Quick overview

We hold (or don’t hold) crucial conversations that impact us in our daily life and long term relationships whether in our personal lives or our professional. This book explains how to make sure we’re effective in our most important conversations.

My notes

Crucial Conversations steps:

1. Start with the heart (i.e empathy and positive intent)
2. Stay in dialogue
3. Make it safe
4. Don’t get hooked by emotion (or hook them)
5. Agree a mutual purpose
6. Separate facts from story
7. Agree a clear action plan

Chapter 1. What’s a Crucial Conversation?

Crucial Conversation: A discussion between two or more people where

• stakes are high,
• opinions vary, and
• emotions run strong.

 

Twenty years of research involving more than 100,000 people reveals that the key skill of effective leaders, teammates, parents, and loved ones is the capacity to skillfully address emotionally and politically risky issues. Period.

The real problem is that those who observe deviations or infractions say nothing.

Our research shows that these types of nonhuman changes fail more often than they succeed. That’s because the real problem never was in the process, system, or structure—it was in employee behavior. The key to real change lies not in implementing a new process, but in getting people to hold one another accountable to the process. And that requires Crucial Conversations skills.

In the worst companies, poor performers are first ignored and then transferred. In good companies, bosses eventually deal with problems. In the best companies, everyone holds everyone else accountable—regardless of level or position.

When stakes are high, opinions vary, and emotions start to run strong, casual conversations transform into crucial ones. Ironically, the more crucial the conversation, the less likely we are to handle it well. The consequences of either avoiding or fouling up crucial conversations can be severe. When we fail a crucial conversation, every aspect of our lives can be affected—from our careers, to our communities, to our relationships, to our personal health.

Chapter 2. Mastering Crucial Conversations

The mistake most of us make in our crucial conversations is we believe that we have to choose between telling the truth and keeping a friend.

Dialogue

When it comes to risky, controversial, and emotional conversations, skilled people find a way to get all relevant information (from themselves and others) out into the open.

People who are skilled at dialogue do their best to make it safe for everyone to add their meaning to the shared pool—even ideas that at first glance appear controversial, wrong, or at odds with their own beliefs. Now, obviously, they don’t agree with every idea; they simply do their best to ensure that all ideas find their way into the open.

The Pool of Shared Meaning is the birthplace of synergy.

The time you spend up front establishing a shared pool of meaning is more than paid for by faster, more unified, and more committed action later on.

Chapter 3. Start with Heart

Skilled people Start with Heart. That is, they begin high-risk discussions with the right motives, and they stay focused no matter what happens.

When under attack, our heart can take a similarly sudden and unconscious turn. When faced with pressure and strong opinions, we often stop worrying about the goal of adding to the pool of meaning and start looking for ways to win, punish, or keep the peace.

That’s why those who are skilled at crucial conversations present their brain with a more complex question. They routinely ask: “What do I want for myself, the other person, and the relationship?”

 

Here’s how people who are skilled at dialogue stay focused on their goals—particularly when the going gets tough.

Work on Me First, Us Second

• Remember that the only person you can directly control is yourself.

Focus on What You Really Want

• When you find yourself moving toward silence or violence, stop and pay attention to your motives.
• Ask yourself: “What does my behavior tell me about what my motives are?”
• Then, clarify what you really want. Ask yourself: “What do I want for myself? For others? For the relationship?”
• And finally, ask: “How would I behave if this were what I really wanted?”

Refuse the Fool’s Choice

• As you consider what you want, notice when you start talking yourself into a Fool’s Choice.
• Watch to see if you’re telling yourself that you must choose between peace and honesty, between winning and losing, and so on.
• Break free of these Fool’s Choices by searching for the and.
• Clarify what you don’t want, add it to what you do want, and ask your brain to start searching for healthy options to bring you to dialogue.

Chapter 4. Learn to Look

We’re suggesting that people rarely become defensive simply because of what you’re saying. They only become defensive when they no longer feel safe. The problem is not the content of your message, but the condition of the conversation.

The three most common forms of silence are masking, avoiding, and withdrawing.

 

When caught up in a crucial conversation, it’s difficult to see exactly what’s going on and why. When a discussion starts to become stressful, we often end up doing the exact opposite of what works. We turn to the less healthy components of our Style Under Stress.

Learn to Look

To break from this insidious cycle, Learn to Look.

• Learn to look at content and conditions.
• Look for when things become crucial.
• Learn to watch for safety problems.
• Look to see if others are moving toward silence or violence.
• Look for outbreaks of your Style Under Stress.

Chapter 5. Make It Safe

The first condition of safety is Mutual Purpose. Mutual Purpose means that others perceive that you’re working toward a common outcome in the conversation, that you care about their goals, interests, and values. And vice versa.

Mutual Respect—the Continuance Condition

Will We Be Able to Remain in Dialogue? While it’s true that there’s no reason to enter a crucial conversation if you don’t have Mutual Purpose, it’s equally true that you can’t stay in the conversation if you don’t maintain Mutual Respect. Mutual Respect is the continuance condition of dialogue. As people perceive that others don’t respect them, the conversation immediately becomes unsafe and dialogue comes to a screeching halt.

