#42: Having Good Conversations

You're listening to the Proteus Leader Show with Erika Andersen, where you'll get practical tools and insights for leading and managing and staying ready for the future. Erika is the founding partner of Proteus, a firm that focuses uniquely on leader readiness. A nationally known executive coach and bestselling author, you may already know her as one of the most popular leadership bloggers on Forbes.com. Ready for something you can use today? Here's Erika.

Hello everyone, and welcome back to the Proteus Leader Show. Today's guest is my friend and colleague at Proteus, Therese Micklow. Therese is our Director of Facilitation Excellence. You might wonder why we have that position at Proteus, and it's because we've understood over the past decade that good facilitation, if you define that as enabling important conversations that lead to real learning and excellent results, is essential not only in the training room, but in sales, in leading and managing others, And in building great teams as well. So Therese, thank you so much for joining me.

Thanks for having me.

Yes, this is going to be fun. I'm excited about having this conversation to give our listeners a window into how we're understanding the art of facilitation and how they can start to gain the benefits of great facilitation for themselves. So let's just leap right into it. So you talk about how being a great facilitator can support managers, leaders, and salespeople to be more effective. So can you say more about that?

For sure. Yes, I think that anyone Anywhere you are trying to influence, and that can be your direct team, that can be in a sales situation, you, whether or not you know it, are facilitating. You are trying to create a connection, you're trying to influence and collaborate, and that's really what we're talking about when we define it as facilitation. I think that most of us rely on our subject matter expertise, right? We're, we're great in a particular functional area, and as managers or salespeople, people leaders, we rely on that expertise.

Yes.

And that's important, but I don't think it's enough. I don't think it's enough today where people are looking for clarity. They're looking to follow leaders who are creating connection, who have empathy, and, and who are interested in creating more of a 2-way interaction than just a one-way download.

Yeah, I love that, especially though that whole thing you just said, especially the last sentence about 2-way, because I feel like— and you can tell me whether you've seen this as well— I feel like people who over-rely on their technical expertise or their area They tend to be less focused on creating those two-way interactions where they're also drawing out the other person's understanding or lack of understanding that can then be addressed.

Oh, so, so true. I think of it like whenever you're interacting, you have choices. Your choices about, you could just offer your technical knowledge or expertise, but I think the really exceptional salespeople or people leaders or managers in general, they go beyond that. They are, they're making choices about being a better listener, asking really good questions that draw people out, They're making choices about telling a story as a way to connect their point to the people that they're trying to influence. They make a choice about how they keep on track, whether it's just their track and what they want accomplished, or really being in tune to what, what is the other person sitting across from me virtually or in person really needs? What's their track? And I think that's all about choice.

Yes, that's great. All about choice and about the choices that that person makes. And as I'm listening to you, I'm thinking, well, that's really important in leadership and management, but probably even more important in sales, especially the thing you said about my track versus your track. So many salespeople, it's— you feel like, wow, I'm getting the same canned thing that they would say to anybody versus them being interested in me as the buyer. What, what do I care about? What are my needs? Right?

Right. And think about it. Think about our buying behavior. We can basically go online and get all our answers about a product or feature. And so particularly for salespeople, they're needing to shift the relationship because it's no longer just about being able to know your product. It's It's about being able to know your customer's needs and their pain points and really being able to solution in a way that fits your buyer. And so, it's more of a sophisticated skill set that salespeople need today.

Yes, yes, yes. And Dan Pink talked about that a lot in To Sell Is Human. He didn't talk so much— some, but not so much about how to solve for it. Great. So, so we've already talked a little bit about this, but how, like, what happens when you don't do that? What are the business costs in your experience of poor facilitation?

Yeah, I'll tell you, one of the pain points I hear a lot from leaders is that they're like, hey, Therese, I'm trying to do this. I, you know, I, you know, give a presentation or I'm leading a part of the meeting and I ask the question, any questions? And, and I get nothing. So I just keep moving along and they're frustrated. And little do they know that the, you know, their team or their customers is irritated too. And so I think the missed opportunity when you're not skillful in, in facilitation is that there's a lot of misunderstanding. There's a lot of miscommunication. There's a lot of things that are left unsaid that if they were said, you could, you could move faster, you could be more productive, you could problem solve. And I think problems fester and opportunities are left on the table when you don't have these skills.

Oh, that's great. So the important, uh, conversations don't get had.

Right.

People don't say what's not working for them. People don't say what they're most curious about. People tend to not surface difficulties that are resolvable, you're saying?

Exactly, yes.

