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Feature Article: What Are You Pretending Not to Know?
"The need for change bulldozed a road down the center of my mind."
Maya Angelou
Poetry Corner
Loaves and Fishes
This is not
the age of information
This is not
the age of information.
Forget the news,
and the radio,
and the blurred screen.
This is the time
of loaves and fishes.
People are hungry
and one good word is bread
for a thousand.
David Whyte The House of Belonging
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BOOKS
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 Fierce Conversations
by Susan Scott
 Good to Great
by Jim Collins
 Leadership and the Art of Conversation
by Kim Krisco
 Crucial Conversations
by Kerry Patterson, Joseph Grenny, Ron Mcmillan, Al Switzler
 Difficult Conversations
by Douglas Stone, Bruce Patton and Sheila Heen
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Walt knew something had to change. The new job wasn’t working out the way he thought it would. He’d been so sure he
would step into this general manager position and turn things
around. He came here full of creative ideas that would surely be
embraced by his new staff and bring about the results the corporation was seeking. Instead, even though he has relocated
with his whole family, he’s considering quitting. “It’s either that
or wait until I get fired,” he tells me. “They just don’t want to hear
what I have to say. No one will even consider changing the way they’ve done things for years.”
As Walt tried to convince me, his new coach, that he knew how
to turn things around at his new company, he became more and more agitated, barely pausing to take a breath. I could imagine
why his staff had given up trying to get a word in long ago! I
finally stopped him and asked, “What are you pretending not to
know?” I will never forget the stunned look on Walt’s face. “I
have no idea what you mean,” he replied. Thus we began a
coaching conversation…a conversation that encouraged Walt to get real, first with himself and then with everyone else.
The stakes were high and Walt knew it. Failure was not an
option. If he was going to be the best GM in the company, then he had to change his approach. It was time to stop blaming
others and take a hard look at himself. He swallowed his pride and stopped pretending what he’d known deep down to be
true—he had a lot to learn about the company and the people
who had worked there long before he arrived on the scene. Walt
made a commitment to leadership growth, recognizing that if he was going to lead others effectively, he first needed to lead
himself effectively.
Realizing that people’s perceptions of him held seeds of
learning that he could use to become a more effective leader, he
was able to reach a new level of self-awareness. He worked hard to be more conscious of habitual behaviors, feelings, and
assumptions that were preventing him from getting the results he wanted. Walt’s effort was heroic. He stopped talking and
started listening. Listening, you know, is the better half of
conversation! He practiced putting his own opinions aside for a
while and to manage his emotions as he did that. He listened
to painful 360 feedback. He listened to the complaints of staff. His new mindset was to consider input from others as
potentially instructive. He let staff tell him how things used to be
and why they did things the way they did. He asked for input from lots of folks who had been with the company much longer than
he.
Before very long, the people who had been so resistant to his
leadership early on were beginning to trust him, listen to him, and actually appreciate his fresh perspective. “The most
accomplished leaders use their most precious asset to its fullest—their ability to use conversation to enlist support and get
the people around them involved in creating a fundamentally new future,” says Kim Krisco in Leadership and the Art of Conversation
. This is precisely what Walt learned to do. He discovered the hidden asset to unlocking his leadership
potential—the power of conversation.
“There’s a huge difference between the opportunity to have your say and the opportunity
to be heard.” Jim Collins
Leadership Lessons: Interrogate Reality
Conversations are the work of a leader and the workhorses of
an organization. If you think about it, the business of any organization, team, or family group is fundamentally
a conversation. Leadership manifests in conversation. What distinguishes extraordinary leaders from
ordinary ones is the quality of the leadership conversation. As a leader, your job is to accomplish the goals
of the organization and the way you will do that is to make every conversation as real as possible.
In Good to Great
, Jim Collins emphasizes the importance of authentic conversation. His research shows
the companies that make the leap from good to great have created cultures that give people the opportunity
to be heard, the brutal facts confronted, and the implications acted upon. A good-to-great leader, according
to Collins, has the humility to admit he doesn’t understand enough to have the answers and to ask the
questions that will lead to the best possible insights. All good-to-great companies had a penchant for
intense dialogue in which people engaged in a search for the best solutions. “When you start with an
honest effort in order to determine the truth of your situation, the right decisions often become self-evident.”
