During the month of July, we publish "best of" content. The following article was first published on September 20, 2009. Dear Crucial Skills, My supervisor often gives me leadership responsibility for projects involving multiple departments. However, my position is not viewed as one of authority. As a result, I struggle to get results from others when I ask them to do something. When I present my lack of progress and ask for assistance, I’m told I need to stop blaming others for my lack of results. Since I have been trained to teach Crucial Conversations, my supervisor assumes I should be able to convince others to shift their priorities. Unfortunately, people outside of my department are not able to make my request their top priority, no matter how many Crucial Conversations skills I employ. How do I get my supervisor to see that I need her support, without making her think I am blaming others? I am at the end of my rope! Without Support Dear Without, You are not alone. When I was teaching at Stanford’s Advanced Project Management Program this was the participants’ most frequent concern. You’re given lots of accountability, but no authority, and you’re expected to use your skills and charm to get it all done. It doesn’t work that way, does it? Crucial Conversations and Crucial Accountability focus on dialogue skills—the skills required to reach shared understanding and commitment. These skills would be all you needed if the lack of cooperation you were experiencing was the exception, not the rule. However, it sounds as if it’s the rule, and that tells me you need to change the rules. You need a structural solution—a solution that involves all Six Sources of Influence. The situation you describe calls for a project-management system, one that people buy into and have the skills to use. Then it requires holding people accountable to the system—not just to your individual projects. I will walk through the influence model found in Influencer to help you solve this problem. The process starts with identifying measurable results you want to achieve; next, identify a few key behaviors that, if changed, will bring about those results; and finally, outline strategies to accomplish your vital behaviors using six different sources of influence. Measurable Results. Your goal is to ensure project schedules, budgets, and specs are met. It sounds as if your projects have to compete with employees’ other tasks. That’s to be expected. The problem occurs when your projects never get a high enough priority, or when the priority gets bumped. Instead of focusing on your project, focus on the overall project-planning process. Your goal is to get people to commit to a fair process—one that meets their objectives as well as yours. Then your challenge is to help everyone stick to the process. Become a champion for the process, not just your project. This change will create greater Mutual Purpose. Vital Behaviors. The vital behaviors you’ll want to focus on are: 1. Prioritizing all of your project’s tasks against people’s competing tasks. 2. Establishing that people who complete the tasks have input into the project plan and sign up to deliver on realistic schedules, budgets, and specs. 3. Ensuring that when people have reason to believe they could miss a schedule, budget, or spec, they will immediately update the team on the problem. The Six Sources of Influence. The sources of influence and specific strategies you’ll need to target are: Source 1 - Personal Motivation: The people you rely on are feeling a lot of pain. Their plates are too full. They feel as if they have five bosses and they’re constantly being blindsided with new, unexpected demands. Instead of turning up the heat regarding your projects, get their buy-in to a more consistent process—one that has realistic priorities and plans. Source 2 - Personal Ability: You and your colleagues may have to learn basic project-management principles. Look for resources that are already available within your firm, such as a project-management specialist. Once you have a project-management system in place, you’ll find your Crucial Conversations skills will become more powerful. Sources 3 & 4 - Social Motivation & Ability: The most important social support you need is from your manager and the managers your resource people report to. They need to fully support a more robust project-management system. Ease their concerns that the priority-setting process may take more time and is less flexible by demonstrating how results are delivered far more reliably. Source 5 - Structural Motivation: I bet the employees you count on are rewarded for achieving results within their own departments, and not for achieving your goals. Goals that require cross-functional teamwork are often shortchanged. Work with your manager and the resource managers to find ways to reward people for executing on their plans and for keeping to the project-planning process you’ve outlined. Even tiny changes to these reward systems will send a powerful message that managers are serious. Source 6 - Structural Ability: This entire approach relies on implementing a project-management structure. Check to see if you already have one that’s gone dormant. Check to see if your organization has a Project Management Office that can help you re-invigorate your project structure. Here are some basic structural elements I’d want to see: a priority-setting process that involves the right stakeholders; a project planning process that results in realistic schedules, budgets, and specs; project status meetings that keep the projects on track; a measurement system that provides ongoing feedback on how well people are keeping to their project plans. Report Back to your Manager. Meet with your manager and frame the larger issue. It isn’t just about executing your projects; it’s about executing any and all projects. Bring in whatever facts you can to back up your case. If you don’t have data on missed deadlines, budget overruns, and failures to meet specs, then bring in examples of the problems. For example: people have unclear priorities, priorities that constantly change, objectives that aren’t realistic, or no clear project plans to follow. Explain that solving this larger problem is the best way to solve your specific problem. Best of luck in influencing your organization, David

The U.S. Women’s Ski Jump team made their Olympic debut in the 2014 Socchi Games. While they did not medal (the three members of the team placed 10th, 15th, and 21st), they had thousands of fans cheering them on, including the youngest member of the U.S. Women’s Ski team—twelve-year-old Zia Terry. Two years ago at the tender age of ten years old, Zia was made an honorary member of the U.S. Women’s Ski team. How did this precocious youngster ascend to such a lofty honor? She jumped. Literally. Zia became a YouTube sensation thanks to her GoPro helmet-mounted camera recording her first ski jump on the forty-meter hill. The video includes an inspiring one minute and forty-nine seconds of Zia’s charming, courageous self-dialogue as she prepares to jump. It has received over 2 million views on YouTube, 1.3 million of which came within the first ten days of the video being posted. When asked about her interest in ski jumping, Zia referenced the U.S. Women’s Ski Team website, saying, "I’ve been following my dream, like I saw on one of their web pages. It said, ‘follow your dream, not mine.’ That’s what I’ve been doing. David Maxfield, who lives not far from Zia in Park City, UT, saw this engaging example of a brave young girl trying something new and knew we needed to include it in the new version of our Influencer Training course—Influencer 2.0. You’ll find her video in Source 1, illustrating the strategy of increasing personal motivation by "Just trying it." Take a look at the video now and consider what you may want to "just try!"

Dear Crucial Skills, A colleague of mine started in an entry-level role. For the past two years he has been an acting supervisor in an unfilled position. He applied for the permanent position but did not get the job. He must now return to his entry-level role under my supervision. How can I support him through this transition? What should I do if he continues to act like a supervisor? Signed, Assisting a Colleague Dear Assisting, My first question to you is: Are you imagining a problem that doesn’t exist? Your question might reflect your own lack of leadership confidence rather than your colleague’s self-imposed shame at returning to an entry-level role. Allow me to give an example. I once served in a leadership position in my church. When I was later released from that position, I was asked to serve in a subordinate role to the new leader. I was happy to do it. But I could tell the new leader was immensely uncomfortable giving me assignments. He would thank me profusely for the smallest gesture of service and seemed nervous when I was around. After a couple of months, I found a private moment and reassured him of both my confidence in him and my commitment to the higher purpose we were both serving. When I told him, "I don’t care where I serve, only that I serve," he began to relax and load me up with assignments. So my first suggestion is to be sure you have a problem, before you solve it. If, however, this person’s past actions or comments lead you to conclude he will feel slighted by the change, here are a few thoughts: Remember—it’s not about you. It would be easy to see his displays of discomfort or hurt as insubordination rather than shame. They aren’t. They are about him. He has a view of the world that ties his self-worth to his social status. All of us feel that way to some degree, so hopefully you can sympathize with, rather than personalize, the emotions he’s experiencing. If you take them personally, you will unwittingly act in ways that reinforce the problem rather than help resolve it. For example, you may become stern in your interactions with him. You may marginalize him socially. You might distance yourself from him. All of these responses will add to his sense that his worth has declined with his position—while not increasing his feelings of trust and safety with you. Talk now. If you’ve already seen signs that this will be a tough transition for him, inoculate your relationship from damage by speaking up front. Validate his feelings. Let him know you understand that it might be disappointing to lose some of the enjoyments and challenges he had in his supervisory position. Share your nervousness about the transition. Take responsibility for the fact that this is your nervousness. Don’t blame him. Let him know you appreciate how difficult the change will be and that you worry that supervising a former supervisor might be tough for you. Then ask candidly for his advice in managing it with you. Give concrete examples of situations where it might feel awkward and talk them through with him; for example: giving assignments, giving feedback, and holding him accountable. If you pre-live it with him—making a contract with each other for how you will handle these situation—you will both be more comfortable when the time arrives. Talk later. Also, agree up front to a check-in. For example, you might say, "How about if we go to lunch in 30 days and discuss how it’s working for both of us?" Setting this check-in time will help you both stay conscious and accountable during the intervening time—and will make it easier to talk about course-corrections without it feeling like you’re calling for a major therapy session. Engage him without enabling him. Finally, you’ve got a great asset here. You’ve got someone with two years of supervisory experience; take advantage of it! However, not in a condescending way. Don’t do it to try to manipulate him from adjusting to his new position. But do take advantage of his judgment and experience in appropriate ways. You are wise to be attentive to this crucial moment for him and for you. I hope these ideas help you get to a new "normal" that is enjoyable for you both. Sincerely, Joseph

