observed over the prior year; and he also identified a couple of areas that, in his opinion, would help this senior leader be more effective. He was again specific on those recommendations, and offered continued support.
My client’s response to his annual review and feedback was what resonated with me. He commented that for 10 years he had gotten used to being left alone and only heard from his previous boss when there was a numbers issue. No feedback, no reviews, and no calls unless something was wrong. He said that he had gotten used to no feedback, and had learned to make up his own feedback!
What surprised him was two things: 1) he didn’t realize how much he missed getting specific feedback; and 2) he thought he didn’t need feedback, when in reality he valued feedback far more than heever thought.
So here’s the takeaway. Never underestimate the positive effects of feedback and how important it is even for your high performers. As leaders, it’s not uncommon to neglect our high performers because we get busy with other issues and rationalize to ourselves that they don’t need feedback and coaching because they’re doing so well.
If you haven’t given feedback to one of your strong performers lately, you know that one who is doing their job and is doing it well…then, reach out now and share some feedback. Theyjust might find your conversation (and feedback) refreshing!
What Every Leader Needs to Know About Coaching
In our coaching workshops, we differentiate between management, feedback, and coaching conversations. It’s important for managers to differentiate between the three types of conversations, and determine when to use the different approaches. To review, management conversations are focused on advising, giving instructions, and directing the conversation to help your team members get specific things done. Feedback conversations focus on past behaviors to help people understand the impact of their behaviors, and what needs to change going forward. Coaching conversations are future-focused, and are used to engage, motivate, and empower people to achieve goals that they care about, and ultimately elevate their capabilities by unleashing their potential.
In my last blog, I mentioned a leader that I’m coaching who received feedback that he was not coaching his people enough, and that his team members wanted more “coaching.” He was taken aback, and couldn’t decipher why they weren’t “feeling the love,” to use his language.
We reviewed what true coaching is, and what he needed to change going forward. During that discussion, we reviewed seven practices that make the biggest difference in one’s ability to coach effectively.
1) Establish the purpose of your meeting right from the start. Clarify that the purpose of the conversation is to advance them, not address issues and problem solve. A useful tool is the How I Want to be Coached form. It’s a great way to set the tone for coaching right from the start.
2) Start the conversation by asking what they want to discuss. Agree to a goal or outcome for the conversation.
3) Ask insightful questions. Use “how” and “what” questions to open the conversation, such as: What are you working on? What are you trying to accomplish? How is your style affecting your effectiveness? Avoid having the conversation migrate to others. Keep it focused on them, and how they can change tomorrow.
4) Challenge beliefs that could be limiting their effectiveness. Challenge your coachee to be more aware of beliefs and assumptions that may be getting in the way of them showing up in a way that they believe will help them.
5) Listen for understanding. Your job is to facilitate the conversation so they can explore options and discover different ways to move forward. If you tend to jump in and problem solve, push your pause button. Ask questions, and listen deeply.
6) Narrow the focus. Once they have identified options to move forward, help them narrow the options. Ask them which of the options resonate most with them. If they have too many options, nothing will get done.
7) Follow-up and support. Marshall Goldsmith and Howard Morgan wrote a great article entitled Leadership is a Contact Sport, and in the article they outlined the importance of follow-up, support, and encouragement. Remember that all it takes is one question, one check-in, to see how things are going.
As we concluded our own coaching conversation, it was obvious that his “coaching” conversations were more about reacting to problems, dealing with people issues, and task management; and not about advancing his team members. He has since responded by implementing 1:1 monthly meetings that are focused on true coaching.
Why Managers Think They’re Coaching When They’re Not!
I recently worked with a leader who received feedback on a 360 that indicated his coaching of his direct reports was negligible. After giving it some thought, he still disagreed with the feedback. When we discussed the feedback, his argument continued to be, “Hey, I meet with my people at least every month, sometimes weekly. So, I don’t understand why they don’t think they’re getting coaching!” This is not an unusual response to this type of feedback, so let’s explore this disconnect…because there is a big disconnect.
My experience, having worked with hundreds of managers, is that it comes down to the quality and type of conversation that they’re having with their team members. Some managers don’t understand what “real coaching” looks like. They believe that meetings focused on project updates, pipeline reports, and operational issues are coaching discussions. They are not. These are management conversations, and should be differentiated from coaching conversations.
Coaching is a practice to develop an individual’s knowledge, skills, and abilities so they can achieve their maximum potential. Coaching is about helping individuals expand their awareness and discover options for moving forward on what they care about. Coaching is grounded in listening, asking questions, and exploring alternatives to create the results the coachee wants. I like the way John Zenger and Kathleen Stinnett in their book titled, The Extraordinary Coach, further define coaching: “Coaching helps individuals discover answers within themselves and helps them feel more personally empowered. The coach is also dedicated to helping to ensure the implementation and long-term follow-through of planned actions.”
The question I had for the leader who received the feedback on his coaching was, are you coaching or are you having a management discussion during your 1:1 meetings? The answer was clear for him. They have been directive management meetings versus true coaching conversations.
What types of conversations are you having with your people? If you’re having discussions on career aspirations, personal goals, self-limiting beliefs, and professional development objectives – you’re operating in the coaching genre. If you’re talking about projects, deadlines, process issues, etc. you’re having management conversations.
Next, I will share seven practices that the best coaches use to engage, empower, and motivate their teams to higher levels of performance.