The UnAccountables are gangs of renegades hiding in nearly every organization across the corporate frontier. Perhaps you’ve come head-to-head with the UnAble, the UnMotivated, the UnDiagnosed—or even all three—a time or two. When you found yourself in a showdown with one of these outlaws, did you know how to hold them accountable? Watch our new video featuring these bandits and learn more about our new Crucial Accountability Companion Course at www.vitalsmarts.com/unaccountables. Related posts: Special Announcement: Introducing the NEW Crucial Conversations! Accountability or Forgiveness? Seeking Accountability

According to our recent poll, 43 percent of employees experienced a déjà vu performance review in 2012—negative performance feedback that surfaces year after year. Nearly two out of three employees say they’ve received negative feedback, and yet only one out of three has ever made a dramatic change based on this feedback. The research shows the typical performance review cycle includes managers giving employees the same negative feedback year after year with little effect on performance. One reason performance reviews are largely ineffective is employees lack the ability to put their performance feedback into action. In fact, 87 percent of respondents say they left their review without a plan for how to better meet their managers’ expectations. Here are seven tips for how employees can make the most of their performance reviews this year: 1. Ask for detailed feedback. Specific, behavioral feedback of both your accomplishments and challenges allows you to know the exact behaviors to replicate and change. After receiving detailed feedback, let your manager know you’re eager to learn and improve. 2. Visit your default future. Motivate yourself to change by visiting your "default future"—the career you’ll be stuck with if you fail to improve performance and are repeatedly passed up for promotion. 3. Invest in professional development. New habits always require new skills. Actively develop the skills you need to be viewed as a top performer through training, workshops, or books—but make sure this is only one part of a bigger change strategy. 4. Find a mentor. Changing habits requires help. Find a trusted mentor to encourage your progression and help you navigate the career development opportunities that exist within the organization. 5. Put skin in the game. Tie your performance to your compensation such as making your year-end bonus dependent on your ability to hit your improvement goals. Or set aside a portion of each paycheck. If you hit your goals, reward yourself at the end of the year. If you fall short, make out a check to a political party you oppose. 6. Control your workspace. Make your new habits easier by enlisting the power of your surroundings. If you’d benefit from close association with another team, ask to move offices. When possible, turn off electronic interruptions that keep you from being as productive as you need to be to move ahead. 7. Let your manager see your advances. Eagerly continue on the path to high performance. Nothing heals the wounds of disappointment like surprising and delighting your manager in the future. Register today to join New York Times bestselling author David Maxfield for a 40-minute webinar where he’ll share important insights from our recent research study, as well as applicable tips for making sure you don’t get caught in a negative review cycle. Related posts: Crucial Applications: How to Overcome a Career-Limiting Habit Crucial Applications: Office Haunting—How to Have Scary Conversations at Work Crucial Applications: Tax Refund Tips to Jump-start Financial Savings Habits

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Joseph Grenny is coauthor of four New York Times bestsellers, Change Anything, Crucial Conversations, Crucial Confrontations, and Influencer. READ MORE Dear Crucial Skills, Since our organization runs 24/7, it’s sometimes difficult to communicate face-to-face with all employees. Our managers often use e-mail to communicate important messages, including giving performance feedback. Would you share your thoughts on what is and is not appropriate to communicate by e-mail? Signed,Performance e-view  Dear Performance e-view, When my son, Hyrum, was three years old, he began to sense at times that he didn’t have my full attention. This was the early days of e-services and I was beginning to get emotionally wired into e-mails and other web services. He would toddle into my office and begin chattering about something important on his mind. I would respond minimally. And at some point, he would climb onto my lap, obstructing my view of the computer screen, place both hands on either side of my face, turn my head so my eyes locked onto his, and say something wonderful like, "Dad, do you know what Muffy did today?" In taking control of my head, he was doing more than just trying to focus my attention. He was satisfying his. Our brains dedicate a disproportionate amount of our cognitive resources to observing faces. We become fluent in reading body language long before we master verbal language. Infants can distinguish a human face from inanimate objects or even animal faces. Why the fixation on faces? Because they are the primary tool we use for discerning the intentions of those around us. Our primal programming urges us to assess any being that enters our visual neighborhood. There’s enormous survival value in being perpetually aware of whether those around us intend us harm and whether they’re capable of carrying it out. And nature has endowed us with great facility in making these judgments by reading nuances of the human face. Therein lies the principle for determining when a crucial conversation can be held virtually and asynchronously. The fundamental question is, "Can I do this well without seeing his or her face?" I have a few—not many, but a few—relationships where I can text almost anything and get away with it. Yes, even something a bit terse like, "Your last report was light on facts." And the only reason I can get away with it is because, in these rare instances, if their face puckers up in some unpleasant way, they’ll tell me. They know me well enough that they can imagine the face I had on when I wrote it (curious, but not angry), and if they doubt the mental picture they have of me, they’ll ask. But these are rare relationships. They’re rare because we tend to trust visual data more than verbal. If someone says, "No, I’m not angry at you," but their lip is twitching while they say it, we trust the lip not the words. This becomes problematic in virtual conversations because the massive mental resources that would ordinarily be occupied with scanning your face have nothing to scan, so they imagine it. They might read the words, "Your last report was light on facts" while seeing your face filled with disdain and your lip curled into a snarl. And they’ll trust their imagined picture of your face to give them a proper sense of the threat level you’re communicating. I watched this happen once with a very seasoned executive. She sent a letter to an important stakeholder that her boss, the CEO, later saw and judged to be inappropriate. He called her from overseas while on travel. His first words when she picked up the line were, "I read your letter. I’m disappointed." It wasn’t just the sentence that threw her into a panic. It was the face she conjured in her mind. Her audio and imagined visual experience of that brief exchange led her to flee the company just a few months later. So, here’s my advice: 1. If you need to see the face, don’t write the e-mail. You should always match the bandwidth of your connection with the riskiness of the conversation. If you need lots of visual data in order to ensure your message is being received as intended, wait until you have a high bandwidth connection (e.g., face to face or Facetime to Facetime). 2. If you have to write the e-mail, write it twice. Sometimes, you don’t have the option of delaying the feedback or getting in the same room with the other person (or some equivalent visual connection). In these cases, write the message first to get your content across. Then read it slowly, imagining the other person’s face. Empathize. Try to put yourself in the other person’s swivel chair and imagine how they might feel at each point in your message. Then re-write it with safety in mind. Don’t compromise the content by sugarcoating it or watering it down. Rather, notice those places they may misunderstand your intentions or your respect and clarify what you do and don’t intend for them to hear from you (or see on your face). In less formal relationships, I’ll sometimes describe the facial expression I’m wearing as I write something just to make that clearer! Imagine me looking grateful as you read this last sentence: Thank you for asking this important question! Warmly,Joseph Related posts: Addressing Mediocre Performance Responding to Confidential Feedback Out-of-Sync Performance Reviews

Bad behavior runs rampant in the workplace. The healthcare industry is no exception. The American Medical Association’s Council on Ethical and Judicial Affairs defines disruptive behavior as behavior that "tends to cause distress among other staff and affect overall morale within the work environment, undermining productivity and possibly leading to high staff turnover or even resulting in ineffective or substandard care." Research among healthcare providers found widespread incidence of disruptive behaviors such as verbal abuse, sexual harassment, racial slurs, physical threats, and profanity. Specifically: 91 percent of perioperative nurses reported at least one incident of verbal abuse in the previous year 67 percent of staff nurses reported between one and five disruptive incidents in the previous month One of the most common manifestations of bad behavior occurs between nurses and physicians in the form of power struggles and clashes over roles and personality. One study found that 95.7 percent of physician executives reported knowledge of disruptive physician behavior within their organization. Not only is verbal abuse pervasive, it is also destructive. Research shows disruptive behavior leads to communication breakdowns that affect outcomes like patient safety and employee morale. Specifically, a study of twenty-six medical residents found that failures of communication between physicians and nurses were associated with 91 percent of the medical errors. Verbal abuse also leads to medication errors which harm 1.5 million patients each year. A study by the Institute for Safe Medication Practices found that 93 percent of nurses and pharmacists experience condescending language and impatience from bully physicians when they ask clarifying questions about medical orders, and 87 percent encountered physicians who outright refused to answer their questions. As a result, 75 percent of nurses and pharmacists admitted to having a peer interpret a medication order rather than calling an intimidating physician. Rebecca Saxton, PhD, RN, CNOR, and associate professor at the Research College of Nursing in Kansas City, Missouri, set out to uncover ways to reverse this divisive trend of abusive physician behavior and communication breakdowns. She collaborated with VitalSmarts to create an educational intervention tailored to the nursing experience that included the two-day Crucial Conversations Training course. The Solution: Read our case study to learn how Rebecca used Crucial Conversations Training to improve perioperative nurses’ confidence and ability to address disruptive physician behavior. Related posts: Case Study: Influencer Training Helps Tennessee Health System Achieve 100% EHR Adoption Crucial Applications: Office Haunting—How to Have Scary Conversations at Work Does the path to action still include telling a story?