This column will be Al Switzler’s last. He is transitioning to a more advisory role and will be supporting some of our non-profit efforts. We will be introducing new thought leaders in coming issues of Crucial Skills. Dear Crucial Skills, What do I do about a supervisor who doesn’t respond to or acknowledge e-mails and other correspondence from me? I even use the "read receipt" which indicates that it was read, but still no response. Sincerely, Awaiting a Response Dear Awaiting, When I read questions like this, I sense frustration, self-doubt, and difficulty in restraining your anger. But before I respond to your question, let me start with a caveat. Every situation varies. Since I know so little of the specifics, history, and stressors, I’m shooting in the dark a bit. But, hopefully you’ll give me the benefit of the doubt if I have guessed incorrectly. With this in mind, I’d like to insert your question into a bucket that contains other similar questions and challenges: • "What do I do when my supervisor makes a commitment to involve me in decisions and then doesn’t? I feel uncomfortable chasing her down all the time." • "How do I respond if someone I work with goes to radio silence—someone from whom I need information, help, or approval?" And so I will offer three tactics for responding to these kinds of challenges. 1. Start with Heart. Give the other person the benefit of the doubt. You have some history with the other person. You know how long this has been going on. You could explain how many times you’ve tried to talk with your supervisor about his or her unwillingness to respond. I’d say that, in one way, regardless of the background, you should start by asking the "humanizing question" with a twist. The humanizing question is this: "Why would a reasonable, rational, decent person act this way?" This is an invitation for your brain and emotions to engage in an empathy exercise. What could be going on with your supervisor? What stress is s/he experiencing? In what ways could you be part of the problem? And here is the twist: In what ways could you be part of the solution? Allow me to speculate here. Could it be that your supervisor is facing tons of stress from above and is acting as a buffer between you and the stress? Could it be that your supervisor gets 547 e-mails per day and is simply swamped? Insert all the empathetic responses you can think of here. Then create a plan to be helpful. You might go to him or her and ask if it would be possible for you to send fewer e-mails by setting a weekly (or daily) five-minute meeting to keep your projects speeding along and to keep him or her informed. Together, you will need to work out the specifics. But I think the principle is sound. Begin with empathy, find the key barriers, and then try to be part of a solution—rather than maintaining the stance that your supervisor is the problem. 2. Clarify the workflow. Often when there is a struggle in a relationship, it’s because the people involved are dependent on one another for many actions—sometimes too many. For example, what do you need from your supervisor and what does your supervisor need from you? Do you need updates or approvals? Delays cause you grief and radio silence has you sitting on your hands. Does your supervisor need trust and predictability? Is this a complicated project that has your supervisor juggling seventeen balls with little time left over to answer e-mails? The conversation you might have is about empowerment—getting more on your plate and less on your supervisor’s. Go to your supervisor with a plan for how you might streamline your work in a way that continues to give the supervisor increased trust and predictability. Years ago, we worked with an organization that had hundreds of forms requiring anywhere from four to fourteen signatures for approval. Our analysis found that any signatures above the first four were redundant—people signed the form simply because the person before them signed it. They reduced the number of signatures dramatically and thus reduced the waiting time between approvals. You might go in with a proposal, in question form, about moving more of the approvals to you. Additionally, show how you would keep the supervisor informed and when and how you would deal with exceptions. Such a discussion would make you part of the solution. 3. Talk about the real issue. I saved this for last with good reason. Sometimes we don’t feel we can talk about the real issue without trying other tactics first, so I’ve led with them. However, I stress that this may be the first tactic. The real issue with your supervisor is not that s/he is not responsive. The real issue is that there is a pattern adversely affecting the quantity and quality of your work. Sometimes the assumptions we make about our supervisor and our relationship keeps us from the real discussion. Generally, I’d suggest that reframe your assumptions and find a way to talk about this pattern. Select a good time and a private location. It might go something like this: "I’m finding a consistent need to get information or approvals from you but then have to wait on the messages I send. I’d like to talk about what we might do to make this process more efficient so the projects can proceed smoothly. Would that be okay?" The two of you can share ideas and make a plan. If that doesn’t happen, I would also have a script prepared where you could talk about your Mutual Purpose—you aren’t trying to cause more stress but trying to find solutions that would make it easier for your supervisor while allowing you to get your work done more quickly and efficiently. I would then suggest tactics like the two detailed above. I like going into any crucial conversation not only prepared for the topic at hand, but also with several other strategies to use if the first plan doesn’t work. Will it work? I don’t know. Will the situation improve if you do nothing? I doubt it; it seldom does. Do you have enough tactics and scripts and enough Mutual Purpose and respect to engage in the conversation and feel confident that some progress will be made? Absolutely. I wish you the best, Al

Dear Crucial Skills, I have been doing a job for 14 years, making improvements and reevaluating each year to make it more efficient and produce better results. The two teams I have been dealing with have always expressed satisfaction with my work. We now have a different management team with a different philosophy; they want me to do my job in less than half the time, assisting 50% more clients than I had previously. They want me to just "get the job done" and are not concerned about quality. How do I deal with this without sacrificing personal integrity? Regards, Frustrated with Management Dear Frustrated, When managers make this kind of demand, it feels like a kick in the guts. It’s as if the new management team is discrediting your experience and the improvements you’ve worked so hard to achieve. You’ve put a lot of yourself into your job, so it’s hard not to take it personally. And, when they increase your workload as much as they have, it feels as if they are devaluing the job itself—"Since your job isn’t worth doing at all, it’s certainly not worth doing well." And yet, taking this demand personally would be a mistake. It’s very unlikely the new management team was thinking about you and your personal performance when they made this change in priorities. I’ll suggest a few, more dispassionate, ways to respond. Explore Others’ Paths. Begin by seeking to understand the facts and logic behind the new direction. Hold off on evaluating the feasibility of the specific changes until you understand why the new management team believes new priorities are needed. For example, I worked with a management team that discovered they could double their sales and triple their profits if they switched from producing top-quality external siding to lower-quality interior siding. Employees felt lousy about producing lower-quality material, until they understood it was what the marketplace wanted. The lower-quality material would be used inside walls, where its flaws would be hidden. In this case the change was a success. The operation expanded, and everyone benefited. Reinvent the Process. Try to reinvent how you manage this new volume of clients. Tweaking the existing process probably won’t be enough. It will likely require a disruptive innovation. For example, instead of increasing the speed with which you work with clients over the phone, maybe the solution is to ditch the phone, and use a website where clients solve their own problems. Learn from Positive Deviants. A positive deviant is a person who faces the same challenges as everyone else, but has somehow achieved breakthrough results. Check to see if there are any of your peers who are meeting the new numbers without sacrificing essential quality elements. If there are any, go and observe them. Ask them to observe you as well. You may discover insights that will radically change your results. I saw this a few years ago when I was working with a team that transcribed physician’s notes. The department had just introduced voice-recognition software, but hadn’t seen the productivity increases they’d expected. The team looked for positive deviants, and discovered three members of their team who had become four times more productive than the rest—but no one knew why. They observed each other, and quickly figured it out. These exceptional three had independently programmed Microsoft shortcuts that sped up their work. Once they shared these shortcuts with the team, everyone’s productivity quadrupled. Track a Balanced Scorecard of Outcomes. My guess is that you and the management team are focused on somewhat different outcomes. They are looking at volume and margins, while you are looking at quality and complaints. The mistake would be to track one set of outcomes without also tracking the others. You’ll want to track both the desired outcomes and the potential risks. Notice that I’m emphasizing tracking and measuring. Verbal warnings about potential risks never carry as much weight as actual data. Maybe the results will confirm your warnings, or maybe they will confirm the management team’s hopes. Or maybe the data will land in the middle, and everyone will see the need for more work. Remember, it’s not about winning or losing an argument; it’s about getting facts and data on the table, where they can serve as common ground. Yeah But . . . What if these tips don’t work? What if, after giving it your best shot, you conclude that the new management team doesn’t value the work you do? If this is the case, I believe you have three options. 1. Stay in your current job, but feel as if you are sacrificing your integrity. This won’t work—at least, not in the long run. You will hate your job, and your feelings will show on your face and in your actions. 2. Change to a job they do value. 3. Or find another organization that values the kind of work you want to do. Good luck, David

It was a Saturday morning in the summer of 1980, the front doorbell chimed, and my seven-year-old daughter Rebecca ran to see who was there. It turned out to be her best friend, Candy, who smiled and asked, "Can you come out and play?" Rebecca took a quick look at her pal, curled her lip, said "No," and then slammed the door. I watched this exchange and thought to myself, ‘Who slams the door in a friend’s face?’ Apparently my daughter. So, I asked her what had just taken place. She explained that her mom had told her to clean her room before she went anywhere. "So you wanted to play, but you had to clean your room first," I carefully paraphrased. "Yes," she responded. "The sooner I do my chores, the sooner I can play." "How do you think Candy felt about your slamming the door in her face?" I asked. "She looks sad," Rebecca explained as we peered out the window and watched Candy trudge back to her house. "I guess I hurt her feelings." "Can you think of something you could have said that would have been kinder?" I inquired. Rebecca had no answer. That’s because she’s human and we humans aren’t born with much knowledge. We certainly aren’t born with the complicated, and often subtle, skills that make up social awareness and charm. Unlike some guppies Rebecca and I had watched being born a few days earlier, humans don’t arrive with knowledge about anything. Guppies shoot out of their moms like a mini-torpedo, take a quick look around, swim to the nearest plant, hide in the foliage, and then swim in sync with the moving vegetation. They’re born with first-class hiding skills. That’s because the fish around them (including daddy and uncle guppy) eat baby guppies. To maintain the species, guppies are taught most of what they’ll need to survive—not in schools (pun intended), but in-utero. They’re born teenagers. Most of what they’ll ever know, they know at birth. Humans, in contrast, are born with a blank slate. Infants know nothing nor are they pre-programmed to do anything. The good news: humans don’t get jerked around by instincts. (Hey, let’s swim up an Alaskan stream until we beat ourselves to death on the rocks!) The bad news: humans have to learn how to survive—skill by skill, situation by situation. Social scripts are no exception. By age seven, Rebecca hadn’t learned the door script and was having a hard time inventing one of her own. So I continued the instruction. "What if you said, ‘I’d love to come out and play, but I have to clean my room first. When I finish I’ll come over and get you.’?" Then I stepped outside and knocked on the door. Rebecca answered and I asked her to come out and play. When I share this story, I typically ask audiences what they think Rebecca did at this point. They respond: "She slammed the door in your face!" But they’re wrong. Rebecca politely said, "I’d love to come out and play, but I have to clean my room first. When I’m done I’ll come get you." In less than three minutes, I had taught Rebecca a social script. While working as a professor a few months later, I decided to test whether I could apply what I had done with a seven-year-old to grown adults by teaching them a social script. And unlike Rebecca, whom I taught openly and to her knowledge, I wanted to see if I could teach adults a social script without them even noticing. To find out, I asked a group of graduate students to cut into movie theater lines. Our goal was to count how many people would typically say something to the line cutter. In the laid-back Mountain West where we conducted the experiment, no matter the gender, size, or demeanor of the line cutter, nobody spoke up. Better to stay mum, the subjects concluded, and avoid any potential conflicts. Next, I asked the students to cut in front of—not a stranger—but a fellow student whom we’d secretly placed in line. The student was instructed to become upset. "Hey, quit cutting in line!" the student would brusquely say to the cutter who would then go to the end of the queue. Next, we waited a minute and cut in front of the person standing behind the student who had just chewed out the line cutter. Would experimental subjects be informed and emboldened from the demonstration they had just witnessed and now speak their minds? Since we hadn’t exhibited a very healthy script, we hypothesized that most people would remain silent. And they did. Not one person spoke harshly after watching someone else do the same. For our third trial, we cut in front of a student who was instructed to be diplomatic. The student was to smile and say, "Excuse me. Perhaps you’re unaware. We’ve been waiting in line for over fifteen minutes." The cutter would then apologize and go to the end of the line. Now for the big question. Similar to Rebecca learning the door script, would onlookers learn and use their new and smart sounding line-cutting script? We waited a minute, cut in front of the subject standing behind the positive role model and watched what took place—in fifty different lines. The results were startling. Over 80% of people who observed the effective interaction, spoke up. In fact, they said the exact same words they heard modeled. We did it! By using a positive role model, we taught strangers a social script that they immediately put into action. And we did it without them even knowing. The implications of this research are obvious. Humans, despite the fact that they’re born without a scrap of useful knowledge, can observe, learn, and put into play, a whole host of skills—including social scripts. For example, you watch an employee argue for his idea in a meeting with far too much force, causing others to resist. You note that the tactic didn’t work. Then you watch someone tentatively present the same idea and ask others what they think—this approach is met with acceptance. "That nonaggressive approach worked!" you think to yourself and, just like Rebecca, you’ve learned a new social tactic. And yet, most of us spend little time observing, learning, and teaching social scripts. We exert more effort learning French (or even Klingon) than studying human interaction. But this can change simply by watching people in tough social interactions, spotting what works and what doesn’t, and then practicing the skills yourself. Eventually, you can teach the skills to others. Don’t rely on chance—certainly not with your children, friends, and coworkers. Expecting people to invent tactics for working through complex social issues is akin to handing a child a pencil and paper and expecting him to invent calculus. Instead, take what you’ve learned through observing others, break it into component skills, and teach these social snippets to those around you. Teaching others social skills is one of the best gifts you can give them. Plus, if you get really good at handling high-stakes conversations, you no longer have to put up with line cutters.

