Crucial Conversations: Tools for Talking When Stakes Are High (3rd Edition) PDF

Copyright © 2022 by VitalSmarts. All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the United States Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced or distributed in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of t...

Copyright © 2022 by VitalSmarts. All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the United States Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced or distributed in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher. ISBN: 978-1-26-047419-0 MHID: 1-26-047419-4 The material in this eBook also appears in the print version of this title: ISBN: 978-1-26-047418-3, MHID: 1-26-047418-6. eBook conversion by codeMantra Version 1.0 All trademarks are trademarks of their respective owners. Rather than put a trademark symbol after every occurrence of a trademarked name, we use names in an editorial fashion only, and to the benefit of the trademark owner, with no intention of infringement of the trademark. Where such designations appear in this book, they have been printed with initial caps. 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Under no circumstances shall McGraw-Hill Education and/or its licensors be liable for any indirect, incidental, special, punitive, consequential or similar damages that result from the use of or inability to use the work, even if any of them has been advised of the possibility of such damages. This limitation of liability shall apply to any claim or cause whatsoever whether such claim or cause arises in contract, tort or otherwise.  We dedicate this book to Celia, Louise, Bonnie, Linda, and Alan—whose support is abundant, whose love is nourishing, and whose patience is just shy of infinite. And to our children Christine, Rebecca, Taylor, Scott, Aislinn, Cara, Seth, Samuel, Hyrum, Amber, Megan, Chase, Hayley, Bryn, Amber, Laura, Becca, Rachael, Benjamin, Meridith, Lindsey, Kelley, Todd, Spencer, Steven, Katelyn, Bradley, Anna, Sara, Rebecca, Maren, Tessa, and Henry, who have been a wonderful source of learning. And to our extended family of hundreds of colleagues, tens of thousands of certified trainers, and millions of clients who have shared the journey that brought these ideas to their present form. They have been the models of what works. And to our patient partners as we’ve labored through our own Crucial Conversations. We are honored today to be part of a global community of gifted teachers and practitioners who dedicate their lives to both living and sharing principles that make the world work better for everyone.  CONTENTS Preface 1 What’s a Crucial Conversation? And Who Cares? 2 Mastering Crucial Conversations The Power of Dialogue PART I WHAT TO DO BEFORE YOU OPEN YOUR MOUTH 3 Choose Your Topic How to Be Sure You Hold the Right Conversation 4 Start with Heart How to Stay Focused on What You Really Want 5 Master My Stories How to Stay in Dialogue When You’re Angry, Scared, or Hurt PART II HOW TO OPEN YOUR MOUTH 6 Learn to Look  How to Notice When Safety Is at Risk 7 Make It Safe How to Make It Safe to Talk About Almost Anything 8 STATE My Path How to Speak Persuasively, Not Abrasively 9 Explore Others’ Paths How to Listen When Others Blow Up or Clam Up 10 Retake Your Pen How to Be Resilient When Hearing Tough Feedback PART III HOW TO FINISH 11 Move to Action How to Turn Crucial Conversations into Action and Results 12 Yeah, But Advice for Tough Cases 13 Putting It All Together Tools for Preparing and Learning Notes Index  PREFACE When we first published Crucial Conversations in 2002, we made a bold claim. We argued that the root cause of many—if not most—human problems lies in how people behave when we disagree about high-stakes, emotional issues. We suggested that dramatic improvements in organizational performance were possible if people learned the skills routinely practiced by those who have found a way to master these high-stakes, crucial moments. If anything, our conviction in this principle has grown in the subsequent decades. A growing body of research evidence shows that when leaders create a culture of intellectual and emotional honesty, nuclear power plants are safer, workplaces become more inclusive, financial services firms gain greater customer loyalty, hospitals save more lives, government organizations deliver better service, tech firms learn to function seamlessly across international boundaries, nonprofits execute better on their missions, and bigotry is stemmed. But we’d be less than honest if we didn’t admit that the most gratifying results we’ve experienced over the past 20 years have not come through research numbers, but through the thousands of stories told by courageous and skillful readers who have used these ideas to influence change when it mattered the most. One of the first was a woman who reunited with her estranged father after reading the book. A nurse described how she saved a patient’s life by stepping up to a Crucial Conversation with a defensive doctor who was misreading the patient’s symptoms. One man masterfully avoided a rift with siblings over a will that threatened to tear the family apart after their father’s death. Two brothers broke through a decade of alienation that started when one acknowledged his sexual orientation. One intrepid reader even credits her Crucial Conversations training with helping save her life during a carjacking in Brazil. Multiply these stories by our more than five million readers, and you’ll have a sense of the meaning and satisfaction we’ve derived from our relationship with people like you. WHAT’S NEW? We’ve made a number of important changes in this new edition, which we believe will make this book an even more powerful resource. Some of the changes demonstrate how concepts apply to modern modes of communication. These days many of our most Crucial Conversations happen via video, asynchronous social media, audio, or, heaven forbid, text-only modes of communication. We’ve learned a great deal about what works and what doesn’t in these domains. We’ve done a great deal of work in the past decade studying what it takes to surface and confront issues of diversity, inclusion, and even unconscious bias. One of our landmark studies involved over 13,000 subjects to test the effects of some of the skills we can now share. Other changes address new ways of working and new stresses that result from our increasingly global and heterogenous society. Crucial Conversations take on heightened importance as remote relationships and diverse cultures are now the norm rather than a novel exception in most workplaces. Finally, in recent years we’ve seen increasing evidence that dangerous conflict results from the failure to find ways to candidly and respectfully discuss our political and social differences. Some of the updates in this book will address head-on how we can all do our best when it matters most in these novel challenges. One of the most useful changes you will notice is the restructuring of all the content in the book around an easy-to-understand model for preparing for, beginning, and concluding a Crucial Conversation. We have found that laying the skills out temporally makes it far easier for readers to know which skill to use when to get the best results. Finally, one of the most obvious changes longtime readers will note is the addition of a new author on this edition. Emily Gregory has been an important contributor to our work for almost 20 years. She has worked shoulder to shoulder with us in deepening our research, strengthening our courses, and expanding our influence to include close to 20,000 trainers worldwide. The addition of her voice in this edition has enriched every chapter. We are confident that not only will these changes improve your reading experience; they will also increase your capacity to turn the printed word into productive habits in your work and personal life. WHERE NEXT? We’re thrilled that so many people have responded positively to this work. To be honest, 20 years ago we dared to hope the ideas we shared would alter the world. But what we didn’t know was whether the world would respond as we hoped. So far so good. It has been immensely gratifying to see so many people embrace the notion that Crucial Conversations really can make a difference. We’ve been privileged to teach heads of government, business moguls, and influential social entrepreneurs. The day we held in our hands two copies of our book—one in Arabic and one in Hebrew—gave us an even greater sense of possibility. We’ve shared the principles in areas of turmoil and unrest, such as Kabul and Cairo, as well as in areas of growth and influence, such as Bangkok and Benin City. With each new audience and each new success story, we feel a greater motivation to ensure our work makes a lasting difference. Thus the new edition. We hope the improvements in this edition substantially improve your experience with these life-changing ideas. Joseph Grenny Kerry Patterson Ron McMillan Al Switzler Emily Gregory  The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place. —GEORGE BERNARD SHAW 1 WHAT’S A CRUCIAL CONVERSATION? And Who Cares? When people first hear the term “Crucial Conversation,” many conjure up images of presidents, emperors, and prime ministers seated around a massive table while they debate the future. Although it’s true that such discussions have a wide-sweeping impact, they’re not the only kind we have in mind. Crucial Conversations happen to everyone. They’re the daily conversations that reshape your life. Now, what makes one of your conversations crucial as opposed to plain vanilla? First, opinions vary. For example, you’re talking with your boss about a possible promotion. She thinks you’re not ready; you think you are. Second, 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 is in trouble. Third, emotions run strong. You’re in the middle of a casual discussion with your spouse, and he or she brings up an “ugly incident” that took place at yesterday’s neighborhood party. Apparently not only did you flirt with someone at the party, but according to your spouse, “You were practically making out.” You don’t remember flirting. You simply remember being polite and friendly. Your spouse walks off in a huff. And speaking of the party, at one point during the evening you found yourself making small talk with the somewhat crotchety and colorful neighbor from an adjoining apartment. One minute he’s telling you all about his shrinking kidneys; the next he’s complaining about the smell of your previous night’s dinner wafting through his vent. “I’m allergic to ginger, you know,” he grouses. From that moment on, you end up in a heated debate over whether your right to stir-fry trumps the fact that smelling the spice makes his ears sweat. Not your most diplomatic moment. It escalates to shouting, and the neighbor finishes by threatening you with a culinary assault lawsuit while you storm off. Emotions were running really strong. WHAT MAKES THESE CONVERSATIONS CRUCIAL? What makes each of these conversations crucial—and not simply frustrating, frightening, or annoying—is that the outcome could have a huge impact on either relationships or results that affect you greatly. In each of the above cases, some element of your daily routine could be forever altered for better or worse. Clearly a promotion could make a big difference. Your company’s success affects you and everyone you work with. Your relationship with your spouse influences every aspect of your life. Even something as trivial as a debate over cooking smells can damage your quality of life. These examples, of course, are merely the tip of an enormous and ugly iceberg of topics that can lead us into conversational disaster. Others include: Ending a relationship Talking to a coworker who makes offensive comments Asking a friend to repay a loan Giving the boss feedback about her behavior Approaching a boss who’s breaking his own safety or quality policies Addressing racist or sexist behavior  Critiquing a colleague’s work Asking a roommate to move out Resolving custody or visitation issues with an ex Dealing with a rebellious teen Talking to a team member who isn’t keeping commitments Discussing problems with sexual intimacy Confronting a loved one about a substance abuse problem Talking to a colleague who’s hoarding information or resources Giving an unfavorable performance review Asking in-laws to quit interfering Talking to a coworker about a personal hygiene problem These situations cause stress and strain in our lives, and one misstep in any of them could have huge consequences. But it doesn’t have to be this way. If you know how to handle Crucial Conversations, you can effectively hold tough conversations about virtually any topic and resolve the situation. But that’s not what typically happens. Crucial Conversation (krōō shel kän´vŭr sa´ shen) n A discussion between two or more people in which they hold (1) opposing opinions about a (2) high-stakes issue and where (3) emotions run strong. See Figure 1.1.  