Ch 4: Learn To Look

How to Notice When Safety Is At Risk 

By now you are familiar with how successful people, who are skilled in engaging in a dialogue, remain focused on the goal at task; they refuse the "either or option", the Fool's Choice, and they clarify what they want. The next step in mastering crucial conversations involves spotting crucial conversations and redirecting a failing one back on track. Let's pretend that the crucial conversation begins to sour. You leave the heated debate with no solution or results between you and the member(s) holding the discussion. What happened? How does a conversation go from good to bad within a short period of time? Now, recall a time when your last held crucial conversation and it did not end as you expected-neither party ended on good terms. Ask yourself three things: the type of discussion, the behaviors observed, and the responses produced during the conversation. In this play-by-play review, you are able to define what or, the content, and why or, the conditions, that frame the conversation. Once you analyze these events, you will have the tools to that will aid your ability to figure out if the conversation is failing, and If so, to stop it from further damage. 

I have known a thousand scamps; but I never met one who considered himself so. 

Self-knowledge isn't so common.                                                               --Ouida 

In order to do this, one must continuously check the conversation from faltering. This requires you to use the "dual-processing (simultaneously watching content and conditions)" technique during the conversation, which is "when both stakes and emotions are high" (52). This skill is imperative and most important when one is in a conversation that is crucial. The reason for this is because being able to distinguish one type of dialogue versus another will make it easier to spot the crucial conversation when it starts going south. Besides from spotting the crucial conversations and recognizing the what and the why aspects, the next step is to deduce the signs of safety using physical signals, emotional cues, and behavioral indicators. This step is evaluating if there is a safety problem meaning, "watch the signs that people are becoming fearful"(55). It is human nature to guard one's true feelings from others when the cost of vulnerability outweighs the cost of shielding one's feelings. One of the reasons why the conversation may enter a danger zone or risk series setbacks for participants is due to fear that "you're being attacked or humiliated" (55). In this case the problem is not the content, but the conditions. Primarily, the actual subject is not what throws people off; it is the motive or the heart, as mentioned in the previous chapter. 




When safety is challenged, emotions buildup and the rational brain leaves the room before the conversation is even over. The good news is that all of this can be stopped just as it begins to unfold. Therefore, you must stay vigil for these moments of safety violations and call on the brain to engage, which separates you from the conversation and begins the dual-processing. The obstacle here is 

to not fall into man's genetically wired habit-handed down by scriptures that teach an eye for an eye. Do not respond in the same kind to others with silence or violence when it comes to safety problems. Recode these unhealthy paths as way to redirect the ruinous dialogue. You can identify these safety signs by understanding that some will take the silence path or violence path. As mentioned in chapter 2, when safety is threatened, the dialogue stops flowing because one is withholding meaning. This can be done in three ways under the silence path: masking, avoiding, and withdrawing. In the case of masking, one is purposely concealing censoring the true feelings in the form of "[s]arcasm, sugarcoating, or couching" (59). Another case of silence is avoiding the whole subject entirely. 
Lastly, the form of silence is done by withdrawing, which can be leaving the room or removing oneself from the conversation. Violence is the alternative path taken when safety is undermined. It generally plays out in three forms: "controlling, labeling, and attacking". In the case of controlling, "speaking in absolutes, change subjects, and or using directive questions" are possible course of actions in controlling the conversation (60-61). Another possibility is labeling what is said and the person involved into a generalized category. The last option in a violence path is attacking, which is any type of verbal abuse. 


Now that silence and violence are understood, the other key component during the dual-processing is self-monitoring. There are tests you can take to see how well you self-monitor. Follow this link and grade your "Style Under Stress" (67). The scores will give insight to what tactic you employ (silence or violence) most during a crucial conversations so that you can make improvements where it is needed. <https://www.vitalsmarts.com/styleunderstress/>.

Ch 3: Start With the Heart

How to Stay Focused on What You Really Want…

Speak when you are angry and you will make the best speech you will ever regret.                                                                                --Ambrose Bierce

Finally to the “how” part of this crucial conversation process; you begin with the “first principle of dialogue- start with the heart”(33). What this is referring to is the internal control of one’s emotions. When crucial conversations go awry it can probably be attributed to one’s perspective of the situation. People assume others are in the wrong and they did everything right, however, it’s is not “our behavior degenerates. It’s that our motives do- a fact that we usually miss”. Of course there are times when one can assume his innocence, but often that is not the case. The proper approach to any dialogue is to monitor one’s outlook of the issue at hand, because he is the only person that can be changed. Internal control looks at the heart- the right motives. Staying focused on the right motive gives the ability to remember what you want and choosing to not slip in the habit of a Fool’s Choice- the either or option.