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Al Switzler is coauthor of four New York Times bestsellers, Change Anything, Crucial Conversations, Crucial Confrontations, and Influencer. READ MORE   Dear Crucial Skills, I have received feedback that my people skills are weak and that I am too direct, and I have been working to improve my performance in this area. I thought I had closed the performance gap, but based on feedback I’ve received, I think the behavior may still be present. Do you have any suggestions on how I might improve my people skills? Too Direct  Dear Too Direct, Given the distance, anonymity, and lack of details of your circumstance, it would be easy to share a few old adages as advice. However, I’d like to be as specific as I can so let me give it a whirl. I’d like to share a few questions you could ask yourself and suggest a few tactics that will hopefully help you and our other readers. First Question: What is the source of the feedback? Often, the feedback we receive comes from a manager. That feedback naturally becomes important, but sometimes you need to clarify that feedback by seeking additional sources. What does a mentor think about the feedback? What does a coworker think about the feedback? What do your direct reports think about the feedback? You are not trying to negate the feedback; you are trying to clarify it, and other perspectives can help. For example, you might have a conversation that goes like this. "Could we talk about a confidential topic? I’ve received feedback that I need to improve my people skills and that I’m too direct." (Notice I didn’t use weak; I think that word is too value loaded.) "I’m wondering what specific behaviors you’ve seen and what advice you would give me." Again, the purpose is to get clarity, not to get evidence to refute your boss. Second Question: Is the feedback specific? In your particular case, I think the feedback is too vague. "People skills are weak and too direct" are both bundles of behaviors or conclusions. Neither will help you improve your behavior and thus your results and relationships. Clearly, the tactics in the first question are related to this issue of clarity. In this second question, the responsibility rests entirely with you to ask enough questions to make sure you know specifically what the feedback means at the behavioral level. What are you actually saying or doing that reflects poorly on your people skills. What behaviors are at the root cause of your manager’s concern? When you receive the feedback, be sure to ask questions for clarity. If you don’t immediately ask questions and need time to reflect on your behavior first, be sure to take the time you need and then return to your manager and uncover specifics behind his or her concerns. Here are a few clarifying questions you might ask: Could you tell me what you mean by "my people skills are weak?" Could you share a specific example of something I did or didn’t do that has caused you to think this about me? Do you have any suggestions for handling similar situations in the future? Similarly, you could ask questions about what was meant by being "too direct." To dive deeper here, ask for specific times when you are too direct. Does your directness show up as anger or sarcasm? When you give feedback, do you roll your eyes? Do you come in with a monologue and seldom ask questions to get another’s perspective? Do you focus on the task at the expense of the relationship? Some managers clearly value accuracy more than harmony—they value getting it right more than they value getting along. The best managers demonstrate that they value both. Do you play "gotcha" but never give praise or encouragement? Are you all business and no play? Do you only "lose it" when there is a deadline or a missed budget, or do you hold everyone accountable for every little thing? I won’t go on and on about the variations of being "too direct," but hopefully you can see what I mean by getting clarity at the behavioral level. At the end of this conversation, you should be more aware of what behaviors you need to change, and you can then make a specific behavioral plan to improve your people skills. Third Question: What can I do to improve? If you have clarity about the issue and that clarity has been enhanced by talking to others, you should be able to make a plan. I turn here to Change Anything: The New Science of Personal Success for a couple of key tactics. Begin by asking yourself, "What results do I want?" You might want your boss to give you a 4 or 5 on a performance appraisal instead of a 2 or 3. Or you might simply want him or her to state that you have improved in your next one-on-one meeting. Do you know your crucial moments? In what circumstances and with whom do you become too direct? When are you tempted to become angry and use sarcasm and not ask questions or listen? When you can pinpoint your moments of weakness, you will be more prepared to behave differently if and when these crucial moments arise. What are the vital behaviors you’ll use in these crucial moments? For example, you might identify these vital behaviors: When I see a performance issue, I will remain calm and ask myself, "Why would a reasonable, rational, decent person do that?" I will begin all conversations with an observation and question, not an emotion and conclusion. If I lose my temper or become sarcastic, I’ll call time out and sincerely apologize. There could be many different crucial moments and vital behaviors, but you need to select yours. And you’ll need to marshal enough sources of influence to help yourself stick to your behaviors. Do you vividly understand what will happen if you don’t improve and what the benefits will be if you do? Do you have the skills to enact your behaviors? Do you have the support of friends? Do you have cues to remind you about what you have committed to do? If you get enough sources of influence to encourage and enable you, you can make improvement almost inevitable. You will have created your own plan which will lead to your success. I wish you well,Al Related posts: When It’s Time to Let People Go Holding People Accountable What Happened: Time to Let People Go

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Andrew Maxfield is director of the Influencer Institute. What does poverty have in common with obesity? Both are conditions—states of being—that result from repeated behaviors over time—patterns of doing. If you’ve read Change Anything, you know that we claim both of these conditions can be dramatically and fundamentally altered by changing the habits that produce them. And habits hinge on pivot points called vital behaviors. Influencer Institute, a charitable private operating foundation funded in part by VitalSmarts, has applied a behavior-change approach to helping people escape the clutches of dire poverty in Oaxaca, Mexico through a partnership with an organization called Cause for Hope. Let me relate a few lessons we’ve learned that can perhaps help you in your own personal change efforts as well as in your training and coaching. First, insist on vital behaviors. There are many important and interesting behaviors, but few vital ones. You’ll know a vital behavior when you see it because other behaviors and results naturally follow if you get the vital behavior right. In the case of our experiments in Mexico, participants who lifted themselves out of dire poverty over the course of several months did just a few key things: They made and kept weekly commitments related to growing a small business. They kept daily financial records of income and expenses. They saved an increasing amount of money each week, even if in very small increments. Take Connie, for example. Now a proud owner of a children’s clothing store, she describes how her monthly income grew from less than $200 to over $400 (and still growing) and how she now has accumulated $800 in savings. Further, her husband’s earnings have improved substantially due to her influence. Her children will have opportunities that she never could have provided without focusing on her vital behaviors. Second, find or create a team. You might think that getting yourself out of poverty is your battle alone, that it’s a math problem involving your income and your expenses, period. And in a sense, that’s true—at the end of the day, you must be the one to enact the behaviors that change your condition. However, engaging the help and encouragement of supportive team members is a powerful component in an influence strategy to change your behavior. This has been the case in our work in Mexico, too. Each participant belongs to a "peer-mentoring group," which provides the vehicle for ongoing peer-accountability, motivation, and learning. At weekly group meetings, participants engage in a ritual of making and keeping a commitment relative to growing his or her small business and reporting on the prior week’s commitment. Group members hold each other accountable for making steady progress and also participate in joint problem-solving sessions. These participants are progressing together in ways they couldn’t (and didn’t) alone. Finally, consider a condition in your own life that you’d like to change. It might not be dire poverty, but there is at least one thing that you can learn from this experiment: results ensue when you pursue the vital behaviors. Related posts: Influencer Institute: Introducing the Influencer Institute—And a Call to Action! How can I help participants who are creating their own change plan in Influencer Training create an actual results statement? Vital Behaviors for Entrepreneurs

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Joseph Grenny is coauthor of four New York Times bestsellers, Change Anything, Crucial Conversations, Crucial Confrontations, and Influencer. READ MORE Dear Crucial Skills, How do you handle a job promotion when you are promoted from within your peer group? I was recently promoted to a manager position and oversee the team members that were once my peers. What is the most effective way to transition from team member to manager? Promoted  Dear Promoted, When I was ten years old, I was chosen by our elementary school principal to be on the Traffic Squad. As a symbol of my authority, I donned a purple two-cornered hat emblazoned with the name of our school—McKinley. I was feeling pretty full of myself until I discovered that my first assignment involved monitoring hand hygiene in the boys’ restroom. My visions of leading troops into heroic battles were dashed. Instead, I stood by the sinks with a No. 2 pencil and pad of paper recording the names of those who did not properly wash their hands. Tedium turned to terror when my own beloved teacher, Mr. Collins, completed his bodily duties, tucked in his shirt, then stalked past the sinks without so much as a rinse. I was torn. My responsibilities were clear. My authority immense. But could I hold a teacher accountable? And worse, would I rupture our relationship if I brought Mr. Collins to task? It can be tricky to assume a new role in an old social system. It can be as hard for you to see yourself in the new role as it is for others. If you fail to accept yourself in the new role, you’ll either shirk the leadership you have been asked to offer—or indulge your authority in a vain effort to convince yourself of your worthiness for the role. Neither option is good. Likewise, if others have difficulty honoring your new assignment they may either resist or resent your authority. They may also expect special favors—assuming their former peer relationship with you entitles them to some of the benefits accompanying the new office. How can you settle both yourself and others into the relationship? There are two crucial conversations you need to hold. The first is with yourself. You need to decide what it means—and doesn’t mean—to be the boss. When you’re comfortable within yourself, it would be wise to set appropriate expectations with others. Conversation with self: Are you in your own way? If you notice you are reticent to make decisions, hold others accountable, give assignments, or lead change, then you are getting in your own way. Similarly, if you find yourself needing to prove something by exerting your authority—making threats, giving orders, micromanaging—the problem is not others, it’s you. I suggest you spend some time pondering one important question: What does it mean to have power? Does it mean something about you? Does it mean you’re smarter, more deserving, more experienced, or more important than others? Is it about privilege? Or is it about responsibility? And if the latter, what are your responsibilities? I feel much more comfortable with authority when I remember that it is not power over but power to. It is not given to me as an intoxicating privilege, but as a special stewardship. When New York restaurateur Danny Meyer promotes a waiter to manager, he explains that his or her new position is like the gift of fire. "Fire is used in many ways—all analogous to your new duties," he teaches. "Fire can warm. Your duty is to encourage people. Fire is light. Your job is to teach. Fire can cook. Your duty is to strengthen and feed. Fire is a gathering place in many cultures. Your job is to build the team. Fire can also burn. There are rare times when you will need to use your power to give hard feedback. But do so carefully." You will continue to be self-conscious about your newfound power so long as you think it is about you. When you come to understand that it is more responsibility than ornament, you will feel less self-conscious and more conscious of others. You’ll worry less about what others think, and more about what you need to do. Conversation with others: Are they in your way? Once you’ve settled this in yourself, you may find that others are having a hard time accepting you in the new role. Don’t feel intimated by that. Remember, this is not about you. Your responsibility to serve does not change because others don’t think you deserve the job or feel bothered in some way by the need to respond to you differently than they did in the past. If you believe others may have some difficulty with this transition, talk about it. Have an explicit conversation either with key individuals or with the full team to set expectations. Share with them: What you expect of yourself. How you see your duties and what your team should expect in terms of support, guidance, feedback, etc. What are your goals? What are your standards? What will be different from the past? What will be similar? What you expect from them. Describe clearly what behavior and results you expect from the team. If you’ve seen worrying signs of behavior that will impede your team’s ability to perform, describe it. Describe why it is a problem. Be sure to frame the concerns in terms of performance and results, not ego and insult. Describe how decisions will be made. Lay out which decisions will be command (you’ll make them), consult (you’ll make them after involving the team), consensus (the full team must agree before proceeding), or vote (majority rules). Clarifying how decisions will be made will avoid future violated expectations or misunderstandings of your motives. Finally, if you think this transition will be bumpy, schedule in a follow-up conversation to check in with the team on how it’s working and to give them feedback on your views as well. As I watched Mr. Collins leave the bathroom, I pondered my response. Was he flouting my authority? Should I make a statement by writing him up? Would he be angry at me if I invoked my full powers against him? Amidst the turmoil, something in my fifth grade mind quieted enough that I could hear past the din of my ego. I had been given an assignment. The only important question was, would I do it? I calmly added Mr. Collins’ name to the list. The next year Mr. Collins promoted me to Traffic Captain. Best wishes in this exciting new growth opportunity. Joseph Related posts: Chaotic Boss Control Freak Coworker Coworker’s Personal Life