Figure 1.1 The definition of a Crucial Conversation Lag Time Is a Factor In each of these examples, the determining factor between success and failure is the amount of time that passes between when the problem emerges and when those involved find a way to honestly and respectfully resolve it. What we’re suggesting is that the greatest damage to your relationship with your in- laws is not due to their occasional interference. It’s the toxic emotions and dysfunctional behavior that occurs in the absence of a forthright conversation that causes the greatest damage. Biased behavior in your workplace is a problem, but its impact is multiplied when people fail to confront, discuss, and resolve the behavior. It’s one thing to have a boss who fails to keep her commitments. It’s another to have the problem fester into gossip, mistrust, and covert resentment as it echoes through hallways rather than being frankly addressed. The real damage happens during the lag time between people seeing her weaknesses and people addressing her weaknesses. Think about relationships where the lag time between when you feel a problem and when you discuss it is short. Odds are that you would describe these relationships as characterized by trust, productivity, and intimacy. Now think about the reverse. Think about teams where it can take weeks, months, or years to honestly address the elephants in the room. What happens in the absence of candid dialogue? Contention. Resentment. Gamesmanship. Poor decisions. Spotty execution. Missed opportunities. At the heart of almost all chronic problems in relationships, teams, organizations, and even nations are Crucial Conversations people either don’t hold or don’t hold well. Decades of research have led us to conclude that: You can measure the health of relationships, teams, and organizations by measuring the lag time between when problems are identified and when they are resolved. The only reliable path to resolving problems is to find the shortest path to effective conversation. Why the Lag? How We Typically Handle Crucial Conversations When we face Crucial Conversations, we have three broad options: We can avoid them. We can face them and handle them poorly. We can face them and handle them well. That seems simple enough. Walk away from Crucial Conversations and suffer the consequences. Handle them poorly and suffer the consequences. Or handle them well, resolve the situation, and improve the relationship. “I don’t know,” you think to yourself. “Given the three choices, I’ll go with handling them well.” But do we handle them well? When talking turns tough, do we pause, take a deep breath, announce to our inner selves, “Uh-oh, this discussion is crucial. I’d better pay close attention,” and then trot out our best behavior? Sometimes. Sometimes we boldly tackle hot topics, monitor our behavior, solve problems, and preserve relationships. Sometimes we’re just flat-out good. But all too often we fall into the other two camps. The lag time between identifying a problem and effectively resolving it grows because either we don’t address it at all, or we address it poorly and the problem persists. We Avoid Crucial Conversations Despite the importance of Crucial Conversations, we often back away from them because we fear engaging will make matters worse. We become masters at avoiding tough conversations. Coworkers send emails when they should pick up the phone and talk openly. Bosses send texts rather than jumping on a video call. Family members change the subject when an issue gets too risky. We have one friend who learned from a Post-it note that his life partner of 17 years was leaving him. We use all kinds of tactics to dodge touchy issues. Of course, there are risks in speaking up, especially to those with more power than you. But what few of us tend to be honest with ourselves about is the alternative to taking this risk. When it comes to Crucial Conversations, you have only two choices: 1. Talk it out. 2. Act it out. If you fail to discuss issues you have with your boss, your life partner, your neighbor, or your peer, will those issues magically disappear? No. Instead, they will become the lens you see the other person through. And how you see always shows up in how you act. Your resentment will show up in how you treat the other person. For instance, you’ll snap at the person, spend less time with him or her, be quicker to accuse the person of dishonesty or selfishness, or withhold information or affection. The problem will persist, and acting out your feelings instead of talking them out will add strain to an already crucial situation. The longer the lag time during which you act out your feelings rather than talk them out, the more damage you’ll do to both relationships and results. We Handle Them Poorly On the flip side of avoidance, we have the problem of handling Crucial Conversations poorly. Often in these tough moments, we’re at our absolute worst—we exaggerate; we yell; we withdraw; we say things we later regret. The sad irony of Crucial Conversations is that when it matters most, we tend to do our worst.  Why is that? We’re designed wrong. When conversations turn from routine to crucial, our instincts conspire against us. Strong emotions don’t exactly prepare us to converse effectively. Countless generations of genetic shaping drive humans to react to interpersonal threats the same way we deal with physical ones. Our natural tendencies in moments that seem threatening lean toward fight or flight rather than listen and speak. For instance, consider a typical Crucial Conversation. Someone says something you disagree with about a topic that matters a great deal to you, and your body registers the threat. Your body’s instinct is to prepare you for physical safety. Two tiny organs seated neatly atop your kidneys pump adrenaline into your bloodstream. Your brain diverts blood from activities it deems nonessential (like thoughtfully and respectfully opening a conversation) to high-priority survival tasks (such as hitting and running). As the large muscles of the arms and legs get more blood, the higher-level reasoning sections of your brain get less. As a result, you end up facing challenging conversations with the same intellectual equipment available to a rodent. Your body is preparing to deal with an attacking saber-toothed tiger, not your boss, neighbor, or loved ones. We’re under pressure. Frequently, Crucial Conversations come out of nowhere. And since you’re caught by surprise, you’re forced to conduct an extraordinarily complex interaction in real time—no books, no coaches, and certainly no short breaks while a team of diplomats runs to your aid and pumps you full of suave ideas. What do you have to work with? The issue at hand, the other person, and a brain that’s drunk on adrenaline and almost incapable of rational thought. It’s little wonder we often say and do things that make perfect sense in the moment but later on seem, well, stupid. “What was I thinking?” you wonder—when what you should be asking is “What part of my brain was I thinking with?” The truth is, you were trying to solve a complex interpersonal problem with a brain designed to do little more than assure your survival. You’re lucky you didn’t suffer a stroke. We’re stumped. We don’t know where to start with approaching a Crucial Conversation effectively. We’re making this up as we go along because few of us have seen real-life models of effective communication skills. Let’s say that you actually planned for a tough conversation—maybe you’ve even mentally rehearsed. You feel prepared, and you’re as cool as a cucumber. Will you succeed? Not if you haven’t seen what true success looks like. Practice doesn’t make perfect; perfect practice makes perfect. This means that first you have to know what to practice. You’ve probably had ample opportunity to see what not to do—as modeled by friends, colleagues, and, yes, even your parents. In fact, you may have sworn time and again not to act the same way. You’ve watched your dad nod and sulk while his mother critiqued his life choices. Your mom taught you by example to respond to unkindness with biting sarcasm. And your first boss’s favorite maxim was “If you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all.” At least until the person he couldn’t say something nice about left the room. With no healthy models, what do you do? You do what most people do. You wing it. You piece together the words, try to make them sound nonthreatening, and hope the other person agrees with your perspective right away. But since you have no real idea of how to bring up the topic safely or respond to the other person’s arguments, your attempts tend to fall short, and the lag time grows. We act in self-defeating ways. Sometimes in our doped-up, dumbed-down state, the strategies we choose for dealing with our Crucial Conversations are perfectly designed to keep us from what we actually want. We’re our own worst enemies. Here’s how this works. Let’s say your significant other has been paying less and less attention to you. You realize he or she has a busy job, but you still would like more time together. You drop a few hints about the issue, but your loved one doesn’t handle it well. You decide not to put on added pressure, so you clam up. Of course, since you’re not all that happy with the arrangement, your displeasure now comes out through an occasional sarcastic remark: “Another late night, huh? I’ve got Facebook friends I feel closer to.” Unfortunately (and here’s where the problem becomes self-defeating), the more you snip and snap, the less your loved one wants to be around you. So he or she spends less time with you, you become even more upset, and the spiral continues. Your behavior is now actually creating the very thing you didn’t want in the first place. You’re caught in an unhealthy, self-defeating loop. Or maybe you have a roommate—we’ll call him Terry—who shamelessly wears your and your other roommates’ clothes without asking. In fact, one day while walking out the door, he glibly announces that he’s wearing something from each of your closets. You see Taylor’s pants, Scott’s shirt, and even Chris’s new