Dear Crucial Skills, I have the privilege and frustration of being the mother of a strong-willed teenage girl. It seems my child popped out believing she was an adult and in charge. She is very verbal and says it like she sees it—for good or ill. I realize that teenagers are emotionally driven, however I’m struggling to know how to respond to her routinely rude comments. I love my child deeply but she needs a filter; her words can be very hurtful. Unfortunately, I am not the only target of her meanness. I’m concerned that she will burn bridges if she does not take greater care with her words. Any advice? Sincerely, Struggling Dear Struggling, A business associate of mine told me about his son going off to a distant university. The father became very emotional. He told me how difficult his son was to raise; his son was rude to others and had angry, emotional outbursts. His father responded with anger and punishments. When the son left for college, he told his Dad, "I hate you and hope I never see you again." Later that semester, a school counselor assigned to new students called to tell the father that his son had been diagnosed with Asperger syndrome. As the father learned more, he discovered that the behaviors that his son exhibited and irritated him the most were common symptoms of Asperger’s. My friend started crying as he told me that if he had known his son had a physical/emotional problem, he would have treated him differently. He would have tried to help him, not punish him. My brokenhearted friend wondered if he would ever be able to heal the badly damaged relationship he had with his son. In sharing this sad story with you, I’m not presuming that your daughter has this or a similar issue; I am urging you to consider whether or not there is an ability component to her behavior. This is a preliminary diagnosis before beginning the problem-solving process. Being a teenager with a still-developing brain that is overdosing on hormones and adrenaline, is almost the definition of an ability problem. But, compare her to her peers. You mentioned that your daughter is "routinely rude" and needs a filter. Is she unable to think about what she is saying, or just unwilling to? If her behavior is more belligerent or extreme than other teens, or if she seems unable to empathize with those she insults, seeking counseling or professional expertise might be the solution. You may avoid a lot of unnecessary pain for both you and your daughter by taking this path. On the other hand, if her actions seem within the bounds of normal teenager behavior, then I would recommend some Crucial Accountability strategies. First, get your heart right; Start with Heart. Ask yourself, "What do I really want?" Don’t think in terms of character traits; think of specific behaviors, actions, and words. Maybe something like, "I want my daughter to refrain from saying rude, hurtful remarks. I want her to express herself in respectful ways, even when she disagrees with something being said or done." Now, get your head right; Master your Stories. Ask yourself, "Why would a reasonable, rational decent person say those things?" If that seems like a bit of a stretch for a teenager, you might ask, "Why would a decent kid say those things?" Maybe she’s frustrated and angry. Maybe she’s rebellious and lashing-out because she wants to be her own person and test the limits. Maybe she wants to hurt others to keep them from getting too close. Maybe she got up on the wrong side of the bed and her stars are out of alignment. Having considered many possibilities, ask the hard question. Which of these is true? Realize the hard answer is, you don’t know. So don’t assume you do. Maybe you ought to talk to her and find out, so you can address the real problem and not the symptoms. Begin the conversation by Describing the Gap. Factually describe her behavior and compare it to what you expect. Make sure you address the pattern of behavior you have witnessed. You might say "At dinner tonight, when we were discussing the new bussing schedule, you told me that I didn’t know what I was talking about and that I am ‘so lame’ I shouldn’t be saying anything at all. Earlier this week in the car you called your sister an idiot. And on Saturday, you said you didn’t want to go to her boring soccer game and that she was the worst one on her team. I’m seeing a pattern of hurtful remarks. I expect you to be respectful to others, even if you disagree with something." Next, ask a diagnostic question to understand why she is behaving this way. "What’s going on? Help me understand. Why are you saying these things?" Be intentional as you Make it Safe and create dialogue with your daughter. Taking these steps will help you avoid the costly mistake of assuming your daughter’s pattern of hurtful behavior is a motivation problem. If you decide the problem you face is a matter of motivating your daughter to change her behavior, then use the Crucial Accountability process to get compliance. Share with her the consequences of her rude remarks. By focusing on the negative natural consequences of her behavior, you not only educate her but you motivate her to change as well. If these efforts don’t create a willingness to improve, calmly and respectfully explain the consequences you will impose on her when she speaks rudely to others. Be specific. "The next time you are disrespectful to me, like saying I’m lame or I don’t know what I’m talking about, you will lose your phone privileges for twenty-four hours. This also applies to others, like when you call your sister ‘stupid’ or say that she’s the worst player on the team." Set a follow-up time within the next twenty-four hours to review her behavior. In your interaction with her, always model the respectful behavior you expect from her. Praise her good behavior and hold her accountable for unacceptable behavior. Don’t ever ignore her hurtful behavior. Be consistent—every time, all the time. I wish you all the best as you succeed in doing the hardest job on the whole planet—being a loving parent. Ron

At this year’s REACH Conference, I had the pleasure of interacting with a hundred or so VitalSmarts Certified Trainers in breakout sessions entitled "Using Your Skills in the Community." I walked away from our conversations with a renewed interest in serving in my own community, and I think other attendees felt similarly. How will you use your skills in your community? What follows is a brief summary of our conference musings. Perhaps these will spark your own creativity and desire to serve. Be an example. Let’s say that you’ve learned a new skill, such as how to hold a high-stakes, emotional conversation—that’s the crux of Crucial Conversations, right? Each time you use that skill, you’re sharing a little light with those around you—giving them a glimpse of a new behavioral possibility. Think of your skills, not just those that stem from your exposure to VitalSmarts content. Can you use them more deliberately and frequently? In an appropriate way, can you use your skills more visibly? Be a mentor. Can you remember a key moment in your life when someone mentored you? Take a moment and consider the people in your professional, social, and family circles. Who could you motivate or enable? Whether you think of your own skill set as limited or vast, chances are that there is someone near you who can benefit from your kind words, coaching, cheerleading, or guidance. You don’t need official permission or a mandate to be a mentor, and often those who need your help are hesitant to ask. Who might look back a few years from now and thank you for mentoring them? Be a trainer. If you’re a VitalSmarts Certified Trainer, then you may have heard of the Not-for-Profit Training Grant Program. Through this program, you can donate your unique skills as a trainer to a qualifying nonprofit organization in your community. Many nonprofits, which otherwise couldn’t access training of this quality, have benefited from this program. Can you think of an organization in your community that could benefit from your training skills? Be a volunteer. The important work of building healthy communities takes place at many levels—through the work of inspired individuals, neighborhood associations, churches, service organizations, and a variety of nonprofits, for-profit and social impact ventures, and government. Nearly every one of these is an entry point for volunteers. Given your skill set and the needs of your community, how might you stretch yourself into an unfamiliar and potentially rewarding volunteer role? As a trainer, you possess facilitation and teaching skills that could be especially valuable. Be an influencer. During our breakout session, we spent extra time discussing the Influencer model, which is the backbone of the book, Influencer: The New Science of Leading Change. This model presents a systematic way for any reader to influence behavior. You don’t need special permission or training to apply the Influencer model, and, in fact, I’d love to hear about your efforts, successes, and challenges. I encourage you to read stories of others who have applied this model to accomplish important goals within organizations and communities. How will you influence your community to change for good? If you’ve felt inspired by any of these descriptions or questions, then I’ll conclude with this invitation: act now. Act in a small way, but act now. Don’t wait for the perfect opportunity or for a formal invitation or for a season when you have more free time. Don’t wait for this motivational microburst to subside. Take this challenge now—and let’s all use our skills for good.