The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen R. Covey - Besides the fact that my name is in the acknowledgments (blush, blush), this seminal book legitimized inside-out learning and personal, interpersonal, and team development as necessary elements of effective leadership. Principles and paradigms become the building blocks instead of style and technique. Unsafe at Any Speed by Ralph Nader - This almost forgotten, but still incredible, book is about changing the car industry’s and the world’s notion of corporate accountability and the value of human life. Studying the motivations and strategies of this very successful Influencer can help inspire us all to understand how doing our work not only changes minds, but improves and saves lives as well. The Fifth Discipline: The Art & Practice of The Learning Organization by Peter M. Senge - Peter’s book pushes past simple answers and insufficient techniques to explain five disciplines used to lead and improve organizations. I especially value his explanation of "systems thinking" and "the learning organization" as both foundational concepts and tools.   Diffusion of Innovations by Everett M. Rogers - I keep thinking we’ve moved past his pioneering work, but his research is an absolute necessity for current leaders and Influencers. Who would have thought that getting innovation adopted and change in general is a social process? Related posts: Off the Author’s Bookshelf: What Joseph’s Reading Off the Author’s Bookshelf: What Ron’s Reading Off the Author’s Bookshelf: What Al’s Reading

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Kerry Patterson is coauthor of four New York Times bestsellers, Change Anything, Crucial Conversations, Crucial Confrontations, and Influencer. READ MORE Listen to Kerrying On via MP3 Listen to Kerrying On via iTunes "Captain Newton wants to speak to you," said the voice on the other end of the phone. "The captain?" I thought to myself. I’d only been out of training for a couple of months and already I’d done something wrong! Why else would the boss of the entire base be calling me, a lowly ensign? I was soon to find out. "This is Captain Newton speaking. You know that large dumpster that sits in front of the supply building?" Oh no. Nothing good could come from a dumpster. It stinks. It blocks his view. He hates it. "Yes sir," I responded. "I think it’s a Dempsey version, if I’m not mistaken." "Well," the captain continued, "I’ve noticed the past few days that it’s been filled with scrap wood. If nobody else wants it, I was wondering if it would be okay if I fished out a few pieces for my home fireplace—on my way home. That is, if nobody else wants it." "I’ll check with supply ASAP and see how to make it happen," I eagerly responded, taking pride in the fact that I had employed the military expressions "ASAP" and "make it happen" in the same breath. Next, I dialed the chief warrant officer in charge of supply and explained to him the captain’s request for the scrap wood—taking care to include the captain’s proviso, "if nobody else wants it." The supply officer said he’d take care of it and get back to me. Two hours later, when my phone finally rang it wasn’t the supply officer getting back to me. Instead, it was the captain’s wife. She thanked me profusely for the lovely wood for her fireplace. I graciously accepted her words of appreciation and then headed out to learn why the captain’s wife was so excited about a few pieces of scrap wood. Before I could track down the supply officer, I overheard the following conversation at the water cooler. "You can’t believe the old man. He calls us and demands that we cut up beautiful new boards so he can burn them in his fireplace. We go out to his home, measure the fireplace, cut expensive oak to fit it, band the wood, and deliver it so he can burn it! We’re reusing our typewriter ribbons in order to save money, and he’s burning oak." Soon the entire base was abuzz over "The Captain’s Fireplace." To find out how the original request had become so twisted, I talked to each of the people between me and the seaman apprentice who actually delivered the newly cut wood. It turns out that each person in the chain of command had faithfully passed on the request to the person below him, while making slight changes in the wording. This was much like the "telephone" game we played as kids where you whisper something in someone’s ear, that person whispers the same to the next in line (distorting it ever so slightly), and so on until the original expression, "Mrs. Whipple has a pimple," comes out the other end as, "Whip the purple carburetor." In this version of the "telephone" game, the chief warrant officer explained that he had called the chief petty officer and passed on that the "old man" wanted the wood in the dumpster. Note the term had switched from "captain" to "old man," and from what I thought was a tentative request ("If nobody else wants it"), to a mandate. The next person explained that he had told his direct report that the old man wanted new wood for his fireplace. He figured they’d better not use scraps filled with nails and jagged edges and run afoul of the captain. The next fellow thought to avoid getting in trouble they ought to measure the fireplace so it would fit. It wasn’t long until it was new oak that was being measured, cut, banded, and delivered to the captain’s home. Unlike the "telephone" game where the original expression follows a random path, the captain’s request followed a predictable one. The original request was altered to fit the story people were carrying in their heads about the captain—and all other senior leaders who ever abused their authority. Rumors always follow this route. In order for tales to be shared, first they must be plausible. If you suggest that a person everyone respects did something ghastly, typically the first person hearing the rumor stops it, checks the facts, and otherwise refuses to besmirch the good name of someone they like. The rumor never gets off the ground. In the case of The Captain’s Fireplace, if one person had thought, "The captain wouldn’t want us to cut up expensive lumber. Let me go check . . ." the problem would have been averted. For an unflattering story to be told, and then retold and twisted into something as bad as the wanton abuse of government property, the listener must have it in his or her head that the bizarre actions contained in the story are just the kind of thing the person in question would do. And the next person has to believe the same. It gets worse. In this instance, the story that was passed down the chain of command was not about this particular captain, but about everyone’s notion of a typical captain, and as such was infused with the characteristics of every abusive leader who came before him. Captain Newton suffered from a prejudice just as pernicious as if it had been based on his race or creed. He was "one of them" (a senior leader) and we all know how they behave. They abuse their authority, jerk people around, and get what they want. Tainted by this mental set, Captain Newton’s innocent request was eventually twisted into a ridiculous demand for personal gain. Given this proclivity to please the boss, coupled with the willingness to think the worst of others, leaders need to take care to ensure that their rough ideas or mere suggestions aren’t reframed by overzealous subordinates into rigid and foolish orders. Leaders must track their ideas as they flow through the organization. When a pile of scrap wood turns into a bundle of banded oak, take heed. This is not a feel-good story. This is a bad sign. As crazy requests come our way, we all have a responsibility to get to the root of the matter rather than simply pass on the ludicrous demand with a disgusted eye roll. For example, while I was meeting with a grad student a few years back, he took a call from his boss. The student was on educational leave from a company in The Netherlands, taking a masters course 5,000 miles away from his family, and working nearly every waking hour to finish his degree a full semester early. On top of all this, his boss back at headquarters was now asking him to take on a new task that would consume all of his time for the next month. This, of course, would flunk him out of school and cause him, his family, and the organization innumerable problems. The student explained the situation to his boss who responded, "A VP made the request. Do you understand? A VP wants you to do it and he wants you to do it within the next thirty days!" That was it. "Watch this," the student said. He then picked up the phone, called the VP, politely described his predicament, and ended by explaining that he would do whatever was best. The VP immediately backed off the request and explained that perhaps the young man could take up the task after he returned from his educational leave. They’d talk later. "I knew the VP wouldn’t want to cause me such grief," the student explained. So, he stopped, assumed the best of the person in authority, went back to the source, gathered the facts, shared his view, and together they made the right decision. Rather than piling one more story onto the stack of tales about selfish and thoughtless bosses, he now tells the tale of the thoughtful VP who cared about his family enough to put off a job until it better fit the young man’s circumstances. Granted, people do crazy things, make insane demands, and appear to be operating with less than a full deck far more often than we’d like to admit. And, like it or not, leaders aren’t exempt. Nevertheless, there’s no need to make matters worse by twisting ideas to fit our own worst image of others. Instead, we need to confront senseless ideas and absurd requests as they come our way. Start with your strongest tool. Assume others are rational—most people are most of the time. Search for the facts. Refuse to implement misguided ideas or commands until you’ve tracked down the original request and informed people about the potential consequences. In short, eliminate creating your own version of The Captain’s Fireplace. There are far better ways to warm your toes. Related posts: Kerrying On: Dealing with Deference Kerrying On: When Is Coercion an Acceptable Tactic? Kerrying On: A Christmas Gift