matching shoes-and-socks ensemble. What of yours could he possibly be wearing? Eew! Your response, quite naturally, is to bad-mouth Terry behind his back. That is, until one day when he overhears you belittling him to a friend. You’re so embarrassed, you avoid being around him. And now when you’re out of the apartment, he wears your clothes, eats your food, and uses your laptop out of spite. Let’s try another example. You’re a woman on a project team run by a man. Over the past two months you’ve noticed that when men on the team offer ideas in brainstorming meetings, he responds with “Good comment” and a thoughtful nod. When a woman offers an idea, he rarely makes eye contact and offers a soft “OK.” After the first meeting where it happened, you were curious. You had a sense that it would be helpful to call it to his attention; still, you decided against it for fear of offending him so early in the project. After you saw the behavior again in the second meeting, you were convinced not just that it was a pattern, but that he was likely incorrigible. By the eighth time you saw the pattern, you felt hot rage shoot through your spine. He has noted your sullen seething and has decided you either don’t respect him or, worse, are actively undermining his project. Rather than exploring his concerns with you, he nurses them into a full-fledged indictment. As a result, he rarely looks in your direction during meetings and takes your potentially constructive comments as personal attacks. In both cases, you’re caught in a self-defeating loop. The more the two of you choose to continue your agitated silence, the more you both create the very behaviors the other despises. In each of these examples of unhealthy downward spirals, the stakes were moderate to high, opinions differed, and emotions ran strong. In a couple of the examples, the stakes were fairly low at first, but with time and growing emotions, the relationships soured and quality of life suffered—driving the stakes up. There Is Hope So what’s the solution to stepping up to these conversations and effectively resolving the situations before they drag out and grow to unmanageable levels? The answer is to gain the skills needed to successfully address and resolve these relationships through Crucial Conversations. When you’re confident in the skills you need, you won’t hesitate to step up to these conversations. You’ll know that a good outcome is possible, and you’ll be able to create a scenario where everyone involved feels safe discussing his or her concerns. The rest of the book is concerned with teaching you skills to achieve these positive outcomes. For now, let’s look at how having those skills impacts every area of your life for the better. WORKING THROUGH DIVORCE The skills you’ll learn in this book will help you approach some of the most pivotal moments in your life. Coauthor Emily Gregory relied on these skills in the face of a life-changing decision, and they made all the difference. View her story in the video Working Through Divorce and learn about the power of Crucial Conversations skills at crucialconversations.com. THE RESEARCH: HOW CRUCIAL CONVERSATIONS SKILLS IMPROVE YOUR LIFE Strong relationships, careers, organizations, and communities all draw from the same source of power—the ability to talk openly about high-stakes, emotional, controversial topics.  The following is a small sampling of the decades of research that brought us to this important insight. Increase Your Influence Could the ability to master Crucial Conversations help your career? Absolutely. In a series of studies across 17 organizations, we identified thousands of what we call “opinion leaders.” We’ll cover more on what this term means in the next chapter. For now, just know that these were individuals who were admired by peers and bosses alike for their competence and insight. One of the most commonly cited skills people associated with them was their ability to raise emotionally and politically risky issues in a way that others couldn’t. Colleagues envied their ability to speak truth to those in power. When people weren’t sure how to let those in upper management know they were out of touch with reality, more often than not it was these skillful women and men who shrank the lag time. We’ve all seen people hurt their careers by ineffectively discussing tough issues. You may have done it yourself. Fed up with a lengthy and unhealthy pattern of behavior, you finally speak out—but a bit too abruptly. Oops. Or maybe an issue becomes so hot that as your peers twitch and fidget themselves into a quivering mass of potential stroke victims, you decide to say something. It’s not a pretty discussion—but somebody has to have the guts to keep the boss from doing something stupid. (Gulp.) Without realizing it, from the time we are three or four years old, most of us come to the dangerous conclusion that we often have to choose between telling the truth and keeping a friend. Lag time becomes a way of life as we procrastinate, putting off conversations that might otherwise lead to resolution and stronger relationships. Instead, we build resentment and alienation as we act out rather than talk out our concerns. People who routinely hold Crucial Conversations and hold them well are able to express controversial and even risky opinions in a way that gets heard. Their bosses, peers, and direct reports listen without becoming defensive or angry. Time and again we’ve watched opinion leaders find ways to both tell the truth and keep relationships. We marveled as we watched them step up to conversations in ways that actually made working relationships stronger. We discovered that the only way to really strengthen relationships is through the truth, not around it. What about your career? Are there Crucial Conversations that you’re not holding or not holding well? Is this undermining your influence? And more importantly, would your career take a step forward if you could improve how you’re dealing with these conversations? Improve Your Organization Is it possible that an organization’s performance could hang on something as soft and gushy as how individuals deal with Crucial Conversations? Study after study suggests that the answer is yes. We began our work 30 years ago looking for what we called crucial moments. We wondered, “Are there a handful of moments when someone’s actions disproportionately affect key performance indicators?” And if so, what are those moments, and how should we act when they occur? It was that search that led us to Crucial Conversations. We’ve found that more often than not, the world changes when people have to deal with a very risky issue and either do it poorly or do it well. For example: Silence kills. A doctor is getting ready to insert a central IV line into a patient but fails to put on the proper gloves, gown, and mask to ensure the procedure is done as safely as possible. After the nurse reminds the doctor of the proper protections, the doctor ignores her comment and begins the insertion. In a study of over 7,000 doctors and nurses, we’ve found caregivers face this crucial moment all the time. In fact, 84 percent of respondents said that they regularly see people taking shortcuts, exhibiting incompetence, or breaking rules. And that’s not the problem! The real problem is that those who observe deviations or infractions say nothing. Across the world we’ve found that the odds of a nurse speaking up in this crucial moment are less than 1 in 12. The odds of doctors stepping up to similar Crucial Conversations aren’t much better. And when they don’t speak up, when they don’t hold an effective Crucial Conversation, it impacts critical results like patient safety, nursing turnover, physician satisfaction, and nursing productivity. Silence fails. When it comes to the corporate world, the most common complaint of executives and managers is that their people work in silos. They are great at tasks they can handle entirely within their team. Unfortunately, close to 80 percent of the projects that require cross-functional cooperation cost far more than expected, produce less than hoped for, and run significantly over budget. We wondered why. So we studied over 2,200 projects and programs that had been rolled out at hundreds of organizations worldwide. The findings were stunning. You can predict months or years in advance with nearly 90 percent accuracy which projects will fail. The predictor of success or failure was whether people could hold specific, relevant Crucial Conversations. For example, could they speak up if they thought the scope and schedule were unrealistic? Or did they go silent when a cross-functional team member began sloughing off? Or even more tricky—what should they do when an executive failed to provide leadership for the effort? In most organizations we studied, employees fell silent when these crucial moments hit. Fortunately, in those organizations where people were able to candidly and effectively speak up about these concerns, the projects were less than half as likely to fail. When a project failed, problems showed up in key performance indicators such as spiraling costs, late delivery times, and low morale. But our research showed that the underlying cause was the unwillingness or inability to speak up at crucial moments. Other studies we’ve conducted show that companies with employees who are skilled at Crucial Conversations: Respond five times faster to financial downturns—and make budget adjustments far more intelligently—than less-skilled peers. Are two-thirds more likely to avoid injury and death due to unsafe conditions. Save over $1,500 and an eight-hour workday for every Crucial Conversation employees hold rather than avoid. Substantially increase trust and reduce transaction costs in virtual work teams. Those who can’t handle their Crucial Conversations suffer (through backstabbing, gossip, undermining, passive  aggression, etc.) up to three times more often in virtual teams than in colocated teams. Influence change in colleagues who are bullying, conniving, dishonest, or incompetent. When over 4,000 respondents were asked, 93 percent of them said that, in their organization, people like this are almost “untouchable”—staying in their position four years or longer without being held accountable. Most leaders get it wrong. They think that organizational productivity and performance are simply about policies, processes, structures, or systems. So when their software product doesn’t ship on time, they benchmark others’ development processes. Or when productivity flags, they tweak their performance management system. When teams aren’t cooperating, they restructure. Our research shows that these types of nonhuman changes fail more often than they succeed. That’s because the real problem 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. The path to high productivity passes not through a static system, but through face-to-face conversations. So what about you? Is your organization stuck in its progress toward some important goal? What is the typical lag time in your organization between identifying and discussing politically or emotionally risky issues? Do people step up to or walk away from Crucial Conversations? Could you take a big step forward by shrinking your typical lag time? Strengthen Your Relationships Could failed Crucial Conversations lead to failed relationships? When you ask the average person what causes couples to break up, he or she usually suggests that it’s due to differences of opinion. You know, people have different preferences about managing their finances, spicing up their love lives, or rearing their children.  