Crucial Conversations Part 2 - Path of Action and Stories | Incite Tax Culture

Welcome to video 2 of Crucial Conversations. The focus of this is path of action and the stories we tell. We did end the last video though talking about some techniques of what we do when we need to get back into dialogue, when we fall out of dialogue. So we're just continuing what that looks like. So once you step out of the conversation to get To fix whatever conflict there is so that you can get back into dialogue together, what are you supposed to actually do? Well, these are 3 versions of skills, some hard-hitting skills, as the book says, that the best at dialogue use. First one is apologize. Now, it's super important to notice that we only apologize when appropriate. Do not apologize if you actually aren't sorry for something. When you've made a mistake that has hurt others, start with an apology. An apology is a statement that sincerely expresses your sorrow for your role in causing pain or difficulty in others. To offer a sincere apology, you have to give up saving face. You have to give up being right, your desire to win, in order to focus on what you really want. You have to sacrifice a bit of your ego by admitting your error. If the apology isn't enough, then we move on to one of the next 2. Now again, it would be very disingenuous to admit you're wrong when you're not wrong. So again, apologize when appropriate and apologize the right way. So if the apology doesn't work, let's go to contrasting. This is a don't do statement that addresses others' concerns of not respecting them or that you have some sort of malicious purpose. That's the don't part. And confirms your respect or clarifies your real purpose. That's the do part. Of the 2 parts of contrasting, the don't is the more important because it deals with the misunderstanding That put safety at risk. Contrasting is not apologizing. It's not a way of taking back something we've said that hurt others' feelings, because for that you would have apologized. Rather, contrasting is a way of ensuring that we've said— that what we've said didn't hurt more than it should have. Does that make sense? Sometimes we're going to share information They're going to have hurt feelings over it. But it doesn't mean that was your intention to hurt their feelings. That's why a contrasting statement works really well. Sometimes others experience your words as bigger or worse than you intend. Using contrasting prevents that. So when we're aware that something we're about to drop into the pool of meaning could create a splash of defensiveness, We use contrasting to bolster safety. When people misunderstand, we stop the conversation, use contrasting at that point. Okay, the next thing that we can use is create a mutual purpose. Sometimes we find ourselves in the middle of a debate because we clearly have different purposes. So there's 4 skills that they've— the book talks about. The acronym is CRIB, which I wish I could find an analogy to fit with, like, a crib when I think about babies going to sleep. But this is just the analogy that they have. So first, the C is commit to seek mutual purpose. To stop arguing, we have to suspend our belief that our choice is the absolute best and the only one, and that we'll never be happy until we get exactly what we currently want. We gotta stop that. We have to open our minds to the fact that maybe, just maybe, there's a third choice out there, one that suits everyone. So if the conversation's stuck, simply say, I commit to stay in this discussion until we have a solution that satisfies both of us. R is the next letter in the acronym. Recognize the purpose behind the strategy. What we're asking for is the strategy we're suggesting to get what we want. We confuse wants or purpose with strategy. That's the problem. In such circumstances, we can break the impasse by asking others, why do you want that? Before you can agree on a mutual purpose, you must— first, you must know what people's real purposes are. When you do separate strategies from purpose, new options become possible. By releasing your grip on your strategy and focusing on your real purpose, you're now going to be open to the idea that you might actually find alternatives that can serve both of your interests. Okay, so I is the next one. Invent a mutual purpose. You find out that your genuine wants and goals can't be served except at the expense of the other person's. So in these cases, you literally can't have a mutual purpose. That means you're gonna have to actively invent one. Find an objective that is more meaningful or more rewarding than the ones that divide both your sides. Or if there's multiple people by the various sides. One way to do this, we want to focus on the higher and longer-term goals. You often find ways to transcend short-term compromises when doing that. That helps you build the mutual purpose and return to dialogue. And then the B, if you're not willing to give creative— creativity a try, it's going to be impossible for you to jointly come up with a mutually acceptable option. So that's why B is brainstorm new strategies. Honestly, in my opinion, this is as much a part of invent a mutual purpose as anything. So to me, it's the same thing. Like, you're stuck in this scenario where both of your initial mutual purposes conflict with each other. So yeah, let's brainstorm ideas on something that both of us can agree on. As a mutual purpose. And if you can have your mind open to that and the other person feels safe, they should have an open mind to that. Look, the sky's the limit on what you can do. All right, let's get into 2 hard things for some people to accept. The authors make 2 claims. Claim number 1, emotions don't settle upon you like a fog. No matter how comfortable it might make you feel saying that someone made you mad, others don't actually make you mad. You make you mad. You and only you create your emotions. I know that some people struggle with this because I had a Facebook dialogue with some people when I Made a comment that effectively alluded to this, and they said, no, you made them mad. Look, it's just not true. Others don't make you mad. Claim 2: Once you've created your upset emotions, you basically have 2 options. You can either act on them or be acted on by them. So the worst in dialogue, they're going to treat emotions as the only valid response. These guys fall hostage to their emotions and don't even know it. I know you've met people like that. We do a good job of not hiring people like that. The good at dialogue, they know that if they don't control emotions, that the matters are going to get worse. So they fake it, which, for the record, we all see through. We see that facial expression. Uh, your eyes say you want to murder me, but your lips are tilting upwards in a smiling fashion. But instead of you thinking that you're saying, oh, things are fine, uh, what we're seeing is this person's a psychopath and they're going to kill me. So don't fake it. But anyways, these good— they, they end up suppressing their emotions. Yeah, that this is a form of silence. The the best at dialogue, they don't try to hide or suppress them when they have strong emotions. They and they influence and often change their emotions by thinking them out. Now it's not easy to rethink yourself from an emotional and dangerous state into one that puts you back into control, but it can be done. So the best in these situations would probably