I continue to consider myself fortunate in a big way to be able to work with so many talented leaders and teams, both in my Vistage workshops around the country as well as more in-depth work inside organizations via my 6-month SOAR Program. I am constantly challenged and inspired by the conversations that surface and by the accomplishments and contributions of so many of my clients.
As I am about to board a plane for Philadelphia and another round of workshops, I’m reflecting on 3 of what I consider to be the most beneficial and most powerful distinctions that have been very present for me in my sessions, especially those over the past few months. These are:
o Blind Spots
o Missing Conversations
o Context
In this newsletter, I’m happy to share with you why I consider these to be so helpful, as well as how they may be related to each other. As you consider your own leadership journey, your direct reports, your organizational priorities and the areas in which you would like to improve, I invite you to think about your own experiences here and ways in which you may incorporate these into your own tool kit.
Blind Spots
Most of us don’t wake up in the morning thinking “How can I self-sabotage myself today, limit my career and diminish my company’s opportunities?” The great, vast majority of us are doing the best we can, based on what we see and how we see it. Quite often, it takes the perspective and viewpoint of another person – often a trusted friend, colleague or partner – to point out what they see that we don’t. A key claim I share in my programs is that we each already have a “public identity”; that is, how we “show up” for others, how we get perceived, how others see us. Question: Is it possible that the way you see you isn’t the way others see you? Is this possible? It’s not only possible, it’s virtually guaranteed! And we know this: the world does not interact with who you think you are. Instead, the world interacts with what it sees. And we can each be aware of this… or not.
Conversations in which we allow others to share with us how they “see us”, how they perceive our actions and the impacts of those actions, can be wonderfully beneficial. And as we will explore in our next section, these are precisely often the conversations which are avoided, what we call “missing conversations.”
I like to think about blind spots this way:
1. We all have blind spots, no exceptions, no matter what.
2. Intentions do not = Impacts. This means we are each very likely producing less-than-ideal real-world impacts while not intending to do so.
3. Opening ourselves up to truthful feedback from others (truthful with a little “t”) is not the same as thinking other people’s perspectives are the Truth about us (Truth with a capital “T”). But just because others’ perspectives are not the Truth about us doesn’t mean that they can’t be really useful!
4. We are each responsible for our own public identities… but how can we take responsibility for something if we have no data?
5. Conversations enabling us to learn something about our blind spots… and our public identities… are often considered difficult and/or awkward and are often therefore avoided… making them “missing conversations.”
Missing Conversations
Let’s start here: anyone can have an easy conversation. These separate nobody from nothing, they differentiate nothing. It’s the ability to effectively have conversations that we may have historically considered difficult or challenging that are the difference, I believe, between great leaders and OK leaders… great relationships and OK relationships… great teams and OK teams… great parenting and OK parenting… great organizational results and OK organizational results.
Imagine for a moment what the quality level of a given organization’s output will likely be… whether that organization is in manufacturing, distribution, retail, wholesale, consulting, construction or professional services… if within that organization we can identify tremendous numbers of “missing conversations”. Again, these would be conversations that people individually and silently identify as important to have, but for whatever reasons they have historically been avoided.
Consider:
o What would problem-solving (or problem-identification) be like?
o What would conflict resolution be like?
o What would individual performance and interactions be like?
o How would course corrections or less-than-excellent results be addressed?
o What would meetings be like?
o What would the overall culture be like?
I like to say that leaders are “conversational architects” and “conversational engines”… accomplishing important quantitative and qualitative results by virtue of the conversations they have and how they have them!
I invite you starting today to have the term “missing conversations” in your mental backpack so you can pull it out quickly, and one particular way I invite you to use it is this: If you ever see performance that in your eyes is not up to par, not where it needs to be, ask yourself this question: “Is this performance / outcome / result not where it needs to be because a previous conversation that could have taken place… did not? If so, who would have led the conversation? Who would have been in it? What would the desired outcome have been?”
Thinking back to blind spots… one of the reasons our blind spots persist is that people who are in position to see what we don’t see are avoiding the very conversations that could allow us to see – maybe for the first time – what we have historically not seen… thus giving us a chance – maybe our first chance – to intentionally work on them.
When I honestly think about myself and the conversations I’ve avoided in my life, as different as the subject areas may have been there is one constant: I avoided them because I didn’t know how to start them! This next segment has everything to do with how to most effectively begin conversations we may have historically avoided… and in doing so, improve collective performance, identify blind spots so they may be addressed, while at the same time deepening important relationships.
Context
What is context? I asked this question early in my career and one of my Spanish-speaking colleagues immediately answered with “Con-Text”… “With Text”… in other words, that which goes with the text, that which goes with the content, and helps give it meaning! What a superb way to understand context.