In truth, everyone argues about important issues. But not everyone splits up. It’s how you argue that matters. For example, when psychologist Howard Markman examined couples in the throes of heated discussions, he learned that people fall into three categories—those who digress into threats and name-calling, those who revert to silent fuming, and those who speak openly, honestly, and effectively. After observing couples for hundreds of hours, Markman and his research partner Clifford Notarius predicted relationship outcomes and tracked their research subjects’ relationships for the next decade. Remarkably, they predicted nearly 90 percent of the divorces that occurred.1 But more importantly, they found that helping couples learn to hold Crucial Conversations more effectively reduced the chance of unhappiness or breakup by more than half! Now what about you? Think of your own important relationships. Are there a few Crucial Conversations that you’re currently avoiding or handling poorly? Do you walk away from some issues only to charge recklessly into others? Do you hold in ugly opinions only to have them tumble out as sarcastic remarks or cheap shots? When it matters the most (after all, these are your cherished loved ones), are you on your worst behavior? If so, you definitely have something to gain by learning more about how to handle Crucial Conversations. Boost Your Personal Health If the evidence so far isn’t compelling enough, what would you say if we told you that the ability to master Crucial Conversations is a key to a healthier and longer life? Immune systems. Consider the groundbreaking research done by Dr. Janice Kiecolt-Glaser and Dr. Ronald Glaser. They studied the immune systems of couples who had been married an average of 42 years by comparing those who argued constantly with those who resolved their differences effectively. It turns out that arguing for decades doesn’t lessen the destructive blow of constant conflict. Quite the contrary. Those who routinely failed their Crucial Conversations had far weaker immune systems and worse health than those who found a way to resolve them well.2 Life-threatening diseases. In perhaps the most revealing of all the health- related studies, a group of subjects who had contracted malignant melanoma received traditional treatment and then were divided into two groups. One group met weekly for only six weeks; the other did not. Facilitators taught the first group of recovering patients specific communication skills. After meeting only six times and then dispersing for five years, the subjects who learned how to express themselves effectively had a higher survival rate—only 9 percent succumbed as opposed to almost 30 percent in the untrained group.3 Think about the implications of this study. Just a modest improvement in the ability to talk and connect with others corresponded to a two-thirds decrease in the death rate. This study is just one sample of how the way you talk or don’t talk can dramatically affect your health. Mountains of research suggest that the negative feelings we hold in and the emotional pain we suffer as we stumble our way through unhealthy conversations slowly eat away at our health. In some cases, the impact of failed conversations leads to minor problems. In others, it results in disaster. In all cases, failed conversations never make us happier, healthier, or better off. So how about you? What are the specific conversations that gnaw at you the most? Which conversations (if you held them or improved them) would strengthen your immune system, help ward off disease, and increase your quality of life and well-being? SUMMARY: WHAT’S A CRUCIAL CONVERSATION? 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. When we fail a Crucial Conversation, every aspect of our lives can be affected— from our companies, to our careers, to our communities, to our relationships, to our personal health. And the longer the lag time, the more room for mischief. But there is good news. As we learn how to step up to Crucial Conversations—and handle them well—with one set of high-leverage skills we can influence virtually every domain of our lives.  What is this all-important skill set? What do people who sail through Crucial Conversations actually do? More importantly, can we do it too?  Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter. —MARTIN LUTHER KING JR. 2 MASTERING CRUCIAL CONVERSATIONS The Power of Dialogue To be honest, we didn’t study our way into a discovery of Crucial Conversations. Instead, we stumbled into it. Over the years, we worked with dozens of leaders in a variety of industries who were trying to implement dramatic changes. Part of our consulting methodology involved helping them find opinion leaders embedded throughout their organizations who might be helpful in the effort. We did so in a pretty straightforward way. First, we asked people to name the two or three people they turned to first when they were struggling to get something done. Over the past decades, we’ve asked tens of thousands of people to identify the individuals in their organizations who knew how to make things happen when others felt stymied. We wanted to find those who were not just influential, but far more influential than the rest. Each time, as we compiled the names into a list, a pattern emerged. Lots of people were named by one or two colleagues. Some found their way onto five or six lists. These were people who were good at influence, but not good enough to be widely identified as top opinion leaders. And then there were the handful who were named 30 or more times. These were the best— the ones who could make big things happen in their areas. Some were managers and supervisors. Many were not. One of the opinion leaders we became particularly interested in meeting was named Kevin. He was the only one of eight vice presidents in his company to be identified as exceedingly influential. We wanted to know why. So we watched him at work. At first, Kevin didn’t do anything remarkable. In truth, he looked like every other VP. He answered his phone, talked to his direct reports, and continued about his pleasant, but routine, routine. THE STARTLING DISCOVERY After trailing Kevin for almost a week, we began to wonder if he really did act in ways that set him apart from others or if his influence was simply a matter of popularity. And then we followed Kevin into a meeting. Kevin, his peers, and their boss were deciding on a new location for their offices—would they move across town, across the state, or across the country? The first two execs presented their arguments for their top choices, and as expected, their points were greeted by penetrating questions from the full team. No vague claim went unclarified, no unsupported reasoning unquestioned. Then Chris, the CEO, pitched his preference—one that was both unpopular and potentially disastrous. However, when people tried to disagree or push back, Chris responded poorly. Since he was the big boss, he didn’t exactly have to browbeat people to get what he wanted. Instead, he became slightly defensive. First he raised an eyebrow. Then he raised his finger. Finally he raised his voice—just a little. It wasn’t long until people stopped questioning him, and Chris’s inadequate proposal was quietly accepted. Well almost. That’s when Kevin spoke up. His words were simple enough —something like, “Hey, Chris, can I check something out with you?” The reaction was stunning—everyone in the room stopped breathing. But Kevin ignored the apparent terror of his colleagues and plunged on ahead. In the next few minutes he in essence told the CEO that he appeared to be violating his own decision-making guidelines. He was subtly using his power to move the new offices to his hometown. Kevin continued to explain what he saw happening, and when he finished the first minutes of this delicate exchange, Chris was quiet for a moment. Then he nodded. “You’re absolutely right,” he finally concluded. “I have been trying to force my opinion on you. Let’s back up and try again.” This was a Crucial Conversation, and Kevin played no games whatsoever. He didn’t resort to silence like his colleagues, nor did he try to force his arguments on others. Somehow he managed to achieve absolute candor, but he did so in a way that showed deep respect for Chris. It was a remarkable thing to watch. As a result, the team chose a far more effective location, and Kevin’s boss appreciated his caring coaching. When Kevin was done, one of his peers turned to us and said, “Did you see how he did that? If you want to know how he gets things done, figure out what he just did.” So we did. In fact, we spent the next 30 years discovering what Kevin and people like him do. What typically set them apart from the rest of the pack was their ability to avoid what we came to call the “Fool’s Choice.” You see, Kevin’s contribution was not his insight. Almost everyone could see what was happening. People knew they were allowing themselves to be steamrolled into making a bad decision. But all of them except for Kevin believed they had to make a choice between two bad alternatives: Option 1. Speak up and turn the most powerful person in the company into their sworn enemy. Option 2. Suffer in silence and make a bad decision that might ruin the company. 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. As we suggested in the previous chapter, we begin believing in the Fool’s Choice from an early age. For instance, we learned that when Grandma served an enormous wedge of her famous brussels-sprouts pie à la mode and then asked, “Do you like it?” she really meant, “Do you like me?” When we answered honestly and saw the look of hurt and horror on her face, we made a decision that affected the rest of our lives: “From this day forward, I will be alert for moments when I must choose between candor and kindness.” BEYOND THE FOOL’S CHOICE And from that day forward, we found plenty of those moments—with bosses, colleagues, loved ones, and line cutters. Drawing out lag time became a way of life, and the consequences followed. That’s why our research with Kevin (and hundreds of individuals like him) was so important. We discovered a core group of human beings who refused to make the Fool’s Choice. Their goal was different from your average person’s. When Kevin spoke up, his implicit question was, “How can I be 100 percent honest with Chris and at the same time be 100 percent respectful?” Following that consequential meeting, we began looking for more Kevins, and we found them all over the world. We found them in industry, government, academia, and nonprofit organizations. They were fairly easy to locate because they were almost always among the most influential employees in their organizations. Not only did they refuse to make the Fool’s Choice, but they were also far more skilled in how they acted than their colleagues. But what exactly did they do? Kevin wasn’t that different from his colleagues. Could what he did be learned by others? To answer this question, let’s first explore what Kevin was able to achieve. This will help us see where we’re trying to go. Then we’ll examine the tools that effective communicators routinely use and learn to apply them to our own Crucial Conversations. DIALOGUE When it comes to Crucial Conversations, skilled people find a way to get all relevant information (from themselves and others) out into the open. That’s it. At the core of every successful conversation lies the free flow of information. People openly and honestly express their opinions, share their feelings, and articulate their theories. They willingly and capably share their views, even when their ideas are controversial or unpopular. It’s the one thing that Kevin and the other extremely effective communicators we studied were routinely able to achieve. What they do is effectively create a dialogue. di·a·logue or di·a·log (dì´ ∂-lôg´´, -lòg) n The free flow of meaning between two or more people. As we talk about dialogue, we’re faced with two questions. First, how does this free flow of meaning lead to success? Second, what can you do to encourage meaning to flow freely? We’ll explain the relationship between the free flow of meaning and success in this chapter. The second question—what must you do in order to achieve dialogue when it matters the most?