7 Rules for Success In Crucial Conversations
If you want to make it in this world, then you need to be able to navigate difficult conversations like a knife moves through butter.
It’s true.
Studies show that emotional intelligence is one of the biggest indicators of success, salary, and leadership roles over IQ or personality. So being able to handle difficult conversations may be the key to your success.
So how can we improve our conversational skills?
Well, in Crucial Conversations, the authors outline how to do exactly that. Let’s explore this together.
Tools For Talking When Stakes Are High
As it turns out, effectively handling high-stakes conversations can make life easier and potentially take us from disaster to success.
In Crucial Conversations, the authors break down how to tackle the most important - and oftentimes the most difficult - conversations we may ever have throughout our lives.
It all comes down to how you handle difficult conversations, which is exactly what Crucial Conversations teaches us to do. Here are the 7 key takeaways from Crucial Conversations.
1. Communicate Safely
Sometimes conversations will have high-stakes, where people’s opinions differ and emotions are elevated. In these kinds of conversations, it is important to ensure that whoever is on the receiving end of your thoughts feels safe and secure.
One way to know if your talking partner feels safe is to watch their body language and social cues. If they are showing signs of fear or anxiousness, such as nervously fiddling their hands or darting their eyes, bring the conversation back to a place of mutual understanding.
Perhaps return to something you both agreed on previously and check in with the way you are exhibiting your tone, voice level, facial expressions, and body language. Then make adjustments as needed. Take a deep breath, let your body relax, and bring calmness back into the conversation.
2. Allow The Facts To Do The Talking
Facts matter.
They particularly matter when a conversation has the potential to spiral out of control. While it is easy to confuse stories and bring misinformation to the table, there is absolutely no substitute for logical thinking and a clear view of what is true.
Anchoring your focus in truth will help you keep your emotions under control. To help prepare yourself for a difficult conversations, do your research and offer the sources to your conversation partner so you’re working with the same information.
That doesn’t mean that you should bombard people with all of your facts at the expense of being compassionate towards others. But it does ground you in something that is beyond your emotions so that you can voice your needs clearly and confidently.
3. Use Introspective Thought
Being socially and conversationally skillful doesn’t just involve good debating abilities, a big vocabulary, and a silver tongue. It also involves a large amount of introspection and self-reflection.
If you get heated during a conversation or your emotions elevate to a point where you are arguing with someone rather than talking, take some time out to reflect on how you could have handled the situation a little better.
And think about what exactly triggered such an emotional reaction in the first place. Perhaps there is something to be learned in the experience that can help you grow as a person.
After all, we cannot control how others act, but we can certainly improve ourselves.
4. Focus On Mutual Grounds
While talking with others, focusing the conversation on differences rather than commonalities is more than likely going to do more harm than good.
Instead, try to focus on opinions you have in common with someone else more than those you don’t agree on. In doing so, you’ll create trust and a place of mutual understanding.
This will help each of you respect one another’s opinions when talking about a topic you happen to disagree on.
5. Harness A Curious Attitude
A good way to avoid getting emotional and throwing all logic out of the window completely is to bring curiosity into the way you view other people’s points of view.
When we are challenged, it’s tempting to become angry or frustrated and storm out on a conversation. Rather than running the risk of this happening, try to approach a tense circumstance with a little curiosity.
Be curious about the way everyone involved in the conversation is behaving. If someone becomes annoyed, angry, or sad, ask yourself why that may be occurring.
Why are you or someone else feeling this way?
What may lead this to happen?
It doesn’t matter if you can’t answer these questions. But it’s difficult to be both curious and upset all at the same time, so being openly curious can make difficult conversations more fun.
6. Be Aware Of Your Words
Not only is the way you say something important but also what you are saying. As obvious as that may seem, it still remains important.
Turning to obnoxious sarcasm, negative connotations, or a nasty tone can end a crucial conversation as fast as it began. Instead, why not inject a little humor, wittiness, or a well-directed compliment to help break up any tension that may have arisen when talking to somebody.
7. Listen As Much As You Can
And perhaps the most important conversational skill of all is to learn how to listen. Listening to someone’s point of view is possibly the most powerful skill you can bring to a crucial conversation.
If you are unable to listen, you are not only showing that you are uninterested but you are also demonstrating that you care more about yourself and your opinion than the person you are talking to.
There is no better way to diffuse a tense situation or calm someone’s nerves than making eye contact, showing you are intently listening to every word, and then asking questions related to what that person has just stated.
In doing so, you will make the person feel valued, considered, and cared about. It’s really the perfect way to build positive relationships and, as an added bonus, you might even learn something from someone else’s knowledge.
Final Thoughts
Even if you’re not trying to master the entire world or build an online empire, it’s still helpful to be able to handle difficult conversations with grace. It could improve your personal relationships and just make talking to others easier in general.
Give these tips a try in the coming days and see how it impacts your conversations. What have you got to lose except for a little bit of your ego?