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Al Switzler is coauthor of four New York Times bestsellers, Change Anything, Crucial Conversations, Crucial Confrontations, and Influencer. READ MORE   Dear Crucial Skills, I feel very shy when speaking at a public place, whether in front of family members or colleagues, or in team meetings. Even if I have talking points, I struggle to share my thoughts. This is creating problems in my career as well as in my social life. Can you share some tips for overcoming my fear of public speaking? Overcoming Fear  Dear Overcoming Fear, You are certainly not alone concerning this fear—in fact, it ranks as many people’s number one fear. Perhaps, you’ve heard the joke by Jerry Seinfeld: "I read a thing that actually says that speaking in front of a crowd is considered the number one fear of the average person. I found that amazing—number two was death! That means to the average person if you have to be at a funeral, you would rather be in the casket than doing the eulogy." This bit of humor doesn’t downplay the seriousness of people’s fear to speak in public. As I address this issue with some advice, I take confidence in the conclusion we uncovered when researching our book, Change Anything—people can and do change all the time. I’ll also share some of the principles and tactics from that research as well as my own personal experience. Learn some lessons from snakes. We’ve been fortunate to associate with world-renowned psychologist Dr. Albert Bandura for decades. He has done foundational research on behavior change. One of his early studies dealt with people who had a serious snake phobia. So serious in fact that their fears kept them from work, from outings with their friends and family, and even from going out to dinner or seeing a movie. And most lived with this paralyzing condition for many years despite trying various "cures." Dr. Bandura put a small ad in a paper inviting people with this problem to come to the basement of the psychology department at Stanford. What did he do? Or more importantly, what did he not do? He didn’t lecture. He didn’t rely on verbal persuasion. As you probably know, others speaking to you endlessly about the fact that many people feel shy and scared or that those in the audience want you to succeed isn’t motivating enough to get you over your fear. Lectures don’t produce results. Dr. Bandura didn’t lecture, instead he used vicarious experience. Vicarious experience works by allowing people to safely watch others do the behaviors that lead to the desired outcome. He asked the people with a phobia of snakes to watch the therapist handle a snake in order to see what happened. Small step by small step, the subjects saw someone model a safe way to handle a snake in a way that also appeared doable. And, after three hours of this observation, the subjects sat with a boa in their laps. Their fear dissipated because they had a vicarious experience that taught them that they could deal with snakes safely. The advice: don’t rely on your personal thoughts or the verbal persuasion of others. Rely on your own experience. The next tip deals with how you might do that. Create an opportunity for safe, deliberate practice. I’m suggesting a number of doses of vicarious experience for you. Can you set up a situation where you see others practice some of the small steps of speaking in public? You don’t want to start by giving a talk and getting feedback. That’s what you fear. You want to watch others read short segments and have other people tell the speaker what they liked. Then step by step, you can watch, respond, try, try again, increase the length and difficulty of the speech, and repeat until speaking becomes more natural. Such deliberate practice in a supportive and safe environment will give your brain evidence that you need not fear. One option is Toastmasters. Their model: "A Toastmasters meeting is a learn-by-doing workshop in which participants hone their speaking and leadership skills in a no-pressure atmosphere." They have a process that can at least get you started. And I’m sure there are other groups and online resources that will allow you to start. Nothing that I can advise is more important than encouraging you to find a way to have safe, deliberate practice. First work on your competence and that will build your confidence. This is true for overcoming fear of snakes, fear of public speaking, and all sorts of other fears. And now a word on shyness generally. Over the years, I’ve chatted in depth with a number of people who are sad, lonely, or disappointed in ways that they attribute ultimately to their shyness. Now I’m not saying that introversion is better or worse than extroversion. I’m talking about a group of people who claim to be shy and claim that their shyness is a cause of their misery. To this group, I also advise small, safe steps in a way that helps with deliberate practice. As I’ve observed and coached some of these folks, I’ve noticed that they have a problem with initiating and reciprocating. When someone smiles at them, they don’t smile back. When someone greets them and asks, "How are you doing?" they say "Fine" and don’t greet and inquire in response. Also they don’t initiate smiles, greetings, or inquiries. This pattern is true in other interpersonal encounters. They don’t invite people to lunch. They don’t invite others at the water cooler to have small talk. And they don’t reciprocate when someone invites them. Because of this lack of reaching out to others, sooner or later, it seems, others quit initiating the smiles, greetings, inquiries, and invitations. The consequence is that the "shy" person feels left out, unhappy, or lonely. In your question, you mention that you are very shy and that it is affecting your personal and professional life. I address this larger issue, because you may want to use the same advice to create for yourself opportunities for safe, deliberate practice. Find several friends with whom you can practice smiling, greeting, making eye contact, shaking hands, small talk, and invitations. Then ask the friends to coach you privately when you are trying your new skills in other settings. Too many people justify the less-than-desired results they have by saying, "That’s just the way I am." I believe that by working carefully and safely to increase our skills and competence, we can change for good. I wish you well,Al Related posts: Overcoming Career-Limiting Habits Overcoming Procrastination Change Anything: Overcoming Addiction-Part Two

We’d like to create an e-book on how to best communicate online. The first step requires getting your input. For example, how often do you turn to social networking sites to handle crucial conversations? Do you primarily witness social media communication masters or disasters? Help us find out by taking this 3-minute survey. Those who complete the survey will receive the e-book once we’re done compiling the data as well as a free MP3 download from our Crucial Conversations Audio Companion. Listen as author Joseph Grenny shares how adding input to the pool of shared meaning increases our capacity to take unified action. Thank you for your help! Related posts: How to Change Social Norms at the Office Facing a Crucial Conversation? How do you hold a crucial conversation via e-mail?

ABOUT THE AUTHOR David Nelson is a VitalSmarts Master Trainer. READ MORE How do I handle participants who are quiet or who don’t participate? Healthy class participation can be a function of the students, the facilitator, or sometimes both! Since we can’t control the students (no matter how badly we’d love to), the solution starts with you. Examine Your MotivesMaking sure our motives are "right" is one of the first things we should do when dealing with a quiet class. Ask yourself: What is your desired outcome for the participants in the class? Do you want the class to participate for your own self-aggrandizement, to keep the class interesting, or because you believe it enhances learning? Do you want them to think you’re a great facilitator, tell others about the course, or simply enjoy their class experience? Examine Your MethodsHere are a couple of specific mechanics you can use to invite healthier participation: Point & assign: Point to a quieter table/group before asking the question, "I’d like to ask this table what they think about . . ." Break it into small parts: If the class doesn’t seem to talk a lot as a large group, ask them to discuss the answer in their table group or with a neighbor. Often, if they are a quiet class, they are more likely to participate one-on-one rather than in a large group. Work the crowd: Establishing a better relationship with participants during breaks and during group work can drastically change participation. Improving your individual relationship with class members can collective increase safety and change their perspective of you. Related posts: How do I respond to participants’ concerns about participating in training? What are some ways I can further participants’ learning after the training? How can I help participants who are creating their own change plan in Influencer Training create an actual results statement?

ABOUT THE EXPERT Steve Willis is a Master Trainer and Vice President of Professional Services at VitalSmarts. READ MORE My sons hate practice—piano, soccer, math—you name it. If it’s the least bit related to practice, they hate it on principle. They even started hating other words that sound like or rhyme with practice. For example, last year we hiked the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu in Peru. In preparation for the four-day trek, we decided to do a number of practice hikes. Now, my boys enjoy hiking—until I inserted the word "practice" in front of it. "We know how to hike. Why do we need to practice something we already know?!?!??" After many years, I’ve now come to expect this from teenage boys. Fast forward to a recent executive development session I conducted. The mere mention of practice stirred the group into a frenzy: "We understand the concept—why do we need to practice?!??!" In that moment I caught a glimpse of my whiny boys’ future. And while I expect it from my teenagers, I was surprised to hear this from execs. It was like they forgot that development was the key component in executive development. So why do we practice? To torture teenagers and executives? To experience the higher pitches of their vocal ranges? No. Why, then? Ethna Reid, a master educator from the Exemplary Center for Reading Improvement, provides a definitive answer to this question, "If you want to know if you’re changing behavior you have to see it immediately." Our goal is to change behavior, and for that to happen, practice is required. So here are a few tips to make practice more effective. Allot enough time to practice. So many trainers, when running short on time, skip and/or drastically cut practice time. If you can’t practice it, don’t train it. Practice until they get it correct. Participants who attempt a new skill and fall short should be praised for their effort. And they should also be coached and allowed the chance to do it correctly before moving on. Make it observable. If you can’t observe their practice, you have no idea the degree to which their behavior is changing, if at all. Have participants write it out, say it out loud, or otherwise demonstrate the skill so you can evaluate their progress and give feedback (both positive and negative). This doesn’t mean a person has to stand up and share in front of the whole class—practice is often best done in smaller groups. So when you are working in smaller groups, be careful to float from group to group so you can observe the participant group progress as a whole. Practice doesn’t make perfect, but it sure helps. Related posts: From the Road: Just What the Doctor Ordered From the Road: "Bueller . . . Bueller . . ." From the Road: Do You Know Where Your Participants Are?