Susan Scott calls this process the “Mineral Rights” conversation—a process of interrogating reality based
on the principle that if you’re drilling for water, it’s better to drill one hundred foot well than one hundred
one-foot wells! Mineral Rights help you drill down deep on a topic to interrogate reality, provoke learning,
tackle tough challenges and enrich relationships. “This conversation is not about holding forth on your point
of view, but about provoking learning by sitting with others and jointly interrogating reality. Questions, rather
than answers provoke learning.” (from Fierce Conversations
)
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Great Questions for a Mineral Rights Conversation
What should we be worried about?
What is currently impossible to do that, if it were possible, would change everything?
What topic are you hoping I won’t bring up?
If you were hired to consult with our company, what would you advise?
If you were competing against our company, what would you do?
What is the area that, if we made an improvement, would give us the
greatest return on time, energy and dollars invested?
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“All conversations are with myself, and sometimes they involve other people. Each of us is a place where conversations occur.”
Susan Scott
TIPS, TOOLS AND PRACTICES: High Stakes Conversations
In Fierce Conversations, Susan Scott puts forth the notion that our work, our relationships, our lives succeed
or fail one conversation at a time. Whether you are running an organization or your life, each conversation
you have with coworkers, customers, significant others and children either enhances those relationships,
flatlines them, or diminishes them. When we compromise our standards of how we talk, how often, what we
talk about and, most importantly, the level of authenticity we bring to our conversations, relationships
deteriorate. With this in mind, how much attention do you want to give to the conversations you have with the
people most important to you?
What are the conversations you’ve been unable or unwilling to have—with your boss, colleague, employee, your spouse, child or yourself—that if you were able to have, might change everything? “We can have the
conversations needed to create the results we say we want in our lives, or we can have all of our reasons
why we can’t have those conversations. Reasons or results…we get to choose. To the degree that your are
fierce with yourself—passionate, real, unbridled, uncensored—a Mineral Rights conversation will help you
shine a light on that issue of yours, the one growling in the dungeon, and live to tell about it,” according to
Scott. Here’s how.
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The Mineral Rights Conversation with Myself
Write down your response to each of the following questions. Do not
edit your responses. Just write.
Step 1: Identify your most pressing issue. The issue I need to resolve is…….
Step 2: Clarify the issue. What is going on? How
long has this been going on? How bad are things?
Step 3: Determine the current impact. How is this
impacting me? What results are currently being produced for me by this situation? How
is this issue currently impacting others? What results are being produced for them by this
situation? When I consider the impact on myself and others, what are my emotions?
Step 4: Determine the future implications. If nothing changes, what’s likely to happen? What’s at stake for me? For others? When I consider these possible outcomes, what are my emotions?
Step 5: Examine my personal contributions to this issue. How
have I contributed to the problem?
Step 6. Describe the ideal outcome. When this issue is
resolved, what difference will it make? What results will I enjoy? What results will others
enjoy? When I imagine this resolution, what are my emotions?
Step 7: Commit to action. What is the most potent
step I could take to move this issue toward resolution? What’s going to attempt to get in my
way, and how will I get past it? When will I take this step?
Contract with Yourself…During this fierce conversation with
myself, I’ve identified a potent step to take to begin to resolve this issue. I have chosen
the date by which I will take this step. There will be other steps. This is the
first. I commit to taking it.
action________________________________ today’s date____________
Now take a break. Walk around. Breathe. Breathing is good!
From Fierce Conversations
by Susan Scott
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© 2008 Bette George & Associates, Inc. All rights reserved.
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, an e-newsletter by Bette George, website: www.bettegeorge.com email: bette@bettegeorge.com.”
Conversations on Leadership and Life is a bi-monthly e-newsletter written by Bette George of Bette George
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to help you begin to create the change you want to see in yourself, your workplace, your community.
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