say like. I am now mad based on that comment. So it's okay to verbally talk it out. If you're a parent, you know this. It's okay to let your children have angry emotions and have negative emotions and be frustrated. That's okay. It's a sign of learning. As adults, the learning doesn't stop. We have to keep doing the same thing. All right, the path to action. The authors have this Idea, this, this image you can see there. So even if you don't realize it, you are telling yourself stories. Storytelling typically happens really, really fast. And if you don't believe this is true, ask yourself whether you always become angry when someone laughs at you. If sometimes you do and sometimes you don't, then your response isn't hardwired. Any set of facts can be used to tell an infinite number of stories. If we take control of our stories, they won't control us. But stories, a lot of the ones that we tell ourselves, end up controlling us. They first control how we feel and then how we act. As a result, they control the results we get from our crucial conversations. So until we tell different stories, we can't break the loop. If we want improved results from crucial conversations, we are gonna need to change the stories that we tell ourselves. One way to unwind a story we're telling ourselves, meaning if we find ourselves in one of those situations where someone said something and we allowed that to make us mad, that means we told ourselves a story. How do we unwind a story? Well, they say retrace the path, right? So if you go back to the previous slide, they're just saying let's go backwards. So we start in the act section. Let's notice our behavior. We ask, am I in some form of silence or violence? Then we feel, we get in touch with those feelings. What emotions are encouraging me to act this way? Then tell a story. We— let's analyze the story. What story is creating these emotions? And then we get back to facts. What evidence do I have to support this story? When an unhelpful story is driving us to silence or violence, we need to stop and consider how others would see our actions. So like, um, if a film crew Replayed the scene on national television, how would you look? What would a viewing audience tell you about your behavior? So the reality is, is that most people are emotionally illiterate. When asked to describe how they're feeling, they use words such as bad or angry or frightened, but often they're not. Individuals could say they're angry when they're actually feeling a mix of embarrassment and surprise. Or they suggest they're unhappy when really they're feeling violated. Perhaps they suggest they're upset when they're really feeling humiliated and cheated. So analyzing our stories. Challenge the illusion that what you're feeling is the only right emotion under the circumstances. We have to challenge that. By questioning our feelings, we'll willingly question whether our emotions, which are very real— your emotions are very real— and the story behind them, which could be one of many possible stories, are accurate. Don't confuse stories with facts. You can get so caught up in the moment that you believe in— that you begin to believe your stories are facts. They feel like facts, but they're probably just a story. So get back to the facts. Test your ideas against a simple criterion. Can you see or hear this thing you're calling a fact? Was it an actual behavior? Conclusions are very subjective. We have to remember this. Words, for example, words such as scowl and sarcastic are hot terms. When the fact is, they could— you could say their eyes crinkled and the bridge of their nose crinkled. Because what you see as potentially a scowl could have literally just been an itch on their face. So let's try to avoid hot terms whenever possible, because scowl and sarcastic are stories. It can be stories. Versus the fact of the actual physical thing that happened to the face in the form of a scar, as an example. So they express judgments. Hot terms express judgments and attributions that in turn are going to create strong emotions. But they are story, not fact. So 3 common clever stories, as the authors call it. They allow us to feel good about behaving badly. So number 1, it's not my fault. Not my fault. The first of the clever stories, it's a victim story. And if there's any swear word that we have at Insight, it's victim. No one— that's just such a bad word. Don't ever be a victim. This, it's not my fault, it makes us out to be the innocent sufferers. We tell our story in a way that judiciously avoids Whatever we've done or neglected to do that might have contributed to the problem. Another story, it's all your fault. So turning— this turns normal, decent human beings into villains. Everyone loves a villain story. And in villain stories, we overemphasize the other person's guilt or stupidity. We automatically assume the worst possible motives Or incompetence, while ignoring any possible good or neutral intentions or skills a person may have. Again, these are stories, and we need to stop telling these types of stories. The last one, there's nothing else I can do. This is, I'm helpless. In these fabrications, we make ourselves out to be powerless to do anything healthy or helpful. Helpless stories look forward to explaining why we can't do anything to change our situation. Helpless stories typically offer us nothing more than the fool's choice. We can either be honest and ruin the relationship or stay silent and suffer, which of course, as you know by now, is not true. So we don't usually begin telling stories that justify our actions until we have done something that we feel a need to justify. Here are some common ones. Now feel free to pause it to read all of them. I am just going to highlight a few. You believe you should stay late to finish up a commitment, but you go home instead. You believe you should talk to someone about concerns you have with them, but you don't. Or you do less than your share, think you should acknowledge it, but you don't say anything, hoping that no one else is going to bring it up either. We have got to avoid justification stories because, again, this is a clever story. It takes away our power to be in control of our life. So as we're on this idea of stories and as we finish this particular section of Crucial Conversations, let's end with, well, what is a useful story? A useful story by definition creates emotions that lead to healthy action. Such as dialogue. Healthy stories lead to dialogue. And what transforms a clever story into a useful one? The rest of the story. Clever stories omit crucial information about us, about others, and about our options. So here are a couple questions we can ask ourselves to change that clever story into a useful story. Am I pretending not to notice my role in the problem? Why would a reasonable, rational, and decent person do what this person is doing? What do I really want for me? What do I want for others? What do I want for the relationship? Again, the start with heart questions. What would I do right now if I really wanted these results? Okay, this is the end of video 2. Again, these are super important concepts. We want everyone to understand them. So that we can all in our company as insiders use the same dialogue. So you can go into conversations and use things like, I think I have a crucial conversation, or I think I'm telling myself a clever story. Can you help me make it a useful story? Things like that.