According to our recent poll, slacking coworkers cause a quarter of their hard-working colleagues to put in four to six more hours of work each week. Goodwill isn’t the only victim in this situation—productivity, satisfaction, and quality also suffer. In fact, four out of five say the quality of their work declines when they have to pick up their coworkers’ slack—a huge potential blow to the bottom line when you consider that 93 percent have a coworker who doesn’t do his or her fair share. With such a great toll on resources, what do the majority of employees do when faced with slacking coworkers? Unfortunately, not much. The study shows that only 10 percent speak up and hold their underperforming colleagues accountable to their bad behavior. The top five reasons employees list for biting their tongues: 1. They don’t believe what they say will make a difference 2. They don’t want to undermine the working relationship 3. It’s not their place 4. They fear retaliation 5. They don’t know how to approach the conversation Here are five tips for candidly and respectfully holding coworkers accountable for bad behavior: 1. Suspend judgments and get curious. Perhaps your coworker is unaware of the effects of his or her actions. Enter the conversation as a curious friend rather than an angry coworker. 2. Make it safe. Don’t start by diving into the issue. Establish safety by letting your coworker know you respect him or her and reminding him or her of the mutual goals you share. 3. Share facts and describe the gap. Start with the facts of the issue and strip out accusatory, judgmental, and inflammatory language. Then describe the gap between what was expected and what was delivered. 4. Tentatively share concerns. Having laid out the facts, tell your coworker why you’re concerned. Help your coworker see the natural consequences of his or her actions. 5. Invite dialogue. Next, ask if he or she sees the problem differently. If you are open to hearing others’ points of view, they’ll be more open to yours. To view an entertaining video about slacking coworkers and access an online game to test your accountability skills, visit vitalsmarts.com/unaccountables. Related posts: Crucial Applications: How to Talk Politics with Friends—and Still Have Some Left Crucial Applications: Office Haunting—How to Have Scary Conversations at Work Crucial Applications: Overcoming the "Nasty versus Nice" Debate

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Joseph Grenny is coauthor of four New York Times bestsellers, Change Anything, Crucial Conversations, Crucial Confrontations, and Influencer. READ MORE Dear Crucial Skills, My father is nearing retirement age, and we have strong reason to believe he is in some serious financial trouble. He receives all of his credit card bills electronically (which means my mother doesn’t see them) and he refuses to tell her what the balance is on these cards. We are also aware of two risky "investment" ventures he put on the credit cards that did not pan out. My mom’s debit card was recently rejected for insufficient funds when she tried to purchase groceries, even though their joint salaries are more than enough for them to live comfortably. I am very worried that my father is in a deep financial hole but is too proud to ask for help—or even admit that he needs help. How do I talk to my extremely defensive father about his finances and get him the help he needs? Worried Daughter  Dear Worried Daughter, One of the key principles of Crucial Conversations is to ensure you’re having the right conversation. That means not just that you’re talking about the right thing, but that you’re also talking with the right person. The first conversation you need to have is with your mother. If you are an adult child—unless you are an executor of your parents’ estate—you are not responsible for dealing with your father’s financial mistakes or misbehavior. Your mother is. If he is in financial trouble, she is the one he is affecting, and, therefore, is the one responsible to speak up, set boundaries, and hold him accountable for transparency. In many families, the children get into a pattern of creating what psychologist Martin Seligman calls learned helplessness. They cultivate a family member’s inability to solve their own problems by rescuing them from uncomfortable challenges—like crucial conversations. Let’s face it, none of us relishes crucial conversations of the sort you’re describing. Imagine how ashamed your father might feel when confronted with evidence of his bad judgment or withholding information from your mother. Who would want to have that conversation? What motivates any of us to step up in spite of our discomfort is experiencing the consequences of not having the conversation. When you step between others and their crucial conversations, you separate them from the consequences that would motivate them to develop the strength of character and competence required to build healthy relationships. In other words, we help them learn to be helpless. Your goal should not just be to solve this important problem, but to let it happen in a way that allows your parents to develop a healthier and more honest relationship. If you don’t, you could be part of the problem. I urge you not to talk with your father, but with your mother and your siblings. Refuse to talk with her about problems behind your father’s back. Express your confidence in her ability to address her own problems. Offer to coach her or even practice with her, but avoid having any conversation with her where the intent seems to be to arouse your pity, convince you of her helplessness, or frame the problem as exclusively your father’s. If things are truly bad, they have become so as much through your mother’s passivity as your father’s stubbornness. I know this is a much harder road to take than simply gearing up to talk to your dad. Trust me, I know this from very personal experience. But it’s my honest view of the right road to take. Best wishes,Joseph Related posts: Crucial Applications: Tax Refund Tips to Jump-start Financial Savings Habits Helping a Grieving Brother Helping a Friend Get Help

To help more of our readers with their crucial conversations, confrontations, and behavior change challenges, we recently introduced the Community Q&A column! Please share your answers to this reader’s question in the comments below. Dear Crucial Skills, My husband spends an average of five hours a day playing video games and surfing the internet. I have attempted to confront him about the amount of time he spends on the internet and the effect it is having on our marriage, our children, and on himself. His response to my comments is, "I know I have a problem, but it’s a problem I’m not ready to deal with yet." How can I best address this issue without resorting to divorce or separation? I am tired of trying to "deal with it" until he is ready. A Gamer’s Wife Related posts: Community Q&A: Encouraging Others to Cut Back Community Q&A: Overcoming Cultural Differences with Crucial Conversations Community Q&A: Talking Respectfully to Your Toddler

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Joseph Grenny is coauthor of four New York Times bestsellers, Change Anything, Crucial Conversations, Crucial Confrontations, and Influencer. READ MORE Dear Crucial Skills, I lost my job due to a reduction in force and haven’t been able to find another job due to my age. Everyone seems eager to hire me until I show up for the interview and they discover that I am sixty-one years old. How can I prove to potential employers that I have a lot to offer, despite my age? Signed,Overlooked  Dear Overlooked, I have a dear friend who has been going through the same ordeal. It’s not a great time for anyone to be looking for a job. And I know that the repeated feeling of disappointment that comes when one after another hope falls through can lead to awful self-doubt at a time when you need motivation to continue to represent yourself boldly. Before I offer some unconventional advice, let me suggest that you need to know your rights. If you have been overtly discriminated against because you are over forty, there are legal avenues you can pursue. I will not comment on those but suggest you find out what is available to you. The challenge in your situation is not just helping employers know what you have to offer, it’s ensuring you retain a firm view of the value you have to offer as well. If you start doubting yourself, you’ll be more reluctant to stay in the search as well as telegraph your lack of confidence in interviews. First, let’s reframe the problem of a job search. The employer’s central question when searching for a new hire is, "Can I trust you to solve important problems for me?" That’s it. It’s all about trust. Since the only way an employer can truly know if they can trust you to solve their problems is to give you the job, they have to rely on proxies for trust in the hiring process. Giving you and 1,000 candidates the actual job would be too inefficient, so they use proxies—like education, previous job titles, salary levels, and letters of recommendation. They’ll even look for gaps in employment as a way of discerning if you have some hidden issues that made others want to avoid you. As we all know, these are incredibly imperfect proxies. Resumes offer facts and figures that hiring managers hope will reveal truth—but they obscure as much as they reveal. In addition, they aren’t particularly persuasive. Reading that someone worked at Acme, Inc. as a superintendent from 1978-1987 tells me nothing about the kinds of problems I can trust you to solve. So, if you can’t give the employer a direct experience with your ability to solve problems (i.e., by taking the job for a couple of weeks), and the facts and figures approach to building trust is ineffective and fraught with weakness, what can you do? Also, is there anything you can do to retain trust in your own ability to solve important problems so you’ll stay motivated and project confidence during the search? Yes. In fact, I have one suggestion that I believe can help with both. It’s the advice I offered my friend and it seems to be helping—no job yet, but the market is responding much differently. The principle is to stop giving facts and start telling stories. Give potential employers a vicarious experience with you. Throw away the resume or keep it in reserve for when the box-checkers demand that you check their boxes for them. But ensure the experience potential employers have with you engages them in interesting stories about the problems you are uniquely suited to solve. Think about it. If you want to sell a hamburger, you don’t list its ingredients. You show a picture of it. It’s juicy. It’s got a crispy piece of lettuce on it and a dollop of the exact mustard you love. Then you show someone taking a bite of it with eyes drooping in ecstasy. Why do you do this? Because it helps people trust that this hamburger might help them feel the way they want to feel. It’s a vicarious experience—and we trust stories more than we trust facts and figures. We like direct experiences best, but stories are a strong second. My friend (I’ll call him Greg) threw away his resume. He started over by answering the question, "What am I world class at?" He thought about his personal brand. What problems do I want people to feel I can solve for them? He is a world-class HR strategist. He has a way of elevating every conversation he is part of. He brings humor and happiness to a team. And he’s a brilliant teacher and communicator. After clarifying the three or four problems he solves better than most anyone in the world, he designed a document that read like a "movie trailer" rather than a "resume." He created a document that included stories told by others about him that made these points. It includes graphics of logos of companies he solved problems for—sure, as an employee—but the point is not that he worked there—it’s that he solved problems there. He added his own commentary to let them know what he liked about the experiences others told. When you finish this 1,500-word document, you desperately want to meet Greg. Oh, and I didn’t mention, but Greg is sixty-one years old and legally blind. He worries that he gets shrugged off for one or both of these reasons. As he reframed his life story in terms of problems he is brilliant at solving, he found that his age and his disability were natural parts of the unique strengths he ended up describing. He was able to frame his visual impairment, for example, in a story about a complex negotiation and he was able to describe how listening to nuances that led to a breakthrough was a direct result of limited visual distraction. You’ll find that when you prepare your pitch as a story (movie trailer) rather than a eulogy, you’ll rediscover your own special value. You’ll bolster your confidence that you’re representing a product that deserves good representation. You’ll stop letting yourself be a prisoner to HR boxes that make you worry your age is a deficit and make it clear to both yourself and others that this is part of the reason they can trust you to contribute. Good luck telling your story. I hope you find the perfect place to serve and contribute. Warmly,Joseph More from Joseph Grenny on Forbes: Read Joseph’s latest article, "There’s Nothing Like a Financial Crisis to Bring Out The Best In People," to learn about the importance of vulnerability, sacrifice, and integrity during a financial crisis. Related posts: Seeking Accountability Shady Past Seeking a White-Collar Job Seeking an Honest Relationship

