Crucial Conversations

Some people write blogs that look beautiful.  They sat down and clearly typed for hours.  They thought; they formatted. I cannot do that. I don't have that time, so this blog is a testament to the timeless ones! This is written while driving from one meeting to the next in my car, dictated into my phone.

My job has a title that has nothing to do with what I really do, like so many people--plumber, technician, teacher. You’re an instructor. You're a police officer. Like me, you have a title.  Mine: 21st-century curriculum coordinator. But what I do has nothing to do with my title.  I have conversations all day every day. My job is about conversations.  I've also recently felt that I was doing poorly in my job, not because I'm a poor instructor or I don't know my technology. I'm very good with those things. It's the conversations that were letting me down.

Recently I came across a book titled Crucial Conversations. Hopefully you know about it.  It states that we live and die (seriously die), we succeed and fail based on our conversations.  Life is a series of conversations, all of those conversations crucial moments of success or failure. In fact, a fascinating statistic is you can evaluate whether or not a program will be effective with 90% accuracy based on the quality of the conversations.

Doubtful?  Here’s a question: are there moments where a conversation left you feeling worse, less effective, with a dark cloud of regret hanging over your head? For instance, when I got in a fight with my neighbor about how loud my children are. Or when I lashed out at a colleague about a comment he made. Or like when my wife was talking to me and I ignored her and she said, ‘why don't you ever pay attention’  The good and bad news is we all have those 'failed' conversations, the guilt, the frustration.  Those conversations failed, but those failed conversations are opportunities, opportunities to have a richer relationship with someone. And all of those conversations could've been successful with the right tools.

While I'm not going to go into all of the tools (please read the book), I’d like to share one: perspective. Today is a good example to feature.  I'm going to say today was okay because today as I was walking down the hallway to have a go at an insensitive colleague, I thought, ‘why was this colleague upset with me?’ How did that meeting look from her perspective, and how was I doing something that was making her life more uncomfortable? The conversation I did have, which was very different from the one I could have had was based in empathy.  Today I managed to listen to a good book and survive a crucial conversation.  Today.