Crucial Conversations: Chapter Notes

Earlier this year I finally finished Crucial Conversations. I had a coworker who was heavily into audio books, so I put in my headphones and gave it a shot! So, on mornings when taking the little one to school, I would listen to the audio book of Crucial Conversations.

Of all the books I have “read” on leadership and management, this one has had the biggest impact on both my professional and personal life. It has made me notice my own patterns in dialogue, helped me become a better listener, improved my own behaviors, and equipped me with additional skills to have challenging conversations with direct reports, family members, and peers that have resulted in better outcomes for all involved.

Given its impact on me, I had to take some notes! I revisit these often and hope you find some benefit in them as well. If you have not already done so, I highly recommend you read (or listen to) this book!

Table of Contents:

Chapter 1: What’s a Crucial Conversations

  • What makes a conversation crucial?
    • Opinions Vary
    • Stakes are high
    • Emotions run strong
  • Crucial vs annoying / frustrating conversations? Crucial conversations can have an impact on your daily life.
  • Three options on crucial conversations: Can avoid; handle poorly; handle well
  • When it matters most…we handle it worst
  • When things get crucial - fight or flight kicks in

Chapter 2: Mastering Crucial Conversations

  • Avoid the fool’s choice (avoid thinking that you only have two bad options to choose from)
    • i.e. tell the truth or keep a friend
    • Fool’s choice: candor vs kindness

    Dialogue: the free flow of meaning between two or more people

  • Shared pool of meaning; work to add to the pool of meaning and help others in the group add to the pool of meaning. Do not need to agree with everything, but want to have all perspectives shared / heard.
  • Greater shared meaning = better the choice + stronger the unity.

Chapter 3: Start with Heart

  • First principle - start with heart, start with yourself

    work on me first, us second

  • Motives degenerate, fix the problem of believing that others are what ails us
  • To work on us…work on me
  • Most talented, not least talented, that are constantly working to get better at dialogue

  • “Winning” is a dialogue killer

    Goals quickly change to “winning”. Avoid winning.

  • Focus on what you really want
    • Pause, take a deep breath
    • Name the game and stop playing it
  • Stop and ask yourself some questions
    • What do I really want for myself/others/the relationship?
      • Also clarify what you don’t want
    • How would I behave if I really wanted this?

Chapter 4: Learn to Look

  • Reactions when crucial conversations are happening: silence and violence (signals when the conversation is not safe)
  • Monitor yourself and your stress; how are your reacting? (Style under stress)
  • Look at content and conditions, watch for safety problems (e.g. is someone in the conversation getting quiet or reacting with sarcasm)

Chapter 5: Make it Safe

  • Build up trust and mutual purpose
  • Others perceive you are working toward a common outcome and goals
  • Find a shared goal and you have a good reason and climate to chat
  • Is the conversation at risk? Ask two questions
    • Do they believe I care about their goals?
    • Do they trust my motives?
  • Goal has to be truly mutual
  • Examine your motives
  • Start with heart ❤️
  • Maintain mutual respect
  • 3 things: apologize, contrast, find a mutual purpose
  • Step out of the discussion and build safely
  • Contrast: don’t and do; what I didn’t want to do: clarify real purpose - explain what you didn’t intend then explain what you did intend
  • Contrast is not apologizing

Four skills (crib)

  • Commit to seek mutual purpose; start with heart - suspend beliefs that our solution is best and only one
  • “It seems like we are both trying to win, I am committed to stay in this conversation until we find a mutual solution”
  • Step out of context and find the ultimate goal you both want

Summary

  • step out to make it safe
  • Apologize when appropriate
  • Use contrasts (say don’t intend they say what you do mean)
  • Create a mutual purpose
  • Crib
    • Commit
    • Recognize
    • Invent
    • Brainstorm

Chapter 6: Master My Stories

  • Take charge of your feelings
  • You and only you create your emotions
  • Find a way to master them or fall hostage to them
    • Worst at dialogue - let emotions over take them;
    • Good at dialogue - suppress emotions and keep conversation going, but eventually snap and react with silence or violence;
    • Best at dialogue - act ON emotions, choose emotions to act upon and choose behaviors that create better results
  • Path to action: see / hear -> tell yourself a story -> feeling -> action / behavior
  • The best “slow down” - retrace your path to action
  • Notice your behavior (are you in silence or violence)
  • Feel (identify your emotions)
  • Tell a story - analyze a story
  • See / hear - get back to the facts specific, objective, and verifiable: conclusions are subjective; watch for hot terms: e.g. scowl or sarcastic
  • Watch for 3 clever stories: victim (me), villain (you, them), helpless (look forward)
  • Don’t sell out, avoid telling yourself clever stories
  • Clever stories are incomplete
  • Fill in the missing details
  • Turn victims to actors, villains to humans, helpless to the able -> what would I do right now to get the best results, what do I really want
  • Summary: find your self moving away from dialogue, stop and notice what you are doing / feeling (i.e. am I silent or violent); analyze conclusions and stories; get back to the facts; watch for clever stories and tell the full story; what do I want and what would I do now to get there