—will take us the rest of the book to answer. Filling the Pool of Shared Meaning Each of us enters conversations with our own thoughts and feelings about the topic at hand. This unique combination makes up our personal pool of meaning. This pool not only informs us, but also propels our every action. When two or more of us enter Crucial Conversations, by definition we don’t share the same pool. Our opinions differ. I believe one thing; you another. I have one history; you another. People who are skilled at dialogue do their best to make it safe for everyone to add meaning to the shared pool—even ideas that at first glance appear controversial or wrong. Obviously, everyone doesn’t agree with every idea; people simply do their best to ensure that all ideas find their way into the open. As the Pool of Shared Meaning grows, it helps people in two ways. First, as individuals are exposed to more accurate and relevant information, they make better choices. In a very real sense, the Pool of Shared Meaning is a measure of a group’s IQ. The larger the shared pool, the smarter the decisions.  On the other hand, we’ve all seen what happens when the shared pool is dangerously shallow. When people purposely withhold meaning from one another, individually smart people can do collectively stupid things. For example, a client of ours shared the following story: A woman checked into the hospital to have a tonsillectomy, and the surgical team erroneously removed a portion of her foot. How could this tragedy happen? In fact, why is it that nearly 22,000 hospital deaths in the United States each year stem from human error?1 In part, because many healthcare professionals are afraid to speak their minds. In this case, no fewer than seven people wondered why the surgeon was working on the foot, but said nothing. Meaning didn’t flow freely because people were afraid to speak up. Of course, hospitals don’t have a monopoly on fear. In every instance where bosses are smart, highly paid, confident, and outspoken (i.e., most of the world), people tend to hold back their opinions rather than risk angering someone in a position of power. On the other hand, when people feel comfortable speaking up and meaning does flow freely, the shared pool can dramatically increase a group’s ability to make better decisions. Consider what happened to Kevin’s group. As everyone on the team began to explain his or her opinion, people formed a clearer and more complete picture of the circumstances. As they began to understand the whys and wherefores of different proposals, they built off one another. Eventually, as one idea led to the next and then to the next, they came up with an alternative that no one had originally thought of and that all wholeheartedly supported. As a result of the free flow of meaning, the whole (final choice) was truly greater than the sum of the original parts. In short: The Pool of Shared Meaning is the birthplace of synergy. As people sit through an open discussion, they understand why the shared solution is the best option, and they’re committed to act. Kevin and the other VPs didn’t buy into their final choice simply because they were involved; they bought in because they understood. Conversely, when people aren’t involved, when they sit back during touchy conversations, they’re rarely committed to the final decision. Since their ideas remain in their heads and their opinions never make it into the pool, they end up quietly criticizing and passively resisting. Similarly, when others force their ideas into the pool, people have a hard time accepting the information. They may say they’re on board but then walk away and follow through halfheartedly. To quote Samuel Butler, “He that complies against his will is of his own opinion still.” 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. For example, if Kevin and the other leaders had not been committed to their relocation decision, terrible consequences would have followed. Some people would have agreed to move; others would have dragged their feet. Some would have held heated discussions in the hallways. Others would have said nothing and then quietly fought the plan. More likely than not, the team would have been forced to meet again, discuss again, and decide again —since only one person favored the decision and the decision affected everyone. Don’t get us wrong. We’re not suggesting that every decision be made by consensus or that the boss shouldn’t take part in or even make the final choice. We’re simply suggesting that whatever the decision-making method, the greater the shared meaning in the pool, the better the choice, the more the unity, and the stronger the conviction —whoever makes the choice. Every time we find ourselves arguing, running away, or otherwise acting in an ineffective way, it’s because we don’t know how to share meaning. Instead of engaging in healthy dialogue, we play costly games. For instance, sometimes we move to silence. We play Salute and Stay Mute. That is, we don’t confront people in positions of authority. Or at home we may play Freeze Your Lover. With this tortured technique, we give loved ones the cold shoulder in order to get them to treat us better (what’s the logic in that?). Sometimes we rely on hints, sarcasm, innuendo, and looks of disgust to make our points. We play the martyr and then pretend we’re actually trying to help. Or maybe, afraid to confront an individual, we blame an entire team for a problem—hoping the message will hit the right target. Whatever the technique, the overall method is the same. We withhold meaning from the pool. We go to silence. On other occasions, not knowing how to stay in dialogue, we try to force our meaning into the pool. We rely on emotional violence—anything from verbal sniping, to intellectual bullying, to outright verbal attacks. We act like we know everything, hoping people will believe our arguments. We discredit others. We use force to get our way. We borrow power from the boss; we hit people with biased monologues; we make hurtful comments. The goal of all these behaviors is the same—to compel others to our point of view. So to sum up: When stakes are high, opinions vary, and emotions run strong, we’re often at our worst. In order to move to our best, we have to find a way to explain what is in each of our personal pools of meaning— especially our high-stakes, sensitive, and controversial thoughts and opinions —and to get others to share their pools. To achieve this, we have to develop the tools that make it safe for us to discuss these issues and to come to a shared pool of meaning. DIALOGUE SKILLS ARE LEARNABLE Here’s the really good news. The skills for mastering high-stakes interactions are quite easy to spot and moderately easy to learn. A well-handled Crucial Conversation all but leaps out at you. When you see someone enter the dangerous waters of a high-stakes, emotional, controversial discussion and do a particularly good job, your natural reaction is to step back in awe. What starts as a doomed discussion ends up with a healthy resolution. It can take your breath away. More important, not only are dialogue skills easy to spot, but they’re also fairly easy to learn. That’s where we’re going next. We’ve isolated and captured the skills of the dialogue-gifted over decades of research. First, we followed around Kevin and others like him. When conversations turned crucial, we took detailed notes. Afterward, we compared our observations, tested our hypotheses, and honed our models until we found the skills that consistently explain the success of brilliant communicators. Finally, we combined our theories, models, and skills into a package of learnable tools —tools for talking when stakes are high. We then taught these skills and watched as key performance indicators and relationships improved. Now we’re ready to share what we’ve learned. Stay with us as we explore how to transform Crucial Conversations from frightening events into interactions that yield success and results. It’s the most important set of skills you’ll ever master. My Crucial Conversation: Bobby R. My Crucial Conversation began on the night before my first deployment to Iraq in 2004. There was a lot of tension between members of my family caused by past events and conflicting perspectives. The stress of my leaving to combat only increased the tension. On that night, one well-intended but deeply loaded question from my father sent me through the roof. The way I reacted over the next couple of hours started a downward spiral that affected my entire family. Siblings, cousins, aunts, uncles, parents, children, and grandparents all took sides. My family ties continued to unravel as I led a platoon of soldiers through the streets of Baghdad. My wife was home with our one-year- old and pregnant with our second. During my tour, additional family encounters only worsened the situation, and after fourteen months of combat, I came home to a family that was completely broken at every existing generation. The silence between me and my father continued for five years. Crucial Conversations saved my relationship with my parents. A neighbor who is a Crucial Conversations trainer invited me to his class before my third tour in Iraq. A couple of weeks before I deployed, I reached out to my father to let him know about the two children he had never seen and that I was leaving for combat. I told him I couldn’t make the same mistake I had made five years earlier, and we agreed to meet. On a beautiful sunset balcony in Houston, my dad and I spent three tense hours dealing with a lot of pain and built-up resentment. I kept in mind what I had been taught and, rather than compromising candor, tried my best to create conditions where we could be both honest and respectful. It was incredibly difficult. Sometimes the honesty threatened to put us right back in the angry state that got us there. But I kept focusing on what I really wanted—a relationship with my family. At the end of the conversation, we met my mom for dinner. She had been the most hurt by my anger in the past and was skeptical. She was sure I was still the argumentative, sarcastic, spiteful, and arrogant child of my youth. She gave me a chance based on my father’s assessment of my respect, remorse, and clear demonstration of Mutual Purpose. I am  now in a loving relationship with my wife, four children, and parents. We have agreed to never bury our concerns in silence again. I attribute the relationship I have today to the success of that one Crucial Conversation on the balcony. Had I not practiced what I had learned, my relationship with my father would have died from anger and indifference. That conversation happened because of a friend who introduced me to Crucial Conversations. HERE’S WHERE WE’RE GOING Throughout the remainder of the book, we’ll explore the tools people use to help create the conditions of dialogue. While Crucial Conversations rarely follow a neat path, the principles and skills we will share are generally applied in a predictable order. For example, Part I of the book (“What to Do Before You Open Your Mouth”) describes the “preparation principles”—the things we need to do before we begin to ensure we are primed for an effective conversation. And there is little chance of healthy dialogue if you don’t focus on the right problem (Chapter 3, “Choose Your Topic”), get your motives right (Chapter 4, “Start with Heart”), and manage your emotions (Chapter 5, “Master My Stories”). Part II is called “How to Open Your Mouth.” Here we’ll teach you to recognize early signs of problems (Chapter 6, “Learn to Look”). Next we’ll share how to create the key condition that allows you to talk with almost anyone about almost anything: safety (Chapter 7, “Make It Safe”). We then get tactical, teaching strategies for sharing your views in a way that is both truthful and least likely to provoke defensiveness (Chapter 8, “STATE My Path”) and for helping others to productively express their views as well (Chapter 9, “Explore Others’ Paths”). Then we take you to a remarkable place in the US Rocky Mountains where we learn lessons for minimizing the misery we feel when receiving tough feedback (Chapter 10, “Retake Your Pen”). In Part III (“How to Finish”), we’ll share two important tools for finishing strong (Chapter 11, “Move to Action”). As you read on (Chapter 12, “Yeah, But”), you will learn the key skills of talking, listening, and acting together in a way that improves both relationships and results.  