Dear Crucial Skills, I have a colleague who deals me backhanded compliments about my job performance as the proofreader for the firm. For example, she repeatedly congratulates me on catching errors and then says, "It’s nice to hear those things when you never hear it from anyone else. It must be awful to think your job is not valued." First of all, my work is valued; that is not the issue or even something I worry about. I just want the backhanded compliments to stop. I don’t like this woman on a personal level because she is a gossip and has a reputation for stirring up trouble at the office. However, because I work closely with her and her department, I want to at least have a respectful working relationship. How do I address the backhanded compliments she’s been serving me lately? Signed, Slighted Dear Slighted, Thank you for your question. I read some resentment in your comments (perhaps my interpretation). You say you don’t like your coworker. But the fact that you took the trouble to write about this makes me suspect that you feel provoked or offended by her insinuation that your work is not respected. That’s what I’ll assume for the purpose of my response to you. If I’m way off base, then I hope my comments are at least useful to others! May I suggest that the reason her comments hurt is not because they’re hurtful, it’s because you fear them. They trigger some shame or hurt you hold from past experience. The hurt they create is predictable because you hold them in a mentally habitual way. Two things are necessary to create this pain. First, some triggering circumstance must occur. For example, someone indicates that they believe your work is of inferior value to that of others. Second, and this is the important part: you must interpret this triggering event as evidence of some shame you fear. For example, when someone disparages my work, I may conclude that I am worthless. The second step feels inevitable and true. We don’t even notice our role in the interpretation process because we have a lifetime of practice in drawing this conclusion whenever these kinds of triggers occur. But if you change the way you interpret, the hurt will disappear—completely. I know this both from the laboratory of my own life and from a lifetime of observation of others’ emotional responses to social triggers. I was baffled for years as I observed people in apparently toxic interpersonal environments who seemed largely immune to them. For example, I once watched a man who was (wrongfully) accused of being dishonest in the middle of a business meeting. This wasn’t a passing accusation either. It was delivered with a sneer and a string of epithets. I felt my body tense in empathy for the man who was being unfairly insulted. Had it been me, I would have felt a powerful urge to lash out at the accuser. This man, on the other hand, was relaxed. His face showed concern, but not pain. And his response registered interest, but not animosity. "Wow. I had no idea you saw me that way. What have I done that caused you to see me like that?" he said. He felt no shame. He felt no pain. Instead, he felt compassion and curiosity. Why? Because he understood that this person’s action were not about him. So, I’ve got great news for you. In fact, I can promise you that if you think deeply about what I’m about to share, nintey-nine percent of the problem you’re experiencing will disappear in a matter of days—or weeks at the most. Never again will you feel slighted, offended, or hurt by this person. Wouldn’t that be great? All you need to do is consistently practice the following skill in coming days and these results are guaranteed. Remember: It is never, never, never, never, never about you. Never. Ever. Now, let me be clear. There are times when others’ words or actions give us true feedback. They may indicate we are incompetent, made a mistake, broke a promise, etc. And their feedback may be true. It may be helpful information about you. But their emotions and judgments are not about you; they are about them. Nothing they ever do or say has any implications for your worth, self-respect, or self-esteem—unless you decide it does. And it is this decision that causes your persecutor’s foible to feel provocative to you. So, here’s what I’d suggest: 1. Own your emotions. Notice what kinds of triggers connect with painful self-doubts or shame you’ve learned to invoke. Then develop a script you’ll use to refute this inaccurate conclusion and reconnect with the truth about yourself. 2. Get curious. Once you’ve owned and managed the emotions that could get in the way of a healthy conversation, you’ll notice your resentment will be replaced with curiosity. So act on it. Approach this person, describe the pattern you see, then genuinely try to understand where she’s coming from when she makes these statements. As you do, you will almost inevitably gain new insight about why she frames her "compliments" the way she does. For instance, when your shame is not distorting your perception, you may learn that she has felt her work was disrespected in the past. Maybe her comments were a clumsy attempt to reassure you about something that is only an issue for her. 3. Teach. With a better understanding of her true intent, you can let her know how you hear comments like this. Teach her better ways of expressing solidarity or affirmation to you. I wish you the best in creating a healthier relationship with her. But most of all, I hope recognizing this trigger gives you an opportunity to develop greater emotional mastery—which can bring a greater peace and happiness to your life. Best wishes, Joseph

Dear Crucial Skills, I am a mid-level manager in human services, and support a twenty-one person staff. Nineteen of these team members have a professional approach to their work, manage their emotions appropriately, and are respectful to others. However, two team members are constantly negative, complaining, and disrespectful. I have addressed these behaviors with them, but they only improve for a little while before reverting back. I am continually amazed at how these two team members can negatively affect nineteen otherwise positive people. Over the years, I have seen this on other teams as well, where the negative member(s) adversely influence the positive members, even though the positive members are in the majority. Is there a reason that negativity trumps positivity? Regards, Discouraged Dear Discouraged, Thanks for a winning question. Infectious negativity saps the vitality from far too many workplaces. Your final question is especially interesting to me: Why does negativity trump positivity? I’ll describe several reasons for why negativity spreads and persists, as well as suggest a variety of solutions. 1. Negativity trumps positivity because humans are designed to be risk averse. This makes sense, when you think about our survival instincts. Bad news signals danger and may require action. Danger signals are processed by the amygdala, the emotional part of our brain, instead of by the prefrontal cortex. These amygdala-mediated thoughts seize our attention and focus it on the danger. This is why even people who are normally positive pay more attention to negative than to positive information. 2. People pay attention to negative information because it violates the organization’s public relations bias. Most organizations and most leaders try to sugarcoat problems, hiding them from employees. The result is that employees are hungry for the truth—especially for the less-flattering truths they believe are being withheld from them. This means they pay special attention, and seriously consider, the negative information they hear—even when it comes from less-than-trustworthy sources. Solution: The solution to these first two problems is to add more and more honest information to the pool. People who have questions and concerns will turn to darned near anyone for information. Make sure you are there first with honest answers. 3. Too many people count on others to speak up for them. They are too timid to speak up for themselves. The people who do speak up fall into two camps: those especially skilled at crucial conversations and those who aren’t. Those especially skilled folks know how to speak up in ways that are frank, honest, and respectful. Those who are especially unskilled are honest, but offensive, and may not even realize how negative they actually are. Solution: Create opportunities and make it safer for people to raise questions and concerns. Don’t force the silent majority to rely on their least-skilled members to raise their concerns. In addition, train and coach the less-skilled communicators to be more skilled in how they raise their concerns—and direct them to raise their concerns with you. 4. The fourth reason that negativity spreads is different from the first three, because it deals with a different kind of negativity: disrespectful behavior. When someone is disrespectful, others often respond with disrespect—tit-for-tat. As a result, disrespect becomes a poison that spreads quickly through a team. Solution: Every team has informal/implicit norms for what constitutes respectful behavior. When disrespect is seen too often, it may be necessary to make these norms more formal and explicit. This may require a team meeting, a few crucial conversations, or an actual code of conduct. You’ll need to decide how explicit the norms need to be. However, the key to success isn’t the norms, but how they are enforced. You need to achieve 200 percent accountability: Team members are 100 percent accountable for being respectful; they are also 100 percent accountable for others being respectful. This means that team members, not you, hold each other accountable. It may require some coaching or training, but it is essential. You, as the leader, can’t keep these norms alive. They must be enforced by the team members themselves. 5. Negativity is a habit that’s hard to break. We’ve all observed this unfortunate truth. People commit to stop complaining, rumor-mongering, or being disrespectful, but then fall back in to their old ways. Solution: Use our CPR skills to make sure you frame the problem correctly. Here is an example. Content: If the problem is a single incident, then address the content. The content includes the facts about what you expected and what you observed. For example, "When you have a concern or hear a rumor, I expect you to bring it to me, so I can deal with it in a productive way. I hear you shared a rumor this morning—as if it were true—with several team members without checking it out with me first. What happened?" Pattern: If your chief concern is with the pattern of behaviors, then address the pattern. The pattern is that the person has made a commitment or promise, and has failed to live up to it. For example, "We’ve talked before about sharing rumors without checking them with me first. I thought I had your commitment to stop doing this. I hear you shared a rumor this morning. If my facts are right, then you broke your commitment to me. Help me understand." Relationship: If your chief concern involves trust or respect, then address the relationship. The relationship may need to change. For example, "When you make commitments to me, and then fail to follow through on them, I begin to think I can’t trust you. And, if I can’t trust you, I don’t see how I can have you on my team. Help me understand." I hope these ideas help you deal with the negativity that spreads in your workplace. Let me know how they work. Good Luck, David

I miss strawberries. Despite the fact that my acquaintance with them began quite by accident, I still miss them. It all started when, as a child, I was foraging in the woods behind my house and stumbled onto a patch of wild strawberries. I had already gobbled down berries of all sorts that morning and figured that the insignificant sampling of fragaria vesca wouldn’t amount to much. I was wrong. The berries were delicious beyond description. As I feasted on the wild wonder, all other berries hung their heads in shame. And now for a change in direction, but not topic. Last night I mistakenly tuned into a TV "makeover" program. Not one where they transform a clap-trap shamble of a house into a modern wonder, but one where they make over an actual human being—a woman to be more precise. I had tuned into the part of the program where a plastic surgeon was holding up "before" pictures of a normal-looking woman. He chided her for once having looked so plain. Then he bragged about the miraculous transformation he and a team of surgeons, silicone experts, and cosmetologists had performed. Although no one said the words, it was clear the transformation team believed that looking like a runway model should be the goal of all caring people. "Just look at her!" the plastic surgeon exclaimed as the woman finally walked on stage. They had replaced the plain person with a firmer and "rounder-in-the-right-places" beauty. Behold Barbie. The woman gushed. The team applauded. The crowd cheered. I doubt that when penicillin was discovered the celebration was as boisterous as this one. The woman they had transformed worked as an elementary school teacher. When the TV program cut to a video clip of the remade teacher’s cheering students, I was surprised by their boisterous reaction. I figured the kids would be disappointed, but they seemed to like the new version of their teacher. One boy went so far as to say that she was "hot." I flinched. I also thought my first-grade teacher was beautiful and I can remember the day I was most struck by her beauty. My classmate, Tammy Ray Black, had just completed a coloring assignment. She was the kid nobody liked; learning was a challenge for her. And as is often the case with children who struggle, she was constantly acting out, whining, and causing her classmates grief. Finishing a task was a breakthrough for her and Miss McDonald didn’t miss this chance to reward her efforts. At first, I couldn’t believe that my beloved teacher was praising Tammy Ray for completing a coloring assignment. Heck, I’d done the same thing a hundred times before and she never said anything to me. And then I got it. Miss McDonald was trying to help my classmate feel better about herself. How lovely. At that moment I thought she was as beautiful a person as I had ever seen. Curiously enough, she didn’t look a bit like Barbie. Of course, Barbie hadn’t been invented yet, so how was I to know what was beautiful and what wasn’t? Back to the wild strawberries. "So you liked the strawberries," Grandpa remarked as I told him about the ones I had discovered. "They aren’t just tasty," he went on to explain, "they’re also honest." I didn’t catch his drift, so Grandpa quickly clarified his point. "You see, most fruits and berries employ trickery. They look good on the surface, all the while hiding their inner seeds. You bite into a beautiful piece of fruit and nearly break a tooth on the concealed pit. The strawberry, in contrast, wears its seeds on the outside. That makes it honest." Or so said Grandpa. Let’s leap to a still different time and place. The summer before I started junior high school, I entered the workforce for the first time. Each morning, I rode a bus with my buddies far into the country. Here we would walk into a sea of parallel rows and pick strawberries—the honest fruit. As it turns out, strawberries are also the user-unfriendly fruit. They offer no relief from the sun as they lay low to the dirt, requiring you to either stoop or crawl if you want to harvest them. But these commercial strawberries were nothing like the wild ones I had discovered. They had been transformed through the miracle of horticulture into larger and prettier berries. But at a cost. They weren’t nearly as flavorful as their ancestors. It only got worse from there. In my fifth summer of picking strawberries, I was selected along with two other kids to harvest a new, experimental field. The small patch sported the latest and greatest variety of strawberry. The new breed was huge, deep red, and flawless. Horticulture experts had outdone themselves. And because the berries were so large, I could fill a box in half the time. For a dream-like two hours, I filled each flat of twelve boxes in a mere fifteen minutes, not the half hour the other, smaller berries took. I loved those new money-doubling products of horticultural science. But not for long. Sadly, as I bit into one of the uber-berries, I discovered the rest of the story. The new strain was even more bitter and pithier than the commercial ones I had been picking for years. Worst of all, gone was the taste of strawberry. Imagine that. A strawberry that didn’t taste anything like a strawberry. As you may have already guessed, the experimental berries that I picked over forty years ago are the same huge, deep red, tasteless fruit you can buy at the grocery store today. Putting it all together. I’m exercising a fair amount nowadays in order to lose weight. I want to be able to play with my grandkids without dropping dead from a heart attack. For me, thinning down is not so much a looks thing as a health thing. That’s because I mainly like who I am and I’m glad that my wife, children, and grandchildren seem perfectly satisfied as well. Like a strawberry, I typically wear my seeds on the outside. I’m deeply aware of the fact that I look like a cross between Tom Cruise and Danny DeVito—minus the Tom Cruise part. And you know what? I’m okay with that. I don’t believe it when TV commercials and programs tell me I need to transform myself into someone else’s view of how I should appear. In my particular case, today’s beauty vendors routinely try to tempt me with the wonders of liposuction or maybe even calf and pec implants. Imagine that: little plastic pillows sewed inside me to make my chest look more muscled. You’re talking about a guy who doesn’t miss his hair all that much or even think to comb it for that matter. Most important of all, I never want my wife, children, or grandchildren to feel that they too are unfinished until someone transforms them into the world’s view of the perfect prototype. I love them just the way they are. I love them for who they are. And like the wild strawberry, I love them for what’s inside. I know that sounds corny. It is corny. But maybe I’m not thinking clearly. When I look out the window of my office and see puffy-lipped, silicon enhanced, calf and pec sculpted, and curiously look-alike "perfect specimens" jog by, I have an overwhelming feeling of nostalgia. I miss strawberries.