Chapter 7: State My Path

  • Hearts need to be in the right place and are well prepared
  • Express opinion - now what?
  • Totally frank and completely respectful
  • Maintain safety - confidence, humility, and skill
  • Start with the facts
  • Not trying to win the dialogue, gathering facts is the homework required for crucial conversations
  • “I’m not sure you’re intending to send this message, but it comes across like…”
  • Rebuild safety try with contrasting; goal of contrasting is to be confident in what you want to express, not to apologize
  • After you share…invite others to do the same
    • Change “the fact is” to “my opinion”; soften it’s clear to me to I’m beginning to wonder if
    • It’s leading me to conclude; I’m starting to feel like you don’t trust me; I don’t think you’re intending this but…
  • Invite the opposition…what am I missing here?
  • Learn to look when people start to resist (look at yourself and see what you are doing as well); more you care about something, the worst your behavior may be
  • Passion can be your own enemy
  • State your path; share facts l, tell your story, ask for others path, talk tentatively, encourage testing

Chapter 8: Explore Other’s Paths

  • Safety at risk - step out and restore it
  • If made a mistake - apologize
  • If unclear - use contrast statements
  • At odds - find a mutual purpose
  • Cure for silence and violence: curiosity - do your best to get to root of fear or anger
  • Be patient
  • Try to retrace the other person’s path to action
  • Ask, mirror, paraphrase, prime = power listening tools
  • Ask: what do you mean? I’d like to hear your opinions, don’t worry about my feelings, I’d like to know how you feel, what am I missing?
  • Mirror: suggest that while you are saying one thing, your tone or body posture suggest something else; manage your tone of voice and delivery, be calm; you seem angry at me, you seem nervous about confronting him, are you sure you’re ok doing it?
  • Paraphrase: put message in your own words: from what I’ve gathered…what I’m hearing is…do I have that right?
  • Prime: pour meaning into the pool first: “are you thinking the reason we are doing this because….”; act of good faith and not the first thing to do
  • “What do I really want”
  • ABC
    • Agree: when you agree; start with the agreement
    • Build: Absolutely and in addition to
    • Compare: when you differ

Chapter 9: Move to Action

  • Making decisions: dialogue is not decision making
  • Decide how to decide
  • When line of authority is clear (e.g. there is a VP or manager, it’s clearer)
  • When not a clear line of authority? Openly talk about who decides and why
  • 4 Methods of decision making:
    • command
    • consult
    • vote
    • consensus
  • Important questions? Who cares about it? Who knows (who has the expertise)? Who must agree? How many people is it worth involving (do we have enough people to make a good choice)?
  • When needed; have a crucial conversation about decision making practice
  • Who does what by when and how will you follow up?
  • Goals without deadlines aren’t goals, they are merely directions

Chapter 10: Yeah, But…

  • Trust: deal with trust around the issue, not the person
  • Work on “me” first - make things safe; separate intent from outcome; exercise patience
  • Make it safe and state your path
  • If you want someone to take more initiative; give examples and raise the bar; talk your expectations out
  • Talk about the pattern, not just a specific instance (e.g. coming in late a lot, and someone says they will get better, then next time they come in late, it’s about keeping to their commitments, not just coming in late)
  • Ok to suggest you need time alone and then hold a conversation at another time
  • Do not suggest someone else take time, that can come across as patronizing

Chapter 11: Putting It All Together

  • To get started: pick one skill to start or stay on principles
  • Learn to look: “are we in or out of dialogue”; are we playing games or are we in dialogue.
  • Don’t have to be perfect to make progress

Chapter 12: Afterword

  • Not just the big moments, small moments matter as well
  • Learn / know yourself
  • You don’t have to solve the crucial conversation, sometimes you just have to bring it up in a safe way
  • How true emotions can feel, but how false they can be
  • Emotions can corrupt your view
  • Don’t be driven by a need to be right
  • Ask yourself “what do I really want”.
  • Use skills to develop habits, lives, and loves

More “Chapter Notes”

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