Finally, we’ll tie all the theories and skills together (Chapter 13, “Putting It All Together”) by providing both a model and an extended example. We are confident that as you not only read but practice what you learn, you will gain greater and greater confidence in talking when stakes are high. SUMMARY: MASTERING CRUCIAL CONVERSATIONS When facing a Crucial Conversation, most of us unconsciously make a “Fool’s Choice”—we think we have to choose between “telling the truth” and “keeping a friend.” Skilled communicators resist this false tradeoff and look for ways to do both. They look for a way to be both 100 percent honest and 100 percent respectful at the same time. In short, they look for way to get to dialogue: a condition where meaning flows freely between parties resulting in a larger pool of information shared by all. A larger shared pool of meaning leads to better decisions, better relationships, and more unified action. The remainder of this book shares learnable skills designed to help you get to dialogue during your most crucial moments.  PART I WHAT TO DO BEFORE YOU OPEN YOUR MOUTH Seventy percent of the success of a Crucial Conversation happens in your head, not through your mouth. The skills in this section are the prerequisites of success. Get these right, and the right words will often flow naturally from you. Ignore these, and no amount of technique or artifice will be enough to compensate. In this section you’ll learn how to be sure you’re talking about the right things (Chapter 3, “Choose your Topic”), how to get your motives right (Chapter 4, “Start with Heart”), and how to understand and manage your own emotions when they’re getting in the way of dialogue (Chapter 5, “Master My Stories”).  A problem well-stated is a problem half-solved. —CHARLES KETTERING 3 CHOOSE YOUR TOPIC How to Be Sure You Hold the Right Conversation The moment you open your mouth to hold a Crucial Conversation, you’ve already made a decision—you’ve decided what to talk about. One of the biggest mistakes we make is assuming that just because we’re talking, we must be solving the right problem. It’s not that simple. If you’re not addressing the right issue, you’ll end up in the same conversation over and over again. CRUCIAL CONVERSATIONS ARE “TOPIC-RICH” ENVIRONMENTS Human interactions and relationships are complex. There are multiple issues and side issues and tangents. You’ve probably been in that conversation before. You think you’re talking with your brother about plans for an upcoming family gathering. Suddenly, you’re in a completely different conversation about the time your parents bought you a brand-new bike because you have always been their favorite and your brother could never measure up. Whoa, you think, where did that all come from?  Crucial Conversations are most successful when they’re focused on one issue. Because human interactions are inherently complex, focusing a Crucial Conversation on a single topic takes effort. It requires us to thoughtfully unbundle and then prioritize the issues at hand. For example, let’s look at the case of Wendy and Sandrine. Wendy is a project manager at a global technology company. She’s been there many years and has successfully led numerous projects, large and small. She recently began working with a new manager, Sandrine. Sandrine joined the organization a year ago with a reputation as a hard-charging, get-things-done, break-eggs-when-needed executive. Sandrine asked Wendy to put together a timeline for a new project, and now they’re sitting down to review it. Sandrine: I’m excited to have you and your team dig in on this project. Let’s talk timelines. Wendy: It’ll take us just over six months. Sandrine: Oh... Well... when I looked at it, it seemed like you should be able to finish the whole thing by the end of this quarter. At this point, we have the first element of a Crucial Conversation— a difference of opinion. Wendy thinks the project will take at least twice as long as Sandrine expected. Wendy: Well it’s a good thing we’re talking about it now before we’ve made any commitments, because there’s no way to finish it by then. I mean, that’s half the usual time for a project like this. Sandrine: That’s why I put you in this role in the first place. You are able to do the impossible. Let me give you the full context of just how important this is. I need you to figure out how to get this done by the end of the quarter. Other project launches are at stake. The accelerated schedules are already in the master plan. Our senior team is counting on us. Or, more specifically, on you. And just like that, the next two elements of a Crucial Conversation come into play. The stakes are high, and emotions are rising. This is an important project—for Wendy, for Sandrine, and for their organization. Sandrine is feeling pressured and is starting to apply that same pressure on Wendy. So what happens next? Wendy: Wait a minute... you’ve already made a commitment? You agreed to a deadline before we even talked about whether it was doable? Sandrine: Hey, Wendy, you know we need a big win this year. Look, I really pushed for you to be the one to lead this project. Do you know what I said about you? I said you were a team player. Was I mistaken? Wow! There is a lot going on in this one conversation. Wendy has put together a timeline, shared it with her manager, and bam! The whole thing has blown up in her face. Not only does she still have to get to agreement with her manager about the project timeline (the original issue), but now there are a whole host of other issues as well. Think about what would be going through your mind right now if you were Wendy. For example: “How will I ever get this project done?” “She’s setting me up to fail!” “This is unfair to my team!” “What am I going to say to my family about the crazy long hours I will be putting in?” “Can I tell the truth about what I’m thinking right now? Will I lose my job if I do?” “Do I even want this career? Do I want to work for Sandrine?” Wendy is clearly facing a Crucial Conversation right now. But the question is, which conversation? What should she, right now in this moment with Sandrine, talk about? WHY WE USUALLY CHOOSE THE WRONG TOPIC When faced with complex problems like this, we rarely stop and ponder which topic we should address. Instead, we naturally default to one of two mistaken directions: Easy over hard. When faced with a high-stakes, emotional conversation, we have a bias for choosing the topic we think we can win with. That usually means we pick something easier than the issue that is really in the way of our most important goals. We think, “I’ll just start with this little issue and see how that goes.” It’s like we’re testing the waters. Or trying to get across the lake without getting wet. For example, if you’ve concluded your direct report is incompetent at some aspect of his or her job, you might sugarcoat the problem by addressing minor recent mistakes. Your unstated hope is that your report will infer how big the problem is without your coming out and saying it. Nice try. But easy rarely works. Recent over right. We tend to focus on the most recent event or behavior rather than on the one that matters the most. If a colleague treats your comments in meetings in a way you find disrespectful, you talk about the most recent slight rather than sharing the larger pattern. “Hey,” you say after the meeting, “you started talking over me in there when I hadn’t finished my point.” Your colleague shrugs and says, “Shoot. Sorry. I guess I got a little too enthusiastic.” You say, “Uh-huh.” But you think, “You do that all the time, you self-centered jerk!” We favor recent over right for a couple of reasons. First, we can actually remember the specifics. Second, we don’t want to be accused of dredging up ancient history. Three Signs You’re Having the Wrong Conversation Falling into these traps leads to fairly predictable results. We end up having the wrong conversation, which keeps us stuck. To avoid this mistake, learn to recognize three signals that you’re talking about the wrong thing. Memorize them. When you see them, imagine a yellow warning light flashing in your mind that says, “Wrong topic!” When that light pulses, push back from the table and ask yourself, “What’s the real issue here?” 1. Your emotions escalate. When you’re having the wrong conversation, even if that conversation is going well, you know on some level that you’re not addressing or resolving the issue. Consequently, you come in feeling frustrated, and that feeling increases as the conversation progresses. That’s happening right now to Wendy in the conversation above. When the conversation started, she was feeling confident in her timeline. By the end, she was apprehensive and afraid for her job. That escalated emotion should signal to her that the issue is no longer the project deadline. Something more important needs to be addressed! 