Dear Crucial Skills, I’ve recently taken the Crucial Conversations Training in an effort to improve my communication skills with my coworkers. However, I’ve been cautioned that I already burned a few bridges and that some of my coworkers are hesitant to work with me on projects. To be honest, I don’t really blame them. I’ve been described as a strong Type A personality and I sometimes get frustrated when other people on the team don’t share my drive for producing results. I genuinely do feel badly if I’ve hurt or offended people over the years, but I don’t want to go around doing a big sackcloth and ashes routine to atone for the sins of the past. I feel like I can be pleasant, friendly, and helpful ninety-nine percent of the time, but they are always going to remember the one percent of the time when I wasn’t at my best. What is a professional way to say that I’d like to wipe the slate clean of past transgressions and start fresh? Sincerely, Mr. Type A Dear Mr. Type A, We are mistaken when we assume relationships are simply the sum total of all of our interactions; they are so much more. The most important component of any relationship is not the behavior that has been enacted between two people; rather, it is the conclusions that have been drawn about each other. The stories we tell ourselves are the basis of our relationships with each other. You are wise to notice how mistakes you have made with your coworkers in the past have made them hesitant to work with you on projects. It’s good that you want to make a "fresh start." The key to your success will be to first work on your stories about your coworker relationships, and then work on their stories about you. It seems to me that you are one step shy of taking responsibility for your part of the problem when you describe yourself as getting "frustrated when other people on the team don’t share your drive for producing results." I think it’s more likely that the problem is not that you care about results and they do not. It’s the way you express your frustration that causes them to not want to work with you. I believe the story you are telling yourself puts you in the best possible light (having a strong drive for producing results), instead of describing that when you are frustrated, you act in ways that hurt or offend others. The fact that this is your story is further evidenced by your statement, "I genuinely do feel badly if I’ve hurt or offended people." Do you have any evidence that people have been hurt or offended by you? For instance, that they don’t want to work with you. By adding the "if," it seems that you are allowing the possibility it might be true, but not taking responsibility for acting in ways that did in fact hurt and offend others. My advice is to revise your story in a way that factually identifies what you are doing that is creating the outcomes you want to change. How are you acting out your frustration instead of talking out your frustration? Answer that question and you will be on the path to becoming more effective with your coworkers. Next, work on your coworkers’ stories. You have been cautioned about having already "burned a few bridges," yet you feel that ninety-nine percent of the time, you are "pleasant, friendly, and helpful." That doesn’t seem fair, does it? I had a man approach me after a workshop on how leaders can rebuild trust. He told me that he had been using these skills with his two children for two years but their trust in him had not improved. I asked him what had happened two years ago. He explained that he came home drunk and had yelled and hit his children. The next day, when he realized what he had done, he was ashamed. He felt awful. He quit drinking that very day. Since that awful night, he told me he had not raised his voice in anger with his children, nor had he lifted his hand against them. Yet, in spite of his consistent efforts, he still feels a distance between them and reluctance for them to "let him into their hearts." I asked him, "What happened the morning after? What did you say to your children?" He told me that there had been no discussion of the incident, but that he had resolved then and there to quit drinking and to truly change. Because he did not discuss the incident with his children, he had not created a context for his future behavior. When he did not say he was sorry, when he did not promise he would never yell at them again and never, ever hit them, he did not create clear expectations about what they should expect from him. As a result, even though he was kind and no longer yelled, this was not evidence to his children that he had changed. In their mind, they were still waiting for the "other shoe to drop." Instead of seeing the incident as an exception to his usual loving behavior, they saw this behavior as revealing his true nature. Let’s get back to your question. For you to build effective relationships with your coworkers, you’re right, you do not have to "go around doing a big sackcloth and ashes routine." However, don’t repeat this father’s mistake. You must create a context with clear expectations going forward. Explain to your coworkers that you have completed training and realized there are some significant ways you can improve. Identify what they are. You might say, "In the past when I have gotten frustrated, I have lashed out and accused you of not caring. In the future, I will Describe the Gap. I will factually identify what has happened and compare it to what I expected. I will then ask for your view on what has occurred and I will listen to understand." By creating clear expectations for your coworkers about what they can expect from you, you give them a context from which they can evaluate your behavior. Instead of dismissing the ninety-nine percent of the time when you are helpful, and waiting for your next explosion, they will start to see your good behavior as evidence that you are doing what you said you would do. Every good encounter will be further evidence that you are really making an effort to change. When you do make a mistake, immediately acknowledge it, apologize, and start over. Instead of seeing your mistake as proof you have not changed, your co-workers are more likely to hear your apology as a sincere effort to improve and will be more willing to cut you some slack. By making real improvements, acknowledging mistakes, quickly apologizing and getting back on track, you can rebuild some of those "burned bridges" and become even more effective in producing the results you care so deeply about. All the best, Ron

In a perfect world, Crucial Conversations would always be held face-to-face. The benefits of immediate feedback and nonverbal communication makes dialogue much more rich and accurate. However, today’s global and distributed workforce doesn’t always allow for face-to-face interactions. When you’re in Singapore and need to communicate to co-workers in Germany, Brazil, and the United States, the distance, time zones, and different cultures can create huge barriers to dialogue. The next best option to face-to-face interactions is to use video conferencing for a virtual in-person meeting. Even a phone call preserves some of the nuances of conversation. When those options aren’t available, you can still use many Crucial Conversations skills in e-mail communication. Because you won’t be able to use Learn to Look to notice when safety is at risk, you may need to work harder than usual to establish safety during high-stakes e-mail conversations. This is an ideal time to use contrasting statements to clarify your good intent up front. This will ensure the e-mail recipient understands you want to be helpful or gain understanding—not questioning or accusing them. When you use STATE skills in e-mail, be sure your facts are clear. Then be very tentative with any story you tell. Be sure you own the story as your perception, not as an accusation or a conclusion. When you Ask for Others Path in an e-mail, be specific about the response you want. For example, let’s say you’ve been collaborating with someone on the other side of the world on an important report. You drafted a summary of the report and sent it to your co-worker. In response, you received a complete rewrite with a single-sentence e-mail that said, "This may work better." This isn’t the process you agreed on, so you need to address the apparent disconnect. Your e-mail might sound something like: "I got your e-mail with the rewrite of the report. I just want to check in with you on the process we’re following. I’m not unhappy with any of the work you do; I’ve enjoyed collaborating with you a lot. I just want to make sure we’re seeing the process the same way. I thought we had agreed that I would write a first draft of the report based on our collective research. When I sent you the draft, I was expecting to get your comments. Instead, I got a complete rewrite of the report. I’m a little confused by this and am wondering if we’re seeing our roles in this process differently. I’d really like to talk with you about this rather than exchange e-mails. Could you give me a couple of times that would be good for us to talk about this in person?" If it’s impossible to talk in person, your question might be, "Could you share with me your understanding of our roles in creating this report?" Then you can get the other person’s perspective and go from there. Two-way communication is always best. But when you have to use e-mail to address difficult issues, be sure to use Crucial Conversations skills to help move toward dialogue.