The Fool’s Choice is the common misconception where the person involved in the conversation believes there are only two alternatives he or she can take when it comes to handling the problem. The incorrect action here is to pick the option of being brutally honest or ignoring the problem so to keep friends and the peace. Yet, this principle demands that one not collapse to this fallacy and instead choose to stay focused, remembering what issue the conversation was originally addressing. The best way to practice this principle is by taking a second to think and recollecting the motive, to help stay focused. Do not let the competitive side be the “dialogue killer”(38). The heart can be changed when one takes a hold of the winning mentality. Moreover, do not stray towards anger, “from wanting to win to wanting to harm to the other person “(39). Some fall prey to the idea of peace-making because they are too afraid of conflict- wondering toward personal safety- and they accept unfavorable results. All this can be avoided if one takes a moment to meditate and ask, “what do I really want here”(41). This will immediately calm the blood and bring one back to the heart of the matter-the motive. It is the question that directs the inner compass back to the “North star”, stopping the possibility of veering off the path. Physiologically speaking, it redirects the blood to the brain instead of the rest of the body where then it gets ready for the flight or fight response. Thus, the brain can have the available resources to sustain logical and rational functions of the body. It is ironic how the heart can lead the body towards logical thinking and prevent emotions from controlling the conversations.

Ch 2: Mastering Crucial Conversations

The Power of Dialogue

At the start of research for this book, the authors never intended to study crucial conversations. It was by sheer accident due to asking the wrong research questions; originally they sought to figure out how individuals in a business are effective in getting the work accomplished. The quest to find these candidates began by seeking different organizations and finding their most influential employee. The topic of this book, crucial conversations, was accidentally discovered in observation of an employee named Kevin, a VP at a corporation.

At first, the authors did not find Kevin to be extraordinary; Kevin did what most VPs were expected to do. Yet, it was at a meeting with the other VPs in the company that Kevin proved to be influential indeed. Unlike his peers, Kevin demonstrated his ability to hold a crucial conversation with his boss by candidly speaking about his opinion on the proposed project. The authors realized that Kevin did what most fail to execute in those crucial moments; he did not succumb to the old approach, known as the “Fool’s Choice” (22). This commonly committed offense is the believe that when times call for honest feedback, often individuals fall in the trap of feeling they must choose between option one and option two. In the former, one can decide in  “telling the truth” and in the latter, one can choose “keeping a friend”(22). The problem with this thinking is the false notion that only one can prevail. Nonetheless, Kevin proved that one is not forced to pick one alternative over the other. Rather, honesty and respect can be mutually achieved.

Our lives begin to end the day we became silent about things that matter. 
--Martin Luther King Jr. 

The problem is how that can be done? This will be addressed in the following chapters. The authors first explain the process of holding a healthy and robust conversation that seeks to demolish the “Fool’s Choice” concept and replace it with first explaining how to engage in a dialogue. This simply means “the free flow of meaning between two or more people” (23). Dialogue begins by sharing ideas and providing the place for others to feel safe to input their ideas freely. This in essence is what the authors coin as a “shared pool of meaning” (24).  As individuals, every person has his own pool of meaning that contains thoughts, feelings, experiences, and knowledge about a certain matter. In times where people have opposing opinions, that is when shared pool of meaning is necessary. Two individuals holding a crucial conversation can have a dialogue where ideas can be candidly expressed in the open and the best decisions can be deducted based on the greater pool of combined information.

Thus, better solutions can be determined because there is increased information readily available to both. On the other hand, deviating either way from this pool of shared meaning is silence or violence. Individuals that find themselves in a heated debate make the conversation ineffective and childish. The outcome of this is that one person might choose to withhold information that could be added to the shared pool by not responding or depending on  “hints, sarcasm, casuistic humor, innuendo and looks of disgust to make our points” (27). Sometimes people take the other tactic, which involves forcing one’s views on others by employing disdainful diction and disregarding the other’s opinion. None of these tools work to better the situation. What one should comprehend at this point is that learning the art of dialogue, the most superior option, is easier than falling in the habit of getting into uncomfortable or insensitive arguments. Allowing the mismanagement of conversations can widen the chasm in a relationship. Still, this can be fixed by simply changing how one handles crucial conversations.