Yeah, yeah, boy, we've all seen that. So then, um, So talk to us about what to do about it. You know, I always want to give our listeners some practical insights and tips. So what, what, what are the things that are top of mind for you about what a manager, especially a manager or a leader, can do to apply some of the skills of good facilitation day to day? Sure.

I have 3 to offer. So the first is start with the voice in your head. And as leaders, I think oftentimes we can come into situations with a prescription of what we want to see happen, or I've got to deliver this message or this news. And I would start with the voice in your head supporting you to be one of balancing talking versus listening in particular. So everything stems from that internal voice.

Like, what— give us a specific example. Like, what would you be saying to yourself that would support that balance of talking and listening?

Sure. I think it would be one of curiosity. So it might be instead of, I just got to deliver this message. It might be, you know, I'm really curious about what's on the minds of the people I'm talking with, or just stay curious about what, what I'm noticing happen in the group.

Oh, that's great. Just literally say to yourself, I want to stay curious.

Yeah.

Or, I wonder how they're seeing this. I wonder how they're thinking about this. Or, I want to understand their point of view about this topic.

Just that alone would shift you to probably balancing talking and listening.

Yeah, that's great.

Okay, my second tip is one around listening, and this is to our listeners who struggle like I described, where I ask questions and no one ever answers. And so my tip is, is to frame your question differently. So I think the question, any questions, should be eradicated from the earth because no one ever responds. So instead, Don't wing it. Think about some questions that would actually get people to think and then respond. For instance, maybe a good question might be, you know, hey, I'm really interested in hearing everyone's opinions. You know, how do you think we could implement this?

Oh, good.

You allow people a little bit more clarity about what you're really asking and then give them a moment to think before they respond.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's great advice. And I really agree with you about the eradicating any questions. And I thought about I've thought about this a lot over the years. I think you probably agree with this. We may have even talked about this, but I think the question, any questions, implies that there shouldn't be any, right? Yes. Any questions? Like, no, probably not, right?

Right, right.

That's the implication behind it.

Yeah, it's almost like we've been conditioned to that. Well, that means it's the end of the conversation.

Yes.

Okay, here's my last one. My last one is about— I think that whether you're talking to your customer or your team, there's so much noise right now. There's so many messages and emails. And texts and things like that, that concentrate on distilling your message. And this is about engaging people with your presence, and some of that is in how you can offer clear messages. You know, there's ones that can't be misinterpreted and ones that allow people the clarity to know, what does this mean for me and what should I do with the information given to me? And so oftentimes I work with a lot of managers around just that, like crafting and distilling your message so it's simple for people to hear, even if the message is hard or, you know, it's complex.

Yes. Boy, that is really good advice. As you were saying that, I was thinking even the messages, if you will, the speeches in history that we remember are like the Gettysburg Address, which is so short. Like, I remember reading about the Gettysburg Address, the guy who made the speech before Lincoln came on, like, went on and on and on. He spoke for like 2 hours or something.

Yeah.

And then He got up and did the Gettysburg Address, and it was whatever it is, 7 minutes. And in the article they were saying there are no pictures of Lincoln giving the Gettysburg Address because they were still setting up the cameras because they thought that he was going to go on and on like people always did.

Wow.

And so here's this speech which has become probably the best-known speech in American history, which was just so essentialized, so focused and simple and powerful. Right?

Yes.

Versus we don't remember speeches that ramble on for an hour and a half. No.

Ooh, that makes me think. Can I give our listeners one more bonus tip?

Absolutely. Yeah.

Along the same lines is think about how you can convey your message through a story. So to that point, like, stories are sticky. We remember those. And another choice point when you're trying to distill a lot of information is instead of just going through the actual facts or details, It's bring it to life by telling a story. Maybe it's your personal story. It could be the story of someone else. But we will remember those and connect to your message so much better when it's enlivened with, with stories or examples or analogies.

Okay, that makes complete sense too. And I let you know me, I'm a big storyteller. So rather than just Here are the facts. A story is, here are the facts in real life. Here's what it looks like when it's utilized, right?

Exactly.

That's great. Oh my gosh. So, okay, we could keep talking for hours and hours, but we always promise our listeners that this will be short and sweet. So thank you so much. Thank you.

It's a pleasure.

Yeah. And listeners, if you'd like to find out more about facilitation and leadership, that connection, just go to ProteusLeader.com. and choose the Accepted Leader topic. You'll find that a lot of the things we've described as being the qualities of followable leaders align with all that Theresa and I have been talking about here. So thank you for being with us today. And as always, until next time, here's to creating the life you truly want.

We hope you're feeling better equipped to create the career, the business, and the life you want. For more insights and tools for leadership and management, join us at proudestleader.com. Have an excellent day, and thanks for listening.