Any time one of our Influencers publishes new research, we pay attention. These are people with a track record of success that proves they’re experts at changing behavior. Brian Wansink is just one of those influencers. His research on eating behavior contributed to the introduction of smaller "100 calorie" packages (to prevent overeating), the use of taller glasses in bars (to prevent the overpouring of alcohol), and the removal of 500 million calories from restaurants each year (via Unilever’s Seductive Nutrition program). He was appointed by the White House to help develop the 2010 Dietary Guidelines and Food Guide Pyramid. He is also a good friend of VitalSmarts. In fact, you’ll recognize him from our very own Influencer Training. Brian has new research that he’s published in his latest book, Slim By Design. I was immediately impressed by his Source 6 approach (the influence of the environment) to improve our health. He was kind enough to answer a few questions I thought our newsletter readers would find applicable for their own influence efforts to stay healthy. So without further ado… Joseph: The subtitle of your new book, Slim by Design, is "Mindless eating solutions for everyday life." Shouldn’t we be mindful of what we eat? Brian: For ninety percent of us, the solution to mindless eating is not mindful eating—our lives are just too crazy and our willpower is too wimpy. Instead, the solution is to tweak small things in our homes, favorite restaurants, supermarkets, workplaces, and schools so we mindlessly eat less and better instead of more. It’s easier to use a small plate, face away from the buffet, and sit a Frisbee-spin away from the bread basket than it is to be a martyr on a hunger strike. Willpower is hard and has to last a lifetime. That is one of the great things about your Influencer Model—you emphasize that a huge part of changing behavior is changing your environment. Slim by Design focuses exactly on how you do it to eat better and lose weight. Joseph: Yes, but not all the ideas you write about in Slim by Design are directly related to food. What’s one you found most surprising and how are you incorporating it into your life? Brian: We all intuitively know that we probably eat worse when we’re in a bad mood than when we’re in a good mood. But there’s both good news and bad news here. The bad news is that even if we’re only in a slightly bad mood—tough day at work, mediocre report card, etc.—it dramatically worsens what and how much we eat at mealtime. The good news is that it takes very little to turn that mood around. In one of our studies, we simply asked people to describe one thing that happened that day that they were grateful for, and they ate twelve percent fewer calories. They even ate more vegetables! Within two days of discovering this, I changed what my family and I do before mealtime. Before both breakfast and lunch, I think of one thing that’s happened in my day that I’m grateful for. At dinnertime, I have a slightly different routine. Each person in the family shares what happened that day by answering four questions: 1) their high point, 2) their low point, 3) who they appreciate most and why, and 4) their plan for tomorrow. It gives us a chance to celebrate the good things that happen, realize that each of us has daily disappointments, thank a person who helped us out, and to raise our eyes toward the future. All three of my daughters get their moment in the sun, and it makes me happy to see each one shine. On most days, this is one of the most crucial conversations I have. Joseph: Slim by Design is not only about changing your habits, but it’s also about creating a movement. Can you elaborate? Brian: The Slim by Design movement is about taking small actions in the five places that booby-trap most of our eating: our home, our favorite restaurants, our corner grocery store, our office, and our child’s school lunchroom. These are small concrete, actionable solutions that my Cornell University Food and Brand Lab has developed, tested, analyzed, and tweaked in dozens of cities across the United States and abroad. To make your life slim by design, you don’t have to change the whole world—just focus on these five places or zones. You can think globally, but eat locally. All you need to do is to 1) change what you do in each of these places, and 2) let them know how they could help you eat less and eat better. For each location or zone, there’s a starter ten-point scorecard that will give you an initial idea of whether these places are making you slim or fat. There are also specific steps you can make to change things. Best yet, you don’t need any special skills to make these changes. All you need to know is what to do—and how to ask these places and people around you to help. I love the work you folks do at VitalSmarts, and this whole movement idea is based on your Influencer approach. It’s making influencers out of each of us. We’ll not only be influencing ourselves and our family, but also our neighbors and our community. We’re adding influence sources three and four to a powerful source six strategy. Joseph: How do I know whether my home is making me slim by design or fat by design? Brian: My previous book, Mindless Eating, contained about 150 proven, workable weight-loss tips we’d discovered from our studies in homes. Since that time, we’ve discovered many more tips that relate specifically to your home—such as your kitchen, cupboards, refrigerator, table, and TV room—and combined the 100 easiest ones into a Slim by Design Home Scorecard. It helps you quickly troubleshoot how a home is adding unwanted pounds and it shows exactly what changes will reverse this. For example, it will ask you things like, is the kitchen organized? Is there fruit on the counter? Is the toaster put away? To get you started, here’s an abbreviated ten-point version of the scorecard to help you see if you’re on track. Joseph: Where should a person start? Brian: Start with the scorecards. First, go to the SlimbyDesign.org website and fill out the Slim by Design scorecards for each of the five different zones. You can then share the results on Facebook or Twitter or send one of the suggested letters so that your restaurant, grocery store, work site, and child’s school lunchroom knows how they’re doing in helping to make you Slim by Design. Second, you can read Slim by Design for more ideas. Third you can follow and interact with us on social media. For more fun tips from Brian, watch his video message to our readers! All the best, Joseph Want to win a copy of Slim By Design? Brian has been kind enough to share twenty books with our newsletter readers. To be entered into a drawing to win a book, please forward this newsletter to a friend who you think could benefit from these skills or share it on your social account. Send an email to editor@vitalsmarts.com and let us know that you shared it and we’ll enter you into our book drawing

According to a recent VitalSmarts’ study of 986 parents, three-fourths overestimate their effectiveness in helping their children navigate common school-related problems, including their child’s academic performance, discipline problems, and social issues like bullying. Yet when parents were asked about how they dealt with these issues in real life, thirty-five percent failed to raise key issues with teachers or administrators, and eighteen percent more tried but described their interventions as "not at all successful." Parents see themselves as far more skilled at these discussions than teachers and administrators, yet parents put very little responsibility on themselves. "We found that even when parents DO take responsibility for their child’s school issues, their perceived ability is a lot higher than their actual ability to handle them," said author David Maxfield. "In addition to highlighting this skills gap among parents, we believe the study shows the extent to which parents ‘outsource’ these issues to teachers, rather than taking responsibility for themselves to hold these key conversations that can spell success or failure for their child." What can parents do to master these conversations? Joseph Grenny and David Maxfield offer the following tips: • Get your motives right. It’s easy to get defensive about issues with kids. Parents and teachers both feel attacked and accused. The key to a healthy conversation is to remind yourself and the other person of the shared goal—helping the child succeed. • Defuse defensiveness. Start the conversation by assuring the other person of what you are not there to do. For example, "I’m not here to blame you. I am here to understand," If you’re a parent, let the teacher know you want to help them succeed without creating more work or drama for them. If you’re a teacher, assure the parent it’s all about the child’s success, not criticizing the parent. • Start with facts. Use specific facts—details about incidents—to illustrate your concerns to the teacher or administrator. Use all facts available; if your child is partially at fault, be quick to admit it. View the results of our study in the infographic below or click here to download a copy.

Dear Crucial Skills, How can you change the culture of a federal agency with constant political leadership changes? Because of constant change at the top, no one actually follows through on strategic plans. Long-time federal employees know that if they just wait it out, the leadership will change and they won’t have to. Signed, This Too Shall Pass Dear This Too Shall Pass, Confucius was once asked what changes he would make if he were emperor. His answer: I would change the language. Confucius’ argument is that language is the most fundamental influence of all; what you think, how you think, how you feel, and ultimately, how you act, are all shaped by the liberties and constraints given you by your language. Measurement is the language of organizations. If you want to change organizational behavior, start with the language. Some have tried to blame inefficient government bureaucracies on the bureaucrats. They assume the reason service stinks at the DMV and is stellar at Nordstrom is because of the people themselves. That’s baloney. We’ve done plenty of research in government agencies and found inspired, capable leaders as much in abundance as in many Fortune 500 companies. The primary obstacle to influence is that there is no external forcing function that demands accountability for results. Consequently, prioritization becomes political rather than natural. In a commercial enterprise, owners and customers create natural accountability. Organizations that don’t serve them well suffer—sooner or later. Hence, commercial enterprises are generally observant of measuring how they perform for owners and customers. In government agencies, there is no demand to measure service to owners and customers; it becomes the prerogative of leaders to measure what they will. For example, a new law can be passed demanding that having a paperless office is of higher priority than getting road projects done on time and on budget. Now I know I’m not telling you anything new here. But this background is important because my central recommendation is to focus your influence on this one key change. You’ll never change the fact that every four years or so you’ll get a new photograph on the wall to match the political appointee at the top. But what you can do is try to build support for an internally imposed measure that aligns with the needs of those you serve. A few years ago, I worked with a governor of a state in the US who was remarkably effective at driving change. Her primary influence was requiring senior civil service staff (and her appointees) to develop stakeholder aligned scorecards for their agencies. She didn’t have to reach down and micromanage much of anything. Her mantra was, "If you don’t have data, you lead by anecdotes." And she was right. By simply requiring every agency to identify mission-aligned metrics that they would track religiously, she created a sense of accountability and a motivation for change that had been lacking previously. You don’t have to be a governor to influence in this way. For example, Bill Patrick, from the State of Michigan’s Department of Human Services was able to influence a very important change. Bill worked in a state office in Fort Wayne, MI that offered financial services to low income residents. Customer service was pitiful—terrible wait times for counseling, inconvenient scheduling process, etc. Yet within a matter of months, customer satisfaction rose from 23% to 82%. The first influence key Patrick used was simple measurement. If you want to create awareness and motivation for change—change the language. Create credible measures that align with the fundamental mission of the organization and people will have a hard time resisting their effect. By simply documenting the degree of the problem, Patrick rallied support for his effort to influence change. And he succeeded spectacularly. The main thing commercial agencies have that you don’t, is a forcing function. But good leadership doesn’t wait for a forcing function. Introduce a new language (measure) that is inarguably mission-aligned, and you’ll open the possibility of dramatic change. Best wishes, Joseph