2. You walk away skeptical. Sure, maybe you come to the end of the conversation with an agreement, but even as you walk away, you think to yourself, “Nothing is going to really change here.” Or you get to agreement but doubt that the changes you settled on will solve the real problem. Whatever agreement you came to is only so much window dressing because it won’t get you to what you really want. 3. You’re in a dèjá vu dialogue. If you ever have the same conversation with the same people a second time, the problem is not them. It’s you. You’re having the wrong conversation. If even as you say the words they feel familiar because you’ve had this conversation before— maybe even a dozen times—you’re on the wrong topic. One of the best ways to ensure you talk about the right topic is to get good at noticing when you’re on the wrong one. Memorize these three warning signs. Then every time you recognize they are happening, use them as a cue to push back from the table and ask yourself, “What’s the real issue I need to address?” SKILLS FOR FINDING THE RIGHT TOPIC You’ve likely known someone who seems gifted at putting a finger on exactly the right issue. The conversation is swirling and churning, and suddenly the person says, “You know, I think the real issue here is trust. We’ve lost confidence in each other,” or makes some other brilliant deduction of the previous 53 minutes of chaos. A dozen heads nod, and suddenly you begin making progress because you’re now talking about the real issue. How does someone do that? The answer is that this person is skilled at three elements of choosing the right topic. The person knows how to unbundle, choose, and simplify the issues involved. Let’s look first at unbundling. Unbundle There are three levels of conversations you may need to have about the issue itself, and a fourth relating to the process of the conversation—we’ll address process later. A good way to find the right one begins by unbundling, or teasing apart, the various issues level by level. You can remember these levels with the acronym CPR. Content. The first time a problem comes up, talk about the content—the immediate pain. If either the action itself or its immediate consequences are the issue, you’ve got a content problem. For example, your coworker failed to get you the marketing analytics you needed in order to finish a report for your manager. Now your neck is on the line because your report was late. Or you’re giving a presentation in a team meeting, and one of your fellow team members keeps interrupting and talking over you. If this is the first time this has happened, it’s a content problem. Pattern. The next time the same problem comes up, think pattern. Now the concern is not just that this has happened once, but that a pattern is starting to develop, or already has. For example, the last three times a really exciting project came to your team, your manager assigned it to others despite your expressed interest. The issue is no longer just one assignment; it’s the pattern that’s emerging. It can be challenging to determine when to move from content to pattern. Often, it may feel like you’re jumping to conclusions if you move to pattern after only a second occurrence of the issue. Yet you want to address patterns early and candidly, before they become entrenched. It can be helpful to think of it this way: The first time something happens, it’s an incident. The second time it might be coincidence. The third time, it’s a pattern. Relationship. Finally, as problems continue, they can begin to impact the relationship. Relationship issues get to deeper concerns about trust, competence, or respect. For example, we may begin to doubt someone’s competence or question whether we can trust a person to keep commitments. Or we may conclude after repeated incidents that a person doesn’t respect our role or contribution. With these doubts and questions at the forefront of our thinking, we begin to (subtly or overtly) relate to them differently. Sometimes a relationship issue can emerge fully formed in the first instance. For example, if you see a colleague put sensitive files onto a thumb drive and take the drive home, you may have an immediate trust issue. To see CPR in action, let’s take a look at a very sensitive example from a client of ours. How would you use CPR to help him decide what topic to address? I am the only nonwhite person on my team. I have been called by the wrong name multiple times in meetings by my immediate manager. After it happened three times, I corrected her in the meeting. She later gave me feedback that I shouldn’t have bothered to correct my name because all names of people of my ethnicity sound similar, so it shouldn’t really make a difference to me. On another occasion she suggested I adopt an “English” name. Can you see how important it is for this person to decide what the right topic is to address? Unbundling helps people see a variety of options: 1. Keep it at content. Solve the immediate problem by correcting anyone who calls you by the wrong name. Or thank your manager for the suggestion, but let her know you would like to be called by your given name. 2. Move to pattern. Express your concern that her referring to you by wrong names has become a pattern. 3. Talk relationship. Let your manager know that your name is an important part of your identity, and that you feel disrespected when someone you work with regularly doesn’t take the time to learn it. Or  perhaps even more important, you feel disrespected by the suggestion that you change it. Unbundling the issues with CPR helps us gain clarity into the situation. It also sets us up to make a conscious choice—at which level do we want to hold this conversation? Before we get to making that decision, though, let’s consider one more issue you may want to discuss—the process of the conversation itself. Do You Need to Talk About Process? CPR is a powerful entry point as we begin to unravel complex interactions and consider the issues that are keeping us stuck. But not every issue fits neatly into content, pattern, and relationship. Occasionally you’ll need to extend your conversation to cover the issue of the process of how we are discussing issues. For example, years ago we were coaching a senior leader, Kayla, on her management style. She had a team of a dozen or so people, including an administrative assistant, April. April was fairly new to the team, and Kayla was eager to develop a good working relationship with her. Being new, April had some things to learn, and Kayla was quick, direct, and respectful in her feedback. Despite Kayla’s skill in delivering feedback and coaching, April almost inevitably became defensive. Kayla tried everything we taught her about saying things in a way that would make it safe for April to hear her (skills you’ll learn in later chapters). It just wasn’t working. After observing a few interactions, we suggested to Kayla that this was a process problem. Something about the process of how she was delivering feedback and how April was hearing it was creating the issue that was keeping them stuck. Kayla decided to make that the topic of her conversation. She set up a time to talk with April about how they were working together and how she, Kayla, could best provide feedback to April. She explained her intent: She wanted them to be able to work well together, and she wanted to see April succeed. That’s why she gave feedback. Kayla shared (using the skills in this book) that she had noticed April’s defensiveness and wanted to talk about a better process for delivering feedback. The conversation went well. The two were able to come to some concrete agreements about how Kayla could deliver feedback to April in a way that April could and would hear it. And April committed to expressing her emotions in ways that worked better for Kayla. Taking time to address the process of how we are communicating is especially important when there are differences in our communication styles or when our mode of communication changes from what we’re used to. Process issues often come into play across cultures as well. For example, we work with colleagues across Europe and Asia, teaching Crucial Conversations skills. While the principles are the same, there are clear and obvious variations in the ways people communicate in different cultures. One of our Dutch colleagues shared this experience of working with one of our Asian colleagues: I wanted to have a good and honest conversation about some problems we were having working together. When I invited him to share his thoughts about the situation, he hardly said a word. The conversation was a disaster. Afterwards I sent him an email explaining that I thought the conversation was unsuccessful and that I really want to find a solution that we both felt good about. Later we had a new conversation, but this time about process rather than specific problems. I asked what I could have done differently. He shared with me that in his culture, he is not used to talking explicitly about what went wrong. My direct reference to our problems felt disrespectful. He said that for him, it was customary to begin by talking about how we are doing, family, and other such topics. From a Dutch perspective I was doing just fine. Having a process conversation helped me learn how to make my real intentions clearer to my colleague. Process conversations are also especially important in relationships that are largely or exclusively virtual. When contact is infrequent, it’s essential to talk explicitly about how you will communicate. For example, how will you make sure that everyone has a turn to speak? How will you make space for people to pause and think? What tools will you use? What norms should we establish? How will you accommodate different time zones and work patterns? To answer these questions, start by asking yourself, “When do virtual conversations work well for me? And when do they not?” Then, consider the process. Remember, if you don’t talk it out, you’ll act it out. And virtual relationships leave much more room for acting it out! Choose The next step in finding the right topic to discuss is to choose. Choosing is a matter of filtering all the issues you’ve teased apart through a single question: “What do I really want?” (You’ll see even more of the power of this question in the next chapter.) Ponder what your highest priority is; then choose the issue that stands between you and that objective. For example, if what you really want is to solve a customer problem, you may choose to deal with the content issue (“How do we get this to Malaysia in two days?”) rather than the relationship (“I don’t trust that you will handle this right”) or pattern (“Our fulfillment team frequently puts off doing things until they become crises”) issues. You choose to return to the other conversations later. Simplify Having made your choice, be sure you can state simply what you want to discuss. We’re not talking about how you’ll start the conversation. We mean narrow the problem down to a succinct statement. This is harder than it sounds. Try stopping people who are great during Crucial Conversations right before they address a concern (we’ve done this). Ask them, “What’s the issue you want to address?” You’ll find that they take far fewer words to say it than the rest of us. The more words it takes you to describe the topic, the less prepared you are to talk. For example, when we asked one skilled person what his message was in a forthcoming performance review, he said, “I’ve concluded he is not good at managing people or projects.” Boom! Crystal clear. Simple. He’s ready. Why is this clarity so rare? Often when we mortals take this step, we feel a sense of dread. As we start to admit the real problem to ourselves, we panic about how we could possibly say it. It’s less scary when we leave the problem vague. When you can slosh around an issue in a giant bowl of words, it’s easy to water it down. But when you simply state the essence of what you need to address, you feel a jolting sense of accountability to do so. You stare the size of the issue square in the face. But that shouldn’t create panic. It should create resolution. Notice that the panic happens only when you conflate two problems. While part of your brain considers “What’s the real issue?” another part shrieks, “How in the world will I say that?” Don’t do this! If you worry about the how while trying to be honest about the what, you’ll be tempted to water down your message. When that happens, “I don’t think you are capable of managing people or projects” starts to sound like “How do you think things went on the product launch?” We mince words, dance around, and