ABOUT THE AUTHOR David Maxfield is coauthor of two New York Times bestsellers, Change Anything and Influencer. READ MORE Dear Crucial Skills, I work as a nurse in the education department of a healthcare institution. I lead unit nurse educators whose role is to maintain the competence and educational skill level of the nursing staff on their units. They sometimes struggle with having a crucial conversation about safety or performance with a colleague who says, "It’s no big deal." How can I teach my nursing staff to hold their "friends" to a high standard without having the friend get defensive or tune them out? Nurse Educator  Dear Educator, Thanks for a great question. The issue you raise is relevant far beyond healthcare. Every organization has groups that are tasked with tracking and supporting best practices. Think of quality and safety departments in manufacturing, or human resources or IT departments in nearly every organization. Here is what happens. Everyone knows that your group owns the issue. In your case, your education department owns competency and skill building. A natural human reaction is to conclude that if you own it, then I don’t. In their minds, you become an enforcer and they act like drivers on the freeway who slow down when they see a cop but then speed again as soon as they’re out of radar range. They don’t take responsibility for their behavior. That’s why you hear them say things like, "It’s no big deal." It has become your issue, not theirs. There is no way that enforcement alone can drive good behavior. Not only does it fail to produce positive change, it makes the enforcers feel ineffective, unwanted, and unappreciated. But there are solutions. I’ll share a few ideas that come from our Influencer approach and have worked with many of our clients. Create an influence plan. Begin by meeting with the unit educators. Describe the problem and get them on board. They can never really succeed as long as they are seen as enforcers. Your team needs to get employees in the units to own the problem. Then they can play a supportive role by coaching, building skills, and getting access to resources. Make sure your team knows how their roles will need to change. Focus on measurable results. Determine a handful of measurable results that you and the units can track. For example, you might focus on infection control, falls, and patient and family experience. Pick the few that will have the greatest impact. If you include too many result areas, units will lose focus. Determine vital behaviors. Vital behaviors are the two to three actions that will drive the results if they are consistently and reliably employed. Some of these behaviors will be unique to the result areas you target. For example, wash in wash out reduces hospital-acquired infections; quick screens reduce falls; and bedside reports improve patient and family experience. Important to your case, a few vital behaviors span nearly every result area. One of these is 200 percent accountability, which means, "I’m 100 percent accountable for my own best practices and I’m also 100 percent accountable for your best practices." Instead of your education team members being the only ones to hold others accountable, everyone on the unit/team will hold everyone else accountable. This is the vital behavior that will fix the problem you describe in your question. But this is a tough behavior to implement. Making it work will require all Six Sources of Influence™. I’ll suggest one idea for each of the Six Sources. Personal Motivation—Create a value frame. Currently, employees in the units/teams are giving you and your nurse educators their compliance, not their commitment. They are focused on the enforcement of the rule, instead of the reasons for the rule. You could even say they are in a moral slumber. They aren’t attending to the very real personal impacts of their actions. For example, let’s say they are taking shortcuts instead of fully gowning up. When one of your staff reminds them, I bet they respond with "no big deal." Your staff needs to make it personal by focusing on the patient, not the rule. For example, "Imagine your daughter was on this unit and you were doing everything possible to keep her safe. Wouldn’t you want people here to gown up to protect her from infections?" Your goal is for employees in the units/teams to see holding each other accountable as watching out for each other. None of them wants to put their patients at risk and yet, we humans are all fallible. Despite our best intentions, we all make slips and errors. Team members need to give permission to (or request) their peers to watch out for them and to speak up when they see them slip. Personal Ability—Use deliberate practice. Team members need to decide how to remind each other. For example, "How would you like to be reminded if I see you forget to wash your hands?" They should compose the phrases they’d like to use to hold each other accountable. For example, "I’ll position the patient while you wash up," or "The dispenser is by the door." Then teams need to practice using these phrases. Talking about holding each other accountable isn’t as powerful as practicing holding each other accountable. A fifteen-minute practice is all it takes to turn good intentions into actual action. Social Motivation—Involve formal and informal leaders. You, as the manager of the education department, will want to meet with the unit managers to get their buy in. They need to understand that making their teams accountable for their own best practices is the best, most efficient way to improve performance. There will be times when someone will object to being held accountable. Maybe it’s a more experienced employee or a high-status professional who doesn’t want to be reminded by a newbie. In these cases, you want to provide easy and immediate support for the newbie. Having the formal leaders (the unit managers) on board is essential, but usually not enough. You’ll also want to reach out to informal leaders (the opinion leaders). Ask the manager, a physician, and a few other opinion leaders to play the champion role. They can explain why the issue (infection control, falls, etc.) is personally important to them. They can also provide that easy and immediate support when it’s needed. Structural Motivation—Reward small gains. This is where it gets fun. Instead of being enforcers, your team members become cheerleaders. Equip them with lots of ways to celebrate the improvements they see as units adopt 200 percent accountability and make progress on their results. You might give them gift certificates to use as recognition or provide funding for a few pizza parties. Structural Ability—Be the bridge to resources. This is another fun part of your new role. Your team members help units identify and bust through obstacles in their environment. For example, a team might complain that they don’t have enough hand-hygiene dispensers or that they aren’t always full and working. Your team takes on these kinds of challenges and gets to bring resources to the units. You are starting in a strong position because you already have nurse educators embedded in the units. The challenge now is to move the enforcement part of their jobs from the nurse educators to the staff members in the unit. Once staff members take responsibility for holding each other accountable, you’ll see rapid improvements in quality of care, safety, patient and family experience, and even staff satisfaction and engagement. David Related posts: How to Influence the Influencers Creating a Culture of Accountability Speaking Up For the Patient

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Kerry Patterson is coauthor of four New York Times bestsellers, Change Anything, Crucial Conversations, Crucial Confrontations, and Influencer. READ MORE Listen to Kerrying On via MP3 Listen to Kerrying On via iTunes The TV shows I watched as a boy frequently offered up scenes of a father, dressed in suit and tie, coming home from work, carrying an expensive briefcase, and whistling a happy tune. But that would be the end of any work references. Once the briefcase was stowed, no sitcom writer dared bring down the mood with sordid details about the nature of work itself. Consequently, the message of the 50s was as vague as it was odd. Work was a place that required actions of mysterious origins—ones that left employees whistling tunes at the end of the day. My own father painted a very different picture of the workplace. We watched our TV far from the white-picketed environs of the sitcom folk. The people in our neighborhood wore thick aprons and gloves at work in an effort to keep the gunk, slime, and glue off their clothes. You didn’t see my dad or anyone else from 25th Street whistling as they came home from work. The woman next door who gutted fish at the local cannery most certainly didn’t skip her way into her doily-adorned living room each evening. After work she went straight to the kitchen where she tried her best to scrub the stench of fish from her hands. Given the circumstances on our side of the tracks, adults complained endlessly about the backbreaking and mind-numbing nature of their jobs along with the stupidity and pettiness of their bosses. They hated their jobs. It’s what they talked about. It’s what they told jokes about. It’s what they wrote songs about. With this in mind, imagine my surprise some twenty years later when one day I found myself whistling as I walked out the door—on the way to work, no less. I loved what I did. I wore neither suit nor tie, but somehow I had found a way to extract pleasure from my job. What a shock. I had never dreamed that one day I would like work. At first, I thought my satisfaction stemmed from the fact that I had a career (i.e., it required neither protective clothing nor a lunch pail) as opposed to a job. I was wrong. I could easily find ways to be unhappy within my white-collar environment just as individuals in the blue-collar world find ways to love what they do. I discovered that it wasn’t the nature of the work itself that determined job satisfaction. It was something else—something far more elusive. Two decades passed before I met Rich Sheridan, a renowned entrepreneur and organizational philosopher. A few years earlier, Rich started his own software development company with the strong belief that creating software (some of which involved actual cartoon figures and cool sound effects) would be a genuine hoot. But then Rich learned that customers (no matter how cool the product) often changed their minds in the middle of the development cycle, leading to ugly meetings with lots of finger pointing and much gnashing of teeth. Plus, the code writers who worked with Rich soon became specialists, making it impossible for any of them to leave work early or, heaven forbid, take a vacation. If they did, they’d leave an intolerable vacuum. Employees were now chained to their desks. For Rich and his team, what had started as a gentle romp down candy cane lane was now a tortuous grind through the valley of unfulfilled expectations. Where had he gone wrong? More specifically, how could he turn his company into a place that left him with a tune on his lips at the end of each day? Rich discovered the answer. He made an extensive study of joy and then infused his company with it. Best of all, he’s soon to release a book titled Joy Inc. that teaches how to create an intentionally joyful culture. Now, I’m not about to scoop Rich’s book, but I will suggest the following. As I met with Rich and his team in his joyful facility in Ann Arbor, Michigan, I was immediately filled with his vision. The sitcoms of the 50s had been right. You can love your work. You can whistle as you walk through the door each night. But you have to want it, believe it’s possible, and work for it. I myself have experienced a bit of a work-related transformation as of late. For years I enjoyed a job that consisted of traveling the world, consulting, and designing training. It was exhausting, but I loved it. Then one day, I had my fill with travel. I was done. After more than twenty years of being a road warrior, I gave up my airline Gold Card to stay closer to home and devote my time to writing. Surely, this would bring me joy. After all, I love writing. I was wrong. Writing can be lonely. Very lonely. You spend a lot of time staring at a screen that openly mocks you with its ghastly emptiness. Soon, I didn’t care all that much for my job. It involved far too much isolation, mumbling, pacing, and self-ridicule. Unlike my childhood neighbor, I wasn’t gutting fish all day long, but like her, I wasn’t happy at work. So I prepared myself for retirement. I was certainly old enough to retire. Luckily, I recalled my visit with Mr. Sheridan and his compelling case for joy at work and felt inspired to find ways to infuse my own job with joy. In my case, it involved restructuring my daily tasks and bringing on another writer with whom I could collaborate while occasionally reenacting Three Stooges bits. I now look forward to work. Every single day. How one goes about finding pleasure in his or her job varies and I don’t want to underestimate how much effort (and risk) it might take to negotiate with your boss for more interesting work, restructure your job, gain a new perspective, or possibly even switch companies altogether. Nor will I go into the various sources of work satisfaction ranging from the thrill of creation to beating a goal to satisfying a customer to enjoying supportive relationships and so forth. Mr. Sheridan can teach you about creating an entire company filled with joy. Daniel Gilbert, author of Stumbling on Happiness, can alert you to what it takes to be happy in general. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, a job satisfaction guru, can teach you the elements required to enjoy any specific task at work. There’s plenty of help out there—once you decide to seek it. My point is far more modest. It’s this. We should expect to find joy at work and we should go out and seek it. Years of hearing about lousy jobs and reading statistics that suggest over half of all employees don’t like their work can lead one to expect to be unhappy at work. For many of us, it’s our go-in position. We may not think about it much or even talk about it—ever—but the idea that work equals dissatisfaction can be so deeply embedded into our psyches that it keeps us from hoping and asking for more. But we should hope and ask for more. We spend more time at work than just about anywhere else so it ought to be enjoyable. This doesn’t necessarily mean that in the ideal job employees routinely chase each other around with silly string, but a hoot once in a while or an excited sharing of a story should be common. Laughter should be common. Our default position should be that work—organized correctly—is pleasurable, and if it isn’t we need to make changes. Once this expectation is firmly set in our minds, we’ll start taking steps to find joy rather than develop methods for tolerating our existing miserable conditions. And from what I’ve personally experienced, joy is worth the search. Related posts: Dealing with Personal Issues at Work Kerrying On: A Holiday Gift for the Children