We’re excited to announce that Emily Hoffman, a Senior Master Trainer as well as VitalSmarts’ VP of Development & Delivery, will become a regular contributor to the Crucial Skills Newsletter. Dear Crucial Skills, A friend of mine works in a small office. She has a new coworker who sits on the other side of her cube. They face each other and the cubes are very low. This new office mate is very nice and she would like to have a good relationship with her, however the young woman continuously coughs without covering her mouth. My friend sometimes feels the cough on her face and it has become extremely difficult to work next to her. Is there a good way to approach this situation? Sincerely, Friend of the Coughed upon Coworker Dear Friend, Congratulations to your friend! She has already done two incredibly important things right. First, your friend recognizes the need to have a positive working relationship with her office mate. Second, she is addressing this quickly, while the coworker is still "new." Allow me to explain why these two things are worthy of congratulations. First, she has positive intent. So often it is our intent that gets in the way of holding effective crucial conversations. We quickly jump to conclusions about others (e.g. "What bad manners she has!" and "How rude and inconsiderate of her!") We consciously or subconsciously bring this to our dialogue, often through our non-verbal actions. Then, after judging the person in our hearts, we are astonished when they become defensive. Of course they become defensive! They can sense our judgment. I’d become defensive too if I thought someone was out to judge and criticize me. So, your friend has taken this crucial first step; she has withheld judgment and has a positive intent. Next, she is facing this issue while her office mate is still new. Why is this so important? Not only does it keep the problem from festering, which will almost inevitably erode any good intent she might have, it also creates more defensiveness in the other person. If you are the one coughing, it is easy to think, "Why didn’t she say something about this before? I am so embarrassed, I could die of shame!" Or, along different yet equally predictable lines, "Gee! What’s the big deal? It’s never bothered you before. Or has it? Have you been holding a grudge all this time?" Either way, your friend is significantly better off addressing this early, before emotions escalate. Okay, so enough with the back-patting congratulations. What should your friend actually say? First, start with a positive statement of intent that builds directly on what we have just discussed. "I wanted to chat with you about something. It’s been so nice working with you these past few days/weeks and I am looking forward to continuing that. I just want to catch something early." Then, be specific without being accusatory. "I noticed you coughed several times without covering your mouth. Sometimes I have even felt the cough." Be careful here. The tendency will be to use absolute language like, "you always cough . . . " or, "every time you cough . . . " You don’t need to go to extremes to open up this dialogue, and doing that will likely provoke even more defensiveness. Create additional safety by demonstrating you haven’t judged your coworker. "My guess is you aren’t even aware of this, which is why I thought I would bring it up." And then, just five sentences into the dialogue, stop. Wait. Listen. If needed, prompt with a question like, "Can we talk about this?" Remember, this is dialogue. The surest way to demonstrate good intent and your commitment to hearing the other person’s perspective is to close your mouth. Do that quickly and consistently and you will be amazed at what you will learn. At this point, you are probably thinking, "That sounds great, but what do you do when the person coughing responds? Cries? Yells? Shuts down? Starts coughing on me right then?" The thing that typically causes the most anxiety when preparing for a crucial conversation is not thinking about what we will say, it is thinking about what the other person will say. So, here is what you do: Imagine the absolute worst response you might get. Got it in your head? If you’re like me, you probably picked one of two extremes. Either the person coughing gets upset and responds defensively—"That is the rudest thing anyone has ever said to me! I can’t believe you would say that!" Or, perhaps worse, they get embarrassed but seem to be okay—"I am so sorry. Thanks for pointing that out. I will do better"—and then shuts down i.e. feels uncomfortable around you or is overly sensitive. Once you have the worst possible response in your head, make a plan for dealing with it. If they become defensive and angry, clarify your good intent. "I didn’t mean to be rude or disrespectful. I sincerely enjoy working nearby you. I am sorry if that hasn’t been apparent. I want to be able to have an open, productive, collaborative relationship with you and talk about any concerns either of us might have." If they takes the second option and shut down, do the exact same thing as above—clarify your good intent. This time it may sound more like, "It seems like maybe I have made you uncomfortable or embarrassed. If I have, I am sorry. That was not my intent at all. I really value you working here and am looking forward to a great working relationship." Having someone point out bad behavior (such as fanning a coworker’s face with your lungs) is bound to create vulnerability. Be aware of that, and be willing to admit to your own vulnerability. After all, speaking up to someone about bad behavior creates a vulnerability all its own. Good Luck, Emily

When John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd started rehearsing the 1981 film Neighbors, one of the greatest casting errors in the history of movies was set into action. John, true to type, had been cast as the zany neighbor and Dan as the conservative one. For reasons only the two of them will ever know, Belushi and Aykroyd insisted on reversing roles. Now, thousands of fans would be able to watch John Belushi—the greatest maniac of all time—acting controlled and normal. What a disaster. By the time the director shouted, "It’s a wrap," everyone associated with the film was convinced they had just created a train wreck that couldn’t be saved in post. Sure enough, when the producers previewed the movie with audiences, they quickly learned that John Q. Public wasn’t in love with the new movie, hated the fact that John Belushi was the normal character, and were generally underwhelmed. Critics universally panned the film. To avoid losing their investment, producers came up with a scheme that served as a marketing model for years to come. They chose to hype the movie with a deluge of ads for the two weeks immediately preceding the first showing—spending the entire marketing budget early on, knowing there would be nothing to market later. The plan worked. Hordes of adoring fans went to see Aykroyd and Belushi opening night, and for the first couple of weeks, the producers earned their money back—then the movie tanked as people told their friends not to go. As this was going on in Hollywood, 1,370 miles away in Detroit I was about to give a speech. Fortunately, the audience I’d be facing was made up of people who didn’t expect much from me as a speaker. I met their expectations—delivering a presentation that was lukewarm at best. Then to my surprise, I was invited to give the speech again—apparently I was the only game in town. Based on the reaction of the first speech, I now had an inkling of what the audience liked and disliked. So I altered a few slides, added a story here, clipped a silence-inducing concept there, and eventually delivered a greatly improved presentation. Based on this upgraded performance, my speaking requests skyrocketed. Soon, I was giving a weekly presentation all around the country—each speech benefiting from the previous one. By the time Neighbors was pulled from the theaters and critics had hurled their last invective, I was being heralded as a decent orator who delivered a crackerjack speech. As I’ve thought about these two events, my heart goes out to filmmakers. Producers spend tens of millions on a production, show it to audiences, and then wait for the fall out. There’s not much they can do if it doesn’t go well. The sets have been demolished, the people behind the cameras have moved on to new projects, and the principal actors have scattered to the wind. With a movie, you have one chance to get it right and then it’s on to the next one. At best, you can tweak a little here and cut a little there but nothing more than that. My speech, in contrast, provided ample opportunity for me to improve on my original disaster by running short-term mini-experiments. With each new speech, I’d try out new ideas or methods, watch the reaction, make changes, test them, and then repeat the process until, by golly, I had a finely tuned, widely accepted, finished product. In fact, that’s not even true. With a speech, you never have a finished product. With each new delivery, you’re provided one more opportunity to make improvements based on your latest audience’s reaction. And now, the reason these stories are relevant. From 1980 until now, I have received hundreds of papers from students and dozens of projects from young people I work with developing training products. I have observed that, far too often, individuals approach creative tasks as if they were producing a movie. They work hard to create a finished product and hand it to me—ta da!—never (or only barely) having tested it with an audience and too late to be altered. I suppose we develop this life-is-a-movie attitude early on in our education. We work on our first science project or term paper, hand it in, and pray for a good grade. We’re lucky to get it handed in at all, let alone tested, changed, polished, and refined. As a result, by the time I work with students in graduate school, they’re used to dashing out a project, doing the least amount possible to receive the grade they want, and then moving on. They have neither the time nor the inclination to polish anything. Unfortunately, when it comes to producing a noteworthy product, polishing is everything. Just ask professional writers about their craft. They’ll eagerly tell you, "Writing is rewriting." And if they’re smart, they’re rewriting based on the reaction of members of their target audience. This lesson can be hard to learn. I have a talented friend who published a book that was universally criticized for being slow moving and lengthy. When I asked what had happened, he sheepishly reported that only his editors had read the book before it was released—and then solely for grammar. Life is a speech, not a movie. We’re almost always given a chance to rework our projects. Unlike movie makers, people who collaborate with us don’t disappear into the wind. It doesn’t cost millions to return to our initial work. It just takes the guts and humility to share our ideas with others—early on—and then ask for honest feedback. For instance, when we develop a new training product, we don’t create two days of training and then test it with a beta group. We work feverishly on one hour of the training and then test it. Then we make changes and test it again. And again. Next, we combine two one-hour segments into a quarter day. By the time we release a finished product, every element has been vetted by real audiences, dozens of times. Working and reworking a project until it appears professional, smooth, and "effortless" can be misleading to the casual observer. When I first saw Woody Allen perform a stand-up routine on the Tonight Show, I was astonished by his ability to deliver one hilarious joke after another. Years later, I learned that before performing that remarkable set, he had put together ten jokes and tried them out at a local club. One joke survived. Then he tried out ten more and then another ten until he had the "effortless" set he delivered on TV. Mr. Allen understood that he wasn’t producing a movie, he was giving a speech—and a speech can be easily tested and improved until the finished product looks effortless. Understanding this idea gives us hope. It frees us from the frightening challenge of "getting it right the first time." Instead, when it comes to working on complex projects, we should produce a first draft, run tests, make changes, and repeat. So I’ll say it one more time: life is a speech, not a movie. And thank goodness for that.

There is so much chatter about Renée Zellweger’s new look. But perhaps it’s time to turn our gaze to an underlying issue that I don’t hear the media addressing in this conversation—how do women talk to each other? For that matter, how do men talk to women? And what does it say about who we are and what we value? Human beings have this incredible, deep need to be in relationships with other people. We want to engage with each other, but what are we choosing to talk about? I’d like to explore the idea that our conversations affect how we see ourselves, and perhaps even the values we subconsciously espouse. I’ve been pregnant three times—the last with twins. Each time, I was struck by the outpouring of friendly conversation lavished upon me by strangers and friends alike. People talk to pregnant women because they know the rules for what to talk about with a mommy-to-be. You can ask about the due-date, the name of the baby, chat about food cravings, or the discomfort of pregnancy. Now, when I am out and about with the twins, I experience the same excitement from strangers. They approach me abuzz with questions about what it’s like to raise multiples. I’ve found when traveling alone for work, just sitting on an airplane next to someone invites familiar chatter. When it feels welcome and easy, strangers engage with each other. But it’s not always so welcome and easy, which is why we play on our phones and ignore each other much of the time. In my work, I have the privilege of teaching thousands of people around the globe how to build relationships and get results through dialogue. I am essentially teaching the rules for holding effective crucial conversations. People are so grateful for these rules. When we know the rules for engagement, we feel more confident and less vulnerable stepping up to these difficult conversations. However, no one teaches us the rules for casual conversations. I suspect when we greet our friends or turn to strangers to make small talk, we are not consciously connecting to our deeper values in those moments. I fear our friendly and well-intentioned chitchat could very well be contributing to the reasons that beautiful women like, Renée Zellweger, find themselves in search of a new mid-life look. Here are the kinds of things I hear us saying: "I can’t believe you just had a baby. You look amazing!" "Where did you get those shoes?" "I love your hair." "How do you stay so thin? Do you work out?" If these are the comments a woman hears day in and day out, what does she come to believe society values most about her? The social justice work she does? Her commitment to lifelong learning? The kindness she extends as a friend, a colleague, a neighbor, a wife? The discipline she demonstrates in her work, her studies, and her parenting? No. She learns that she is valued for her body, her clothes, and her image. Perhaps she comes to believe that her vitality is tied to the fleeting physical beauty of youth. And if one day she stops receiving a steady stream of these comments (or if the comments she hears are of the more disparaging, critical kind to begin with), she is left wondering how valued she really is. She might be tempted to believe that society will value her more if she could just "get a little work done" or drop a few pounds or cover the gray. It seems to me that people are hungry, maybe even desperate for human connection and face-to-face conversation. Delightful, spontaneous, kind words from strangers, friends, and acquaintances can be some of the best kind. What if, for just this week, we all tried to refrain from commenting on each other’s looks and just celebrated each other’s gorgeous spirits and beautiful ideas instead? To the mom juggling four young children with grace and humor in a crowded restaurant, "You make it look easy." To the young girl reading, "I love books, don’t you? What’s your favorite?" To the woman in the work meeting who’s holding back her contributions, "We haven’t heard from you today. I always love what you have to say. Is there anything you’d like to share?" To the older woman holding hands with her husband walking through the mall, "You guys are the sweetest. What an inspiration you are!" It’s been said that our sense of self stems from the narrative we tell about our lives. That narrative is nothing but a collection of memories. Perhaps each of us could change that collective narrative by changing what we see, what we talk about, and what we find beautiful about each other. And maybe even in ourselves. Crucial Skills Readers: What are your thoughts? How could we better prioritize the importance we place on physical beauty?

