1. Crucial Conversations:
Tools For Talking When Stakes Are High
Chapter 7 – 9
Xavier University
Managerial Behavior 300 – Dr. Thomas Clark
Presentation By:Ed Westenfeld, Kevin Habel, Earl Rolley, Nick Healey, Meghan Honaker

2. Crucial Conversation:
A discussion between two or more people where (1) stakes are high, (2) opinions vary and (3) emotions run strong.

3. Chapter 7 – STATE My Path How to Speak Persuasively, Not Abrasively
Sharing your opinion or sharing information and adding it into the “Pool of Meaning” can be difficult. We need to remember to avoid these classic mistakes:
The Fool’s Choice (i.e “You’re not going to like this, but somebody has to be honest…”)
And staying silent
The best at Crucial Conversations can share their minds honestly and keep it safe for others involved.

4. Remember to Maintain Safety:
Confidence
Be confident that your opinion deserves to be added to the “Pool of Meaning”
Say what needs to be said, to the person who needs to hear it.
Speak openly without brutalizing others or causing undue offense.
Humility
Realize others have valuable input
You do not always have to win the argument and your opinion is the starting point not the final word.
Skill
No longer the need for the Fool’s Choice
Others are ultimately grateful for the honesty

5. State My Path… Always remember to start with
What do I really want and how can dialogue help get me there?
Master your story – remembering to avoid Victim (It's not my fault), Villain (It’s all your fault) or Helpless (There’s nothing else I can do)
Do NOT act on the worst story you can come up with…this will often lead to Silence or Violence.
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6. S T A T E hare your facts ell your story sk for others’ paths
First 3 skills describe WHAT to do…
ell your story A
sk for others’ paths T
alk tentatively
Last 2 telling HOW to do… E
ncourage testing

7. The “WHAT” Skills… Share Your Facts
Facts are the least controversial. They provide a safe beginning.
Facts are the most persuasive and will also help form the foundation of believing.
If your aren’t sure of the facts, take a step back from the story, and take time to think through before entering into any Crucial Conversation
Facts are the least insulting.
Begin your path with facts. Always starting with facts vs your story. (Starting with your story in most cases will take the conversation away from safety)

8. The “WHAT” Skills… (continued)
Tell Your Story
Why share your story?
Facts alone are rarely worth mentioning. It’s Facts + Story that lead us to the need for a Crucial Conversation.
Be confident in your story
If you’ve started with facts and done your homework, you’ll realize that you are a drawing reasonable story and therefore giving yourself confidence to share.
Don’t pile it on
Speak up when a situation arises. Don’t sit on problems and let it create larger issues down the road.
Look for safety problems
Remember as you’re sharing your story, look for signs that safety is deteriorating
If needed step out of the conversation and use Contrasting to rebuild safety

9. The “WHAT” Skills… (continued)
Ask for Others’ Paths
The key to sharing sensitive ideas is combining confidence with humility.
Once you have shared your Facts & Stories – invite others to do the same.
Remember to LISTEN
Be willing to reshape your story as more information is added to the Pool of Meaning

10. The “HOW” Skills…
Talk Tentatively
Encourage Testing

11. Chapter 8 – Explore Others’ Paths How to Listen When Others Blow Up or Clam Up

12. What if you are not the one in silence or violence???
It is crucial to get the other party to re- engage in the conversation.
You cannot force someone to return to dialog.
Realize that the other person has retreated to silence or violence seeking security.
The best approach to this situation is to take steps make them feel comfortable returning to dialog when they are ready.
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13. Explore others paths: Build a foundation!
Begin with restoring safety! If you have offended someone, apologize.
If someone misunderstood your intent, use contrasting.
If you are inherently at odds, find mutual purpose.
Find out what the other person is thinking by making them comfortable sharing their path.
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14. Explore others paths: Method
Start with the heart. Be ready to listen.
Be sincere. If you ask someone to share, you must mean it.
Be curious. When someone is deep into silence or violence is when you most need to ask what’s going on rather than respond.
Stay curious. You cannot let yourself fall into judgement, rather you must allow your curiosity keep you from forming your own villain/victim stories about the person.
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15. Explore others paths: Method (Cont.)
Be patient!
Stay on guard as you will be tempted to get caught up in the moment and join the silence/violence party.
Be aware that the person is emotional, and this will take time to subside.
Encourage them to share their path until the emotions subside.
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16. Encourage others to retrace their path. You survived; now what?
Be aware that you are joining their path at the end.
Think of a mystery story where you come in in the middle. You are missing key facts your mind needs to work with.
You must break the cycle. Provide safety until the person calms down, and can see the error in their thinking.
Only then will they have an opportunity to retrace/reset the path.
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17. Power up. Retrace what we have discussed.
If we don’t get to the source of the feelings, we end up suffering the effects of the feelings.
The “how”: We must listen sincerely. Even in the face of hostility, fear, or abuse.
Only then can we allow them to retrace their path.
Kevin’s turn!
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18. Tools to Make it Safe
How do we get a person in silence or violence back to safety?
AMPP
Remembering your ABCs
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19. AMPP Ask to Get Things Rolling Mirror to Confirm Feelings
Paraphrase to Acknowledge the Story
Prime When You’re Getting Nowhere
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20. Ask
What is the most straightforward way to encourage someone to share their path? Just ask them..
Show them you are truly interested in what they have to say
“What do you think?”
“I’d really like your opinion on this”
“Please let me know if you see it differently”
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21. Mirror Asking doesn’t always work..
Mirroring is useful when you have limited access to the other persons path
Body Language
Actions
Most useful with their tone of voice or gestures
Reflect what you see back to them
They look one way but say something very different
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22. Paraphrase Asking and Mirroring are a good start
Build additional safety by paraphrasing what you have learned from them
Don’t be a Parrot!!
Show them that you are hearing them
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23. Prime So nothing has worked…
They may still be in silence or violence, but you see that they want to add more.
Prime the conversation by giving your best guess at what they are thinking or feeling
Not necessarily a Hail-Mary
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24. What if They’re Just Wrong?
Sometimes the path they share is very different from your own
Remember..
Your goal is to understand their point of view, not to agree with or support it.
Once they have shared their path, there is plenty of time for you to share yours.
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25. What if You Don’t Agree? Remember your ABCs Agree when you agree
Build when others leave out key pieces
Compare when you differ
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26. Chapter 9 – Move to Action How to Turn Crucial Conversations into Action & Results

27. Chapter 9 – Move to Action How to Turn Crucial Conversations into Action & Results
Two reasons people fail to convert ideas into actions
They have unclear expectations about how decisions will be made
They do a poor job of acting on the decisions they do make
A great way to fix both these problems is to be clear in your dialogue during the initial meetings so that everyone is clear of there goals

28. The Four Methods of Decision Making
Command
Where there is no conversation and the decision is made for you
Consult
Decision makers invite others to influence them before they make their decisions
Vote
Used to decide by a majority of a group on multiple options
Consensus
Talking till everyone agrees on a decision
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29. Questions To Ask Before you chose your Method
Who cares?
Determine who wants to be involved in the decision. Don’t involve people who don’t care
Who knows?
Identify who has the expertise you need to make a good decision
Who must agree?
Think of those whose cooperation or authority you might need.
How many people is it worth involving?
Your goal should be to involve the least amount of people.
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30. Put Decisions into Action
Creating an assignment starts with four things
Who?
Does what?
By when?
How will you follow up?
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31. Crucial Conversations
“Nobody cares how much you know, until they know how much you care…” Theodore Roosevelt