This letter was received in response to a question Joseph Grenny answered in the February 29, 2012 Crucial Skills Newsletter titled, "Influencing Unprofessional Dress." Dear Joseph, I am the "CEO" of this company—that is, I am the superintendent of schools of a 5,000-student K-12 district and my challenge was to get the building principals to agree that impressions do matter to our "customers." In public schools, we have a rather unique situation in that one never knows where the parents are on the "dress for success" spectrum. Some (like Joseph and some who responded to his column) do not like ties and suits (very few of us do!) and argued for a relaxed, personal approach to dress. But that doesn’t work when it comes to interacting with parents who are more likely (given that they’re taking the time to actually visit you rather than call or e-mail) to have an issue and are quite possibly mad and ready to draw conclusions of one sort or another. The impression we create for those parents matters, so we have to dress the part. However, my building leaders were often not setting a good example for the teachers in their school, and as a result, the entire building’s level of dress was unacceptable by most peoples’ standards. The occasional spirit day or casual Friday is totally fine and welcome in a school, but this was becoming the norm. So I decided to engage the leaders in a conversation. At our leadership council meetings we first talked about our impressions of the teachers’ dress and then about how we could be role models for them. Addressing the teachers’ dress was a secondary objective—they are unionized and for such "initiatives" we need to get union leadership on board. I decided to first discuss and then decree that leaders start wearing a jacket and tie (or the equivalent for women). Now, school leaders definitely look more professional. I’m not saying they wear three-piece suits, or even a suit, but the norm is now to wear a tie, and that has raised the general level of dress quite appropriately. In fact, I’ve started a conversation with union leadership about teacher dress. We’ll need to define terms such as "business casual" which means different things to different people, but there is consensus that such a term, once better defined, can and will help us get away from the ragged jeans and flip flops. I just cannot help but think how that type of dress harms our profession’s reputation and union leadership agrees, so perhaps we have some mutual purpose and common ground from which to operate when we begin step two of the dress for success campaign in our school district. Thank you once again for the advice and for the ensuing comments from your readers. Very helpful to me indeed! Editor’s Note: If you would like to share similar feedback about how the authors’ advice has helped you, please e-mail us at editor@vitalsmarts.com. Related posts: Influencing Unprofessional Dress Influencing the Education System What Happened: Time to Let People Go

ABOUT THE AUTHOR David Maxfield is coauthor of two New York Times bestsellers, Change Anything and Influencer. READ MORE Dear Crucial Skills, I have a beautiful, talented twenty-four-year-old daughter who is fifty pounds overweight. She is currently in graduate school and has not been in the job market for the last two years. I worry about her health, and the bias she will face seeking a job as an overweight individual, and I ache for her lack of a social life. I have been trying to serve healthy meals and discuss healthy eating at the dinner table, but I have stopped short of a direct crucial conversation with her. Now, she no longer goes on short walks and is doing even less physical activity than before. How can I open dialogue with my daughter about weight management? Worried Mother  Dear Worried, Crucial conversations with our closest loved ones can be the toughest and most rewarding conversations of our lives. They are challenging because you’re conflicted. You care deeply about your relationship and you worry that speaking up could threaten it. At the same time, you care deeply about your daughter’s health and happiness, so saying nothing isn’t an option. So, how do you speak up in a way that helps your daughter without undermining your relationship? Find Mutual Purpose. You are clearly concerned about her weight, and you’ve identified several potential consequences: health, bias, social life, and physical activity. You’ve also noted that weight is a touchy, unsafe topic for your daughter. I suggest you begin with the safest common ground, the one she is least likely to see as meddling—your fundamental concern for her health. I wouldn’t introduce the issues related to potential bias or her social life. And I would let her steer the discussion to weight. Help your daughter find her own motivation. Do your best to avoid giving advice, making suggestions, or lecturing. Instead, help your daughter explore her situation and decide for herself what she really wants. Begin with a contrasting statement. A contrasting statement is a "don’t/do" statement that is designed to fix misunderstandings. You can already anticipate that your daughter is likely to misunderstand your intent. She may think you intend to tell her how to live her life. Fix this misunderstanding before it has a chance to grow. The "don’t" statement explains what you don’t intend. It anticipates and addresses your daughter’s concerns: "I’d like to hear your point of view on a sensitive topic. I don’t want to intrude on your personal life or tell you what to do." The "do" statement explains what you do intend: "I just want to hear your perspective. I’ll respect your choices." Encourage your daughter to explore both sides of the issue. "Please tell me how you see your health—what’s working for you, and what’s not." Then stop talking and let your daughter respond. Don’t push your perspective. A mistake we often make is to state our position in a way that forces the other person to take the other side. Here’s an example of what that would sound like. Parent: "If you don’t begin exercising and eating right, it could have long-term impacts on your health and happiness." Daughter: "Not necessarily. I’m happy the way I am. Besides, with my school schedule, I don’t have time to cook food and go to the gym." You have advocated for one side and forced your daughter to advocate for the other side. And guess who’s going to win this argument? Focus on Mutual Purpose. Listen for what is working, rather than for what is not. Your daughter is likely to focus on the challenges that prevent her from living a healthy lifestyle. A good response from you would be, "Are you saying that you’re motivated to work on your health, but you’re struggling with how to do it?" If your daughter says she is motivated but unable, then you can offer your support and she might accept it. Know your limits and be willing to step back. There is a good chance your daughter won’t want to have this discussion with you. Even if she is concerned about her health, she might not want you to be involved. If that is the case, then I think you will be more successful if you respect her decision and back off. To you, this might feel like rejection when you are only trying to help, but please don’t take it that way. Even when your daughter shuts down the conversation, she is listening. Back off, give her some space, and allow her to think about her situation. Earn her trust by respecting her limits, and she might invite you to help her when she is ready. Other suggestions. Are there ways you can improve your own health behaviors? For example, are you eating fruits and vegetables, watching your weight, and getting plenty of exercise? Be a modest model. Don’t talk about it, but change your own behavior. Trust that your daughter will take notice. Change your home to make healthy eating and activities easier and more convenient. Keep fruit and vegetables visible, and make them appealing. Stop buying fatty, salty, and sugary foods. Consider replacing your plates with smaller ones and moving your TV to a less comfortable area. Introduce new, fun, muscle-powered toys. As you prepare for this crucial conversation, please remember that all the research confirms that parents are the most influential people in their children’s lives. You can have a real and positive impact in your daughter’s life. Take the chance and make a difference. Best wishes, David Related posts: Confronting a Child’s Drug Abuse Addressing Your Child’s Teacher Crucial Conversations for Kids