When others misinterpret either your purpose or your intent, step out of the argument and rebuild safety by using a skill called Contrasting.

Contrasting is a don’t/do statement that:

• Addresses others’ concerns that you don’t respect them or that you have a malicious purpose (the don’t part).
• Confirms your respect or clarifies your real purpose (the do part).

It’s important to understand that Contrasting is not apologizing. It is not a way of taking back something we’ve said that hurt others’ feelings. Rather, it is a way of ensuring that what we said didn’t hurt more than it should have.

The best at dialogue use four skills to create a Mutual Purpose. If it helps you remember what to do, note that the four skills used in creating Mutual Purpose form the acronym CRIB.

CRIB

• Commit to seek Mutual Purpose.
• Recognize the purpose behind the strategy.
• Invent a Mutual Purpose.
• Brainstorm new strategies.

Create a Mutual Purpose In summary, when you sense that you and others are working at cross-purposes, here’s what you can do. First, step out of the content of the conflict. Stop focusing on who thinks what. Then create a Mutual Purpose.

 

Step Out

When others move to silence or violence, step out of the conversation and Make It Safe. When safety is restored, go back to the issue at hand and continue the dialogue.

Decide Which Condition of Safety Is at Risk

• Mutual Purpose. Do others believe you care about their goals in this conversation? Do they trust your motives?
• Mutual Respect. Do others believe you respect them?

Apologize When Appropriate

• When you’ve clearly violated respect, apologize.

Contrast to Fix Misunderstanding

When others misunderstand either your purpose or your intent, use Contrasting. Start with what you don’t intend or mean. Then explain what you do intend or mean.

Chapter 6. Master My Stories

Emotions don’t settle upon you like a fog. They are not foisted upon you by others. No matter how comfortable it might make you feel saying it—others don’t make you mad. You make you mad. You make you scared, annoyed, or insulted. You and only you create your emotions.

Once you’ve created your upset emotions, you have only two options: You can act on them or be acted on by them. That is, when it comes to strong emotions, you either find a way to master them or fall hostage to them.

If we take control of our stories, they won’t control us. People who excel at dialogue are able to influence their emotions during crucial conversations. They recognize that while it’s true that at first we are in control of the stories we tell—after all, we do make them up of our own accord—once they’re told, the stories control us.

Skills for Mastering Our Stories

What’s the most effective way to come up with different stories? The best at dialogue find a way to first slow down and then take charge of their Path to Action.

Retrace Your Path: To slow down the lightning-quick storytelling process and the subsequent flow of adrenaline, retrace your Path to Action—one element at a time.

Get Back to the Facts: Separate fact from story by focusing on behavior. To separate fact from story, get back to the genuine source of your feelings. Test your ideas against a simple criterion: Can you see or hear this thing you’re calling a fact? Was it an actual behavior?

Turn villains into humans. When you find yourself labeling or otherwise vilifying others, stop and ask:

• Why would a reasonable, rational, and decent person do what this person is doing?

 

If strong emotions are keeping you stuck in silence or violence, try this.

Retrace Your Path

Notice your behavior. If you find yourself moving away from dialogue, ask yourself what you’re really doing.

• Am I in some form of silence or violence?
  • Get in touch with your feelings. Learn to accurately identify the emotions behind your story.
• What emotions are encouraging me to act this way?
  • Analyze your stories. Question your conclusions and look for other possible explanations behind your story.
• What story is creating these emotions?
  • Get back to the facts. Abandon your absolute certainty by distinguishing between hard facts and your invented story.
• What evidence do I have to support this story?
  • Watch for clever stories. Victim, Villain, and Helpless Stories sit at the top of the list.

Tell the Rest of the Story

Ask:

• Am I pretending not to notice my role in the problem?
• Why would a reasonable, rational, and decent person do this?
• What do I really want?
• What would I do right now if I really wanted these results?

Chapter 7. STATE My Path

People who are skilled at dialogue have the confidence to say what needs to be said to the person who needs to hear it. They are confident that their opinions deserve to be placed in the pool of meaning. They are also confident that they can speak openly without brutalizing others or causing undue offense.

Humility. Confidence does not equate to arrogance or pigheadedness. Skilled people are confident that they have something to say, but also realize that others have valuable input. They are humble enough to realize that they don’t have a monopoly on the truth nor do they always have to win their way. Their opinions provide a starting point but not the final word. They may currently believe something but realize that with new information they may change their minds. This means they’re willing to both express their opinions and encourage others to do the same.

Skill. Finally, people who willingly share delicate information are good at doing it. That’s why they’re confident in the first place. They don’t make a Fool’s Choice, because they’ve found a path that allows for both candor and safety. They speak the unspeakable, and people are grateful for their honesty.

Once you’ve worked on yourself to create the right conditions for dialogue, you can then draw upon five distinct skills that can help you talk about even the most sensitive topics. These five tools can be easily remembered with the acronym STATE. It stands for:

STATE:

• Share your facts
• Tell your story
• Ask for others’ paths
• Talk tentatively
• Encourage testing

The first three skills describe what to do. The last two tell how to do it.