One of my earliest experiences with context and being on the receiving end of a “difficult” conversation happened at year 1 in my career at Andersen Consulting. A good friend of mine was my first project manager there, and one day he says “Chalmers, I need to have a conversation with you and I’m not exactly sure how to have it. I have a concern that you may overreact to some feedback I’m going to give you, and you may think our friendship is in jeopardy. Our friendship will never be in jeopardy, but there are some blind spots in your work, my friend. I have another concern – you’ve been telling me at softball practice that you want a long career in this office. Well, I’m concerned that if nothing changes on your part, pretty quickly, it’s not going to happen for you. I don’t know the exact best way to have this conversation, buddy. What I do know is that we have to have this conversation.”
Notice that in the conversation above, everything I just shared with you is context, not content. He had not even gotten to the actual job-related behaviors that were ultimately the main point of the conversation. No, everything I just shared above is context, not content. It’s not physical but it’s utterly real.
One of my now-favorite ways to effectively set context for a conversation which may have historically been avoided is this: Speak into my concerns. The conversational competency, for all of us here, is to speak into our concerns. My friend obviously had some concerns about how his conversation with me was going to unfold, and he said so. He spoke into those concerns, shared them publicly, right on the front end of that conversation. And I felt his authenticity, that he was being utterly genuine.
One of my favorite ways of understanding integrity is this: the inner is the outer, the inner and the outer are the same, they are integrated. It means for integrity, if I have a concern internally then I speak it externally. And when this happens, the listener virtually always experiences the authenticity of the encounter. My experience is that this can’t be faked. We each have an authenticity detector, an integrity detector, and at that point mine was going off and it was saying: “Oh my gosh, he cares about me and my job is in jeopardy… he cares about me and my job is in jeopardy!”
Setting the context this way can serve to dramatically shift the listener and produce an opening, a willingness to listen to the content – when it comes – that in some cases was not present initially. I believe a big part of this opening, this shift in the listener, is that the listener experiences that the speaker actually cares… and when this happens, many of us experience a lessening of our initial defensiveness. (I was honestly very embarrassed that my public identity was so different than I thought it was… but I wasn’t nearly as defensive as I might’ve been had he not set context the way he did).
People in my programs know I find the distinction Carefrontation to be very helpful and beneficial… in fact, it’s my favorite context for difficult conversations! And to me, the difference between Carefrontation and confrontation is that in Carefrontation, we speak into our concerns, on the front end. And we do so with authenticity.
My invitation to you is this: starting today, if you have identified any conversations that you know deep down you need to have… but for whatever reasons you may have been avoiding… to prepare for the conversation by reflecting and recording your responses to the following 3 questions. I like to think of these as my 3 C’s of Context:
o What are you concerned about?
o What do you care about?
o What are you committed to?
Let’s start here: If you have indeed been avoiding a conversation, by definition you have concerns about that conversation! By definition you have these running around in your thoughts! I invite you to reflect and actually write your responses ahead of time. Think about them and think about what you will say to trigger the listener’s authenticity detector or integrity detector.
However you prepare for “difficult” conversations, I invite you to consider the following 2-part approach as a supplement to your own preparation:
o Part 1 – Acknowledge that there are no guarantees in any conversation. No matter what you do or don’t do, there are no ironclad guarantees.
o Part 2 – Given that there are no guarantees, what can I therefore do in tomorrow’s conversation such that no matter what the ultimate outcome does turn out to be, I will have the fewest regrets?
My experience that if we operate this way, we end up bringing a version of our “best self” to the table. And the older I get, the more important context is… and the more I realize that authenticity has never let me down.
One additional way that many of us set context instinctively and that I’ve found to be genuinely helpful: simply declare how much you value your relationship with the person you’re talking with (if, of course, this is actually the case).
It may sound like: “Carla, I value our relationship both professionally and personally, and I would never do anything to intentionally damage it… and I’ve been avoiding a conversation with you for over 2 weeks, and that’s my fault, not yours. I avoided it because I didn’t know how to start it, I avoided it because I have a concern that you might overreact to some feedback I want to share with you, and if I’m honest, I have a little concern that if I even talk to you about this you might quit! And I don’t want you to quit, not in this economy. But the status quo can’t continue. I’m committed to our collective success here and to your continued growth as a manager… But there are some blind spots in your work that I don’t think you’re aware of, and I think if you were aware of them you’d want to work on them… and I’ve been struggling with how to bring these to your attention in such a way that you also recognize how much I do value your other contributions in area A and area B…”
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You are a conversational architect and a conversational engine! And the great, vast majority of our relationships are not physical or sexual… they are conversational. Change them, deepen them, and you change and deepen the relationship.
One of my early teachers said: Not being able to say a certain thing = not being able to be a certain way. Here I believe this means that not being able to speak into our concerns and cares with authenticity = not being able to be a person of integrity, a person who builds trusting relationships, a person able to remove blind spots and genuinely support the growth and development of others.
I would love to hear from you should you want to share or discuss anything about this newsletter or anything we may have covered in a workshop together – as well as anything in my books or any possible programs for your teams. Wishing you well on all fronts, and remember: Never Stop Learning!
In gratitude,
Chalmers