sugarcoat our way into the conversation. Creating a simple problem sentence helps you both start with a clear purpose and hold yourself accountable. It gives you a standard by which to measure whether you told your full truth. Don’t worry about how you’ll say it. Just tell yourself the truth about what you want to say. Having done that, you can address the next problem: “How can I both tell the truth and strengthen the relationship?” The next few chapters will help you address that challenge. But put that on the shelf for now. At this point, just worry about getting the what right. Tell yourself the truth. This can be tough. But self-honesty is the precondition to honesty with others. Let’s say, for example, you and your colleagues are talking about where to place a group of new interns in your company. In the middle of the discussion about one of the interns, a peer volunteers, “There’s a lot of Asians in our data analysis team, let’s put him there.” You’re suddenly seized by two competing feelings: rage and terror. You’re offended because you think the comment is either stupid or racist—or both. But you’re scared because you can’t imagine a way of addressing the issue without provoking a fight. You’re tempted to simply stay in the content. Offer other options for the intern. Make an argument about why other areas would be better for him. All the while the real concern is simmering inside you. What should you do? To begin with, tell yourself the truth. Even if you don’t know what to say in the moment, stop and clarify what is truly bothering you. Only then can you decide what the right next step is. Having told yourself the truth (you believe his comment is evidence of either subtle or egregious racism), you can then decide if, when, and how to have that conversation. A WORD OF WARNING: BE ALERT TO WHEN THE TOPIC CHANGES Most of the crucial problems we face require us to address issues at the pattern, process, or relationship level. Very rarely is a content issue keeping us stuck. You can think of it like a dandelion growing in the middle of your well-manicured lawn. The content issue is that bright yellow flower. It is blatant, apparent, and easy to get rid of. Just pluck that dandelion head right off and suddenly your lawn is once again an unrelenting expanse of greenness. But... you know what happens next. The dandelion blooms again, and probably multiplies at the same time. Why? Because you didn’t address the roots. The pattern-, process-, and relationship-level issues in our lives are like those roots. Until we identify and address them, we will face the same content issues again and again. But beware. Just because you know you need to have a pattern- or relationship-level conversation doesn’t make it easy. Once you have chosen the level of the conversation, it is up to you to keep it there. More often than not, when you step up to a pattern- or relationship-level conversation with someone, the other person’s tendency will be to seek safety in a content-level conversation. For example, you’ve noticed over the last several months that the creative output of one of your designers seems to be a bit stale. He’s hitting all his deadlines and producing the requested deliverables. But the quality and innovation just aren’t where you want them to be. It’s not a problem of any one specific design. Rather, when taken as a body of work, his recent output isn’t up to the same standards as it used to be. You decide to step up to this pattern conversation. “Have a look,” you say. “Here are the last five designs you’ve produced, and here are the five before that. As I see it, those from the past six months aren’t at the same level of creativity as your previous work. Technically, they are right on target. But creatively, they have lost some shine. I’m interested in how you see it.” He quickly responds, “I know my work on the Johnson project this week wasn’t as good as it could have been. It was really confusing to know what the client wanted, and I was balancing a ton of other projects at the same time.”  Do you see what just happened there? You stepped up to a pattern conversation (the last six months of designs), and he responded by talking about a content issue (the very last design he did). Now, at this point, it can be very easy to get sucked into that conversation. It’s as easy as saying, “Yes, I know there is a lot going on, but the Johnson project was really critical for us as a team. We needed your best work.” And just like that, you’re holding a different conversation than the one you intended. You’ll walk away feeling unresolved. Why? Because you held the wrong conversation. There is no malintent here on the part of the graphic designer. He isn’t purposely trying to steer you off course. He’s just fallen into the trap we all fall into... choosing recent over right, or easy over hard. It’s up to you to keep the conversation at the level you want it by saying, “I know there was a lot going on this week along with the Johnson project. I get that. And I’m actually less concerned with the specifics of the Johnson project than I am with the pattern I’m seeing in your work over the last six months. I’m wondering if there’s something bigger going on here that’s keeping you from delivering your best work.” Generally, you should choose the level at which you want to hold the conversation and then keep it there. However, there is an exception. Place a Bookmark Clarity is crucial. But so is flexibility. Remember, this isn’t a monologue. It should be a dialogue. There are other people in this conversation, and they have their own wants and needs. In some Crucial Conversations, new issues will come up, and you need to balance focus (on your goals) with flexibility (to meet their goals). Let’s listen in as Tyra talks to her coworker Katy about some data she needs: Tyra: I was expecting to get the raw data file for Project Ascent yesterday, but I haven’t seen it yet. Is the file ready? Katy: The system’s down this morning. I am totally locked out. I swear, I don’t know how we’re supposed to do our jobs around here if they can’t even keep the systems running, right?  Tyra: Well, maybe, but was the system down yesterday? Katy: Hey, who died and left you in charge? Why are you all over me on this? We’re friends. Can’t you cut me a little slack? Tyra: We are friends. And coworkers. I’m not trying to hound you. I just need this report. Katy: I know, I know. Sorry. I guess I’m just all uptight because I already had to deal with Mark today, and eew! That guy just gives me the creeps. I can’t handle the way his eyes crawl all over me. I am just on edge. Sorry. Well, that was a lot more than Tyra bargained for. She started to address what seemed like a pretty straightforward issue, the missing data file, and she got three issues right back: the system is down; the “aren’t we friends” manipulation; and, most concerning, an implication of harassment. What do you do when you start a conversation focused on one issue and new issues emerge? You have a choice to make. You can either stay focused on the original issue or move to a new one. In all cases, you want to place a bookmark. When you place a bookmark, you verbally acknowledge where you’re going in the conversation and what you intend to come back to. Let’s say Tyra wants to move to this new issue, her friend’s experience with Mark. She moves to the new issue and bookmarks the original issue by saying: Tyra: Wow! I can tell you’re upset. Let’s talk about this. We’ll come back to the data file later. In some cases, although probably not this one given the seriousness of the emergent issue, you may want to bookmark the new issue and stay focused on the original: Tyra: Wow! That’s a big deal, and I really want to talk to you about what you are experiencing because it needs to be addressed. At the same time, I have 30 minutes to get this data file over to the ops team. Let’s figure out this data file issue and then come back to Mark. Because that needs to be addressed.  When you place a bookmark, you make a conscious choice about what you want to talk about. And you register clearly with the other person that you will return to the bookmarked issue later. Never allow the conversation to shift or the topic to change without acknowledging you’ve done it. BACK TO WENDY Remember Wendy? She was facing a pretty complex conversation with her manager. They started out talking about a project timeline. As the conversation progressed, new issues came into play. How decisions were being made. What input was being considered. And the pressure that Sandrine was putting on Wendy with veiled threats. Let’s see how Wendy responded. When Sandrine said, “Look, I really pushed for you to be the one to lead this project. Do you know what I said about you? I said you were a team player. Was I mistaken?,” Wendy made the smart choice in this situation to bookmark the project timeline (the content issue) and move the conversation to the relationship level. Her simple problem sentence was “This is about whether I can trust our process and trust you.” She responded to Sandrine, saying, “I get we’re in a tough spot here. I don’t want to disappoint our leadership any more than you do. And I want you to know that I’m committed to getting stuff done. At the same time, I want us to set realistic goals; otherwise, we’re setting ourselves up to fail. And maybe even more important, I want us to work together in a way where we’re up front with each other about our needs and concerns.” This was the start of a relationship conversation. And the start of a better relationship. SUMMARY: CHOOSE YOUR TOPIC You can’t solve the real problem if you don’t choose the right topic. Here’s how to make sure you are talking about the right thing: Learn the three signs you’re having the wrong conversation: 1. Your emotions escalate. 2. You walk away skeptical.  3. You’re in a déjà vu dialogue. Use three skills to identify your topic, and prepare to keep focused on it: 1. Unbundle. Unpack the various issues at play using CPR. Are they content, pattern, or relationship concerns or perhaps process? 2. Choose. Ask yourself: “What do I really want?” Use this as a filter to choose which topic is most relevant at the moment. 3. Simplify. Condense your concern into a single sentence so you can maintain focus once the conversation gets under way. Finally, be both focused and flexible. Pay attention to others’ unintentional, or intentional, efforts to change the topic. Don’t allow the topic to change without a conscious decision. And if you do decide to shift topics, bookmark the original one to make it easy to return to after the new topic is handled.  Speak when you are angry and you will make the best speech you will ever regret. —AMBROSE BIERCE 4 START WITH HEART How to Stay Focused on What You Really Want Now that you know what you want to talk about, it’s time to turn to the how of dialogue. How do you encourage the flow of meaning when you’re in the thrall of strong emotions talking about things that matter deeply to you with those who disagree vehemently? Given that most people’s style is based on longstanding habits, it’ll probably require a lot of effort. The truth is, people can change. In fact, we’ve taught these conversation skills to millions around the world and have seen dramatic improvements in results and relationships. But it requires work. You can’t simply highlight an inspiring paragraph in a book and walk away changed. Instead, you’ll need to start by taking a long, hard look at yourself. That’s why Start with Heart is the foundation of dialogue. Change begins with your heart