Invite opposing views. So if you think others may be hesitant, make it clear that you want to hear their views—no matter how different.

 

When you have a tough message to share, or when you are so convinced of your own rightness that you may push too hard, remember to STATE your path:

• Share your facts. Start with the least controversial, most persuasive elements from your Path to Action.
• Tell your story. Explain what you’re beginning to conclude.
• Ask for others’ paths. Encourage others to share both their facts and their stories.
• Talk tentatively. State your story as a story—don’t disguise it as a fact.
• Encourage testing. Make it safe for others to express differing or even opposing views.

Chapter 8. Explore Others’ Paths

Asking people what they want helps them engage their brains in a way that moves to problem solving and away from either attacking or avoiding. It also helps reveal what they think the cause of the problem is.

Most arguments consist of battles over the 5 to 10 percent of the facts and stories that people disagree over. And while it’s true that people eventually need to work through differences, you shouldn’t start there. Start with an area of agreement.

 

To encourage the free flow of meaning and help others leave silence or violence behind, explore their Paths to Action. Start with an attitude of curiosity and patience. This helps restore safety.

Then, use four powerful listening skills to retrace the other person’s Path to Action to its origins.

• Ask. Start by simply expressing interest in the other person’s views.
• Mirror. Increase safety by respectfully acknowledging the emotions people appear to be feeling.
• Paraphrase. As others begin to share part of their story, restate what you’ve heard to show not just that you understand, but also that it’s safe for them to share what they’re thinking.
• Prime. If others continue to hold back, prime. Take your best guess at what they may be thinking and feeling.

Chapter 9. Move to Action

Having more meaning in the pool, even jointly owning it, doesn’t guarantee that we all agree on what we’re going to do with the meaning. For example, when teams or families meet and generate a host of ideas, they often fail to convert the ideas into action for two reasons:

• They have unclear expectations about how decisions will be made.
• They do a poor job of acting on the decisions they do make.

When the line of authority is clear. When you’re in a position of authority, you decide which method of decision making you’ll use.

Consult

Wise leaders, parents, and even couples frequently make decisions in this way. They gather ideas, evaluate options, make a choice, and then inform the broader population.

Vote

Voting is best suited to situations where efficiency is the highest value—and you’re selecting from a number of good options.

When facing several decent options, voting is a great time saver but should never be used when team members don’t agree to support whatever decision is made.

Four Important Questions

When choosing among the four methods of decision making, consider the following questions:

1. Who cares? Determine who genuinely wants to be involved in the decision along with those who will be affected. These are your candidates for involvement. Don’t involve people who don’t care.
2. Who knows? Identify who has the expertise you need to make the best decision. Encourage these people to take part. Try not to involve people who contribute no new information.
3. Who must agree? Think of those whose cooperation you might need in the form of authority or influence in any decisions you might make. It’s better to involve these people than to surprise them and then suffer their open resistance.
4. How many people is it worth involving? Your goal should be to involve the fewest number of people while still considering the quality of the decision along with the support that people will give it. Ask: “Do we have enough people to make a good choice?

Goals without deadlines aren’t goals; they’re merely directions.

How Will You Follow Up? Always agree on how often and by what method you’ll follow up on the assignment.

Remember, if you want people to feel accountable, you must give them an opportunity to account. Build an expectation for follow-up into every assignment.

 

Turn your successful crucial conversations into great decisions and united action by avoiding the two traps of violated expectations and inaction.

Decide How to Decide

• Command. Decisions are made without involving others.
• Consult. Input is gathered from the group and then a subset decides.
• Vote. An agreed-upon percentage swings the decision.
• Consensus. Everyone comes to an agreement and then supports the final decision.

Finish Clearly

Determine who does what by when. Make the deliverables crystal clear. Set a follow-up time. Record the commitments and then follow up. Finally, hold people accountable to their promises.

Chapter 10. Yeah, But

When people do express an opinion contrary to yours, thank them for their honesty.

Play devil’s advocate. If you can’t get others to disagree, then disagree with yourself.

Learn to Look for patterns. Don’t focus exclusively on a single event. Watch for behavior over time. Then STATE Your Path by talking about the pattern. For example, if a person is late for meetings and agrees to do better, the next conversation should not be about tardiness. It should be about his or her failure to keep a commitment. This is a bigger issue. It’s now about trust and respect.

Show zero tolerance for insubordination. Speak up immediately, but respectfully.

Chapter 11. Putting It All Together

Learn to Look. The first lever for positive change is Learn to Look. That is, people who improve their dialogue skills continually ask themselves whether they’re in or out of dialogue. This alone makes a huge difference.

Perhaps the most common way that the language of dialogue finds itself into everyday conversation is with the expression, “I think we’ve moved away from dialogue.” This simple reminder helps people catch themselves early on, before the damage is severe.

Make It Safe. The second lever is Make It Safe. We’ve suggested that dialogue consists of the free flow of meaning and that the number one flow stopper is a lack of safety. When you notice that you and others have moved away from dialogue, do something to make it safer. Anything.