Dear Crucial Skills, I just watched Joseph Grenny’s "How to Hold Those You Love Accountable" video and although I thought it was good, I would like to know how to deal with teenagers who don’t see things as clearly. Both kids in the example well up in tears and seem extremely mature in their response. What happens when you take this same approach and they just roll their eyes, say they don’t want to talk about their feelings, and to just get on with it? What about when they’ve heard it all before from adults who really wanted to empathize and they simply like doing drugs or throwing parties? They see the benefit (popularity, hot girls, easy rush, etc.) and wish the old folks would just stop nagging. They’re right and you are wrong. What do you do then? Signed, Giving Up Dear Giving Up, With your permission I will speak very personally. You are asking a question that strikes at the heart of what parenting has meant to me. My opinions about your situation have been informed by twenty-seven years of learning to have intimate relationships with imperfect people. People like me. For those who haven’t seen the video, I shared a story of a young man at an alternative high school who was addicted to drugs and was caught using them in school. I also described how one of my teenage children threw a massive party at our home while my wife and I were away. The point I wanted to illustrate is, if we try to address accountability with those we love in the absence of emotional connection, we often provoke defensiveness. However, if we pay the price to connect emotionally first, they are more likely to feel naturally accountable for the effect their actions have on others. True accountability is the fruit of emotional connection. Anything less is little more than compulsion. Trust me, my life hasn’t been a series of photo ops. It’s been more valley than peak. I feel your pain when your best efforts seem to yield no influence. And I know the agony of watching those I love squander sacred potential. So, what do you do when, in spite of your best efforts to empathize, connect, listen, and validate others, the result is a shoulder shrug? Here are my beliefs about how to create healthy relationships with imperfect people. 1. I am responsible for influence, not results. The instant I measure my "success" by others’ choices, I am living a lie. The lie is that I can—or should—control others. I can’t. I shouldn’t. The very wish to do so is the root cause of every form of misery for myself and others. It leads to anger, despair, depression, compulsion, and pride. During our children’s infancy, we parents get seduced into the delusion that we can mold them as we please. The truth is, we are responsible to offer a worthy example, provide coaching, give support, and surrender the rest. 2. Everyone learns on their own schedule. Over the years I’ve created enormous stress for myself and family members, by unconsciously planning the lives of my children on a normative schedule. I had tacit expectations of where they should be by age eight, twelve, sixteen, eighteen, and so on. Mind you, I wasn’t aware I was doing this. It was more of an expectation I absorbed by comparing myself with "successful" parents around me. It wasn’t until one child after another deviated from that plan that I became aware I had it in the first place. It showed up in feelings of panic or discouragement. It showed up in behavior like bargaining, bribing, and criticizing. I have arrived at a very different place today. I feel an immense respect for the uniqueness of each of my children. I have enormous faith that they are learning creatures and that they each need to learn in their own way and on their own schedule. If you’ll allow a very personal aside, I also believe this learning schedule exceeds this life. I get to take part in that learning at times, but my role is much smaller than the illusory one I have so often coveted. 3. Influence can only be granted, not taken. My children grant it to me at their pleasure—and tend to do so only when they believe they can trust my intent. In the worst of cases, children surrender enormous influence because we’ve convinced them of their own incompetence. They adopt every habit and aspiration we advocate because they can hardly distinguish the boundaries of their own identity from ours. The other extreme happens when they resent your attempt to violate their agency so much that your attempts to control become the issue. You unintentionally impede their ability to learn from their mistakes because they are distracted by their resentment of your intrusions into their choices. Healthy influence happens when children are fundamentally convinced your only intent is to help them accomplish their own worthy goals, not to impose your own. This redefines parenting as a process of enabling their discovery of their own uniqueness, worth, and mission. And it gives you a small but privileged view of that unfolding. At times they’ll make monumentally stupid decisions (as did you and I). With adult children, we slow their learning when we either fight these choices or rescue them from them. Instead, our role is to help them know we believe in them, and be ready to offer feedback and counsel when—and only when—they give us permission to do so. I hope you don’t hear any of this as glib. I know the pain of parental disappointment—and even agony. I’ve come to understand, at times, that making the choice to love is making a choice to suffer. But that suffering need not turn to misery if I understand my role. When I do, I increase the likelihood of experiencing the surpassing joy that comes from being such an intimate part of another person’s life. With love, Joseph

What should I do if I have an entire group/team attending the training that is very bitter and angry with management and resistant to change? This is a great question. Let me share a few tips that may be helpful to think about. 1. If you have the opportunity to work with this group in their intact work team, I recommend engaging them in the activity on page 165 of the toolkit (page 139 of the trainer guide)—the optional Team Application for Master My Stories in Module 7. It’s probably one that they didn’t do in the Crucial Conversations class—so it will be new to them. The key for you is to make it safe for them to fully engage and use their skills to speak honestly, openly, and with respect. 2. Get them to acknowledge the costs of the status quo. What’s the cost of doing nothing? What’s the cost if they aren’t open and honest with one another? 3. Have them share success stories. While it can be daunting to take on a huge entrenched problem (like an angry, bitter culture that’s resistant to change), it can be helpful, motivating, and even inspiring to hear how others’ small steps have yielded results. Seek out opinion leaders and encourage them to share where they’ve been successful. 4. Finally, remind them that even if they try and just do a "pretty good" job of using the skills (vs. a perfect job), they can still get better results. Sometimes simply changing a few words, or the intent of an approach can dramatically alter how the other person reacts. Good Luck! Candace

Most of us who teach Crucial Conversations love to coach our trainees. Often this happens in the classroom during the training process, but sometimes we get the opportunity to coach one-on-one after the primary learning has taken place. This can be a great opportunity for us and the trainee if we approach it correctly. There are two key steps we will explore here: encouraging the one-on-one process and the actual coaching process itself. Our goal should be to help the trainee prepare to take action in his own impending crucial conversation—transitioning from learner to doer. If you don’t normally have people contact you for this type of coaching, but would like to offer it, here are a couple of tips. After the acid test activity in Get Unstuck is complete, let the class know you are available after the two class days for one-on-one coaching. Let them know that you have a sign-up sheet handy and that they can book time with you now based on their availability. Reinforce this point at the end of day one, the beginning of day two, and in the wrap-up. Typically, if they don’t sign up in class, they never will. It’s also important to let them know you will respect their confidentiality—assuming you can legally do that—and that they do not have to share personal details with you. Make sure they know your goal is to get them from learner to doer. Once you’ve begun the coaching process, the next step is to establish Mutual Purpose. What exactly does the trainee expect from the coach? What do I expect of the trainee? What am I willing to do as the coach? Starting with Mutual Purpose allows us to have clear expectations of each other and be clear about what we are trying to achieve. In this process, we also have to make sure the trainee has realistic expectations of himself. A little bit like Goldilocks, the expectations shoule be not too low, not too high, but just right. As Joseph has said many times, "We can’t talk our way out of something we behaved our way into." If the trainee is expecting a miracle conversation, we need to help him/her be realistic. If the trainee is aiming too low, we need to help him/her use CPR to identify the right conversation to hold. Many trainees leave our classrooms feeling a bit overwhelmed. They are unsure where to start or which skills to apply in their own crucial conversations. As you already know, it is impossible for even the best learner to leave the classroom as a master of all the skills. As coaches, we can help our trainees by determining which skills have the greatest application right now. This allows them to focus on learning and applying a manageable amount of what they learned and then add additional skills in the future as their confidence builds. Please share your ideas below.

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Dear Crucial Skills, I’m president of my church choir’s advisory council. The choir has long had a "slush fund" that is used for various choir-related expenses, but it is not administered by the advisory council. I would like to change this, but am unsure of how to approach the "owners" of the fund. These are members of the choir who make decisions on whether money can be spent without any general choir input. Recently, they denied the advisory council’s request for a small amount of money saying it was an "inappropriate" use of funds. I don’t want to turn this into the Inquisition, but the advisory council members think we should all have more input. Any suggestions as to how to approach our colleagues and gain their cooperation? Signed, Looking for Guidance Dear Looking, This situation may seem very unique, but it isn’t. I think many of us have felt the need to change an established system that is supported by entrenched interests. How do we make these changes? And how do we involve people who believe they will lose power, money, prestige, etc. as a result of these changes? Get the facts. I would begin by learning the history behind the current arrangement. The creation of the "slush fund," which seems peculiar now, probably made a lot of sense at the time it was established. For example, maybe it was part of a contract the church negotiated when hiring key choir members. Determine the original rationale for the arrangement and evaluate whether those reasons still make sense. Enlarge the decision-making group. The change you are suggesting should not devolve into a power play between your advisory group and the current owners of the fund. Instead, the interests of the entire church should be foremost. This means involving a broader group of respected decision makers who aren’t identified with your group or the current owners of the fund. This more objective group will have greater credibility with the whole church. Involve the current owners in the decision. Don’t let them feel excluded or disrespected. Make sure they have a seat at the decision-making table. They will be the best advocates for the current arrangement, and the decision makers need their perspective. Maintain respect. When changes are made, the people who created or supported the prior arrangement are often made to look bad. In this case, using words like "slush fund" paints them as corrupt. I doubt they are corrupt. The facts are that they created and managed a system that has worked—at least to some extent—for years. They shouldn’t be vilified for this. If the church can create a new system that works better, that’s great. It doesn’t mean that the old system was somehow evil, unfair, or incompetent. Give time for the transition. Don’t pull the plug in a sudden way. Instead, create a gradual, orderly transition. For example, if the current owners already have a two-year plan for the funds, go ahead and approve it. Let them take their plan to completion, and then get their involvement in creating the next plan. If the transition is abrupt, it may be seen as a money grab, instead of as a long-term structural improvement. I hope these ideas help. David