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Kerry Patterson is coauthor of four New York Times bestsellers, Change Anything, Crucial Conversations, Crucial Confrontations, and Influencer. READ MORE   Dear Crucial Skills, I have an aging mom who needs to be moved into an assisted living facility, but she just won’t hear of it. How can I have a conversation with her to help her understand that she needs to move so we will know she is safe? Concerned  Dear Concerned, Your mother is lucky to have a loving child who is concerned about her well-being and safety—enough so that you’re willing to step up to what many believe will be one of the most difficult conversations they’ll ever have. After all, you’re about to ask an aging parent to step away from a comfortable situation, complete with a familiar collection of belongings and friends, and enter a situation that could be not only novel, but even frightening. After all, in her mind, the new home may not be a home at all, but an institution full of people who treat their customers in an institutional way. It’s filled with strangers. There are rules and restrictions of all sorts. Plus, who knows what view your parent has of assisted living facilities. For years, the industry was peppered with horrible places that were often used to hide away the ailing aged—forgotten by loved ones, ruled by the local version of nurse Ratched from One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, and smelling of urine and alcohol. At least, that’s how movies portrayed the places. Your mom may have even visited such an institution—perhaps the horrible place that housed her mother or grandmother. The place you have in mind, in sharp contrast, provides lovely circumstances, delicious food, the possibility of companionship, and lots of fun group activities. Why just look at the van parked out front filling up with active seniors on their way to the mall for a shopping trip. Also pulling up out front is a group of high school kids who’ve come to put on a luncheon show of musical numbers and poetic recitations. At the ready, you’ll find a qualified staff of medical assistants who will ensure that the food everyone eats is healthy and in the right proportions while simultaneously monitoring medicines and special needs. There’s the rub. Two people hold two very different views of the immediate future and two very different opinions about what choice to make. If you’re not careful, you’ll end up trying to convince each other that your view is correct, while fighting off the other person’s incorrect view. As a result, neither of you will change your opinion and you will either continue with the status quo, or you will take your mom to the care center kicking and screaming. This sort of stand-off reminds me of a time I watched my eight-year-old daughter attempt to convince a neighborhood kid who had just moved to America to taste a bowl of chocolate ice cream. The new neighbor hadn’t tasted ice cream before and the brown blob she was being offered wasn’t the least bit appealing to her. My daughter kept saying, "Trust me, you’ll really like it!" And then when that didn’t work, she’d state: "Honest, you’ll really, really, really like it." The friend would shake her head no and steel her will against what she assumed was a circumstance similar to the time her mom told her to eat a suspicious looking new food (liver) and not to fret because it was really, really good—only it was liver. Essentially, my daughter was talking ice cream and her friend was hearing liver. Here are some steps you can take to avoid such a standoff. I’m assuming that your mom’s medical circumstances demand that she move to an assisted living center—for both her safety and your peace of mind. That means whether she moves isn’t open to discussion. How, when, where, and under what conditions are indeed open and require healthy dialogue. Enter to learn, not simply to teach. Before you start the conversation, don’t merely prepare your arguments, prepare your willingness to listen. You’ll need to understand your mother’s concerns in order to openly discuss and resolve them. Explain why you made the decision. Don’t start by suggesting that you’re thinking about her moving into assisted living. If you leave that door open, you’ll spend most of your time debating if, when the if is no longer up for discussion. Start by explaining that you and your siblings have decided that, for her own safety and well-being, it’s time she moves. Then share the circumstances that led you to make the decision. Explain the impact her actions have had on her and on friends and loved ones. Let her know that you’re trying to help her find a place she can enjoy while she still has most of her faculties, not a place to stow her away. Ask her to share her concerns. End your description of why she needs to move with an invitation for her to share her concerns. Some will be accurate, some you’ll need to research, and some will be way off base. Restate each concern to ensure that you understand exactly what she’s saying. Many of the concerns will be about genuine losses of independence and convenience. Discuss ways to mitigate or minimize these disadvantages. When she shares what you perceive to be an inaccurate perception, explain that you see it differently and then share your view. Quickly call for a study and visit. Rather than try to verbally persuade your mother of all the benefits of assisted living, involve her in selecting a facility—including a visit to some of the choices. Match your mother’s issues with the place that best suits her needs. Play the role of a good realtor—don’t sell the place, let the place sell itself. What do you like? What don’t you like? How might we change that to suit your needs? Talk with existing residents and see how they like it. Where possible, call or visit old friends who are currently living in a care facility and see what they think about the situation. Choose friends who face similar circumstances and they’ll be able to share insights about what to expect and what to do to avoid potential disappointments. Allow for a trial visit. Many facilities let you sample their services by signing up for a short test period. This is often the point at which the senior begins to realize that having others of the same age around, support from medical staff, prepared meals, less area to clean, and the like, more than offset the loss of living in one’s own home. Check for success. Once your mother selects a place and settles in, visit frequently—by whatever means possible. Check to see what is working and what isn’t. Where possible, make further changes to match her needs to the facility. Finally, live up to the promise you made to yourself. You meant it when you decided that you wanted what’s best for your mom. Whether this turns out to be true depends a great deal on how often you make contact with her once she’s found a new place to live. Kerry Related posts: Sharing Bad News with an Aging Parent Speaking with a Parent Facing a Crucial Conversation?

We’re taking a candid look at how management attempts to influence the bad behavior of employees and how effective these influence efforts are in creating change. Do any of these behaviors sound familiar in your workplace? People make commitments, but don’t take them seriously. Coworkers gossip or talk behind each others’ backs, creating cliques. When projects fall through, people shift blame instead of taking responsibility. Please weigh in by taking our 3-minute survey today. All who complete the survey will receive a free MP3 download from our Influencer Audio Companion. Listen as author Kerry Patterson shares how to increase your influence by making use of vicarious experiences. Thank you for your continued help in supporting our research efforts! Related posts: We Need Your Help: Ever Had a Crucial Conversation Go Social? When Your Employees Won’t Talk to You Influencing Litter Control

April 10, 2013—Provo, UT—Social networks are becoming increasingly hostile, with 78 percent of users reporting rising incivility online and 2 in 5 blocking, unsubscribing or "unfriending" someone over an argument on social media, according to new research from the authors of the New York Times best-seller Crucial Conversations. The online survey of 2,698 respondents suggests contentious conversations that begin online tend to spill over into real life. The study also indicates that people are generally less polite and tensions often go unresolved on social media. Specific findings include: 76 percent have witnessed an argument over social media 19 percent have decreased in-person contact with someone because of something they said online 88 percent believe people are less polite on social media than in person 81 percent say the difficult or emotionally charged conversations they have held over social media remain unresolved One of the survey respondents, Laura M., is still reeling from a family rift that began in cyberspace. It started innocently enough—her brother posted an embarrassing picture of her sister who asked him to remove it. A full-scale family brouhaha resulted when he not only refused to remove the photo, but instead blasted it out to his entire contact list. Ultimately, Laura’s brother unfriended all of his siblings and has denied in-person contact with them for the past two years and counting. Another respondent, Laura J., has seen the ripple effects of social media at work. A frustrated co-worker posted a message about wanting to "handle co-workers like we did in the old days," followed by some descriptive and violent detail. The atmosphere in the office has been tense ever since the post was made a year ago. Ultimately, employees unfriended their colleague and avoid her in the office "for fear she’ll come after [us]." Joseph Grenny, co-author of Crucial Conversations, says these tensions arise and go unresolved in part because online conversations provide a unique set of challenges that are seldom taken into consideration when people begin typing their frustrations. "Social media platforms allow us to connect with others and strengthen relationships in ways that weren’t possible before. Sadly, they have also become the default forums for holding high-stakes conversations, blasting polarizing opinions and making statements with little regard for those within screen shot," says Grenny. "We struggle to speak candidly and respectfully in person, let alone through a forum that allows no immediate feedback or the opportunity to see how our words will affect others." And as the research indicates, younger people are four times more likely than Baby Boomers to prefer having these emotionally charged conversations over social media, so the need to learn to effectively communicate online is increasing. "Social media platforms aren’t the problem, it’s how people are using them that is causing a degradation of dialogue that has potential to destroy our most meaningful personal relationships," says Grenny. Grenny offers tips for communicating both candidly and respectfully on social media: Check your motives. Social media hasn’t only changed the way we communicate, it has modified our motives. Ask yourself, "Is my goal to get lots of ‘likes’ (or even provoke controversy)?" or "Do I want healthy dialogue?" Replace hot words. If your goal is to make a point rather than score a point, replace "hot" words that provoke offense with words that help others understand your position. For example, replace "that is idiotic" with "I disagree for the following reasons…" Pause to put emotions in check. Never post a comment when you’re feeling emotionally triggered. Never! If you wait four hours you’re likely to respond differently. Agree before you disagree. It’s fine to disagree, but don’t point out your disagreement until you acknowledge areas where you agree. Often, arguers agree on 80 percent of the topic but create a false sense of conflict when they spend all their time arguing over the other 20 percent. Trust your gut. When reading a response to your post and you feel the conversation is getting too emotional for an online exchange—you’re right! Stop. Take it offline. Or better yet, face-to-face. About VitalSmarts: An innovator in corporate training and organizational performance, VitalSmarts is home to multiple training offerings, including the award-winning Crucial Conversations®, Crucial Confrontations®, Influencer®, and Change Anything™ Training. Each course improves key organizational outcomes by focusing on high-leverage skills and behavior-change strategies. The Company also has four New York Times best-selling books: Crucial Conversations, Crucial Confrontations, Influencer, and Change Anything. VitalSmarts has consulted with more than 300 of the Fortune 500 companies, trained more than 900,000 people worldwide and been named by Inc. magazine as one of the fastest-growing companies in America for eight consecutive years. www.vitalsmarts.com Note to editor: Author Joseph Grenny is available for interviews. Copies of Crucial Conversations are available upon request. About the research: The study collected responses via an online survey tool from 2,698 individuals in February of 2013. Margin of error is approximately 2 percent. CONTACT: Laura Potter of VitalSmarts, L.C. +1-801-510-7590, or lpotter@vitalsmarts.com. Related posts: We Need Your Help: Ever Had a Crucial Conversation Go Social? Author Opinion on Current Events: The Media is an Accomplice in School Shootings: A Call for a "Stephen King" Law How to Change Social Norms at the Office