Courageous Conversations

Lesson #10 - How to pick a conversation

How do I decide with whom I want to engage in a Courageous Conversation, and what does that Conversation need to be about? (05:00)

Two questions to consider:

Does having this conversation, with this person, help to do our work better, faster, easier? If so, continue full steam ahead. Review the other Lessons from the Relate Model and take the risks. If not, we may need to consider a different conversation or no conversation at all. It might just be a personal bias or discomfort that we may just have to live with.

Am I taking a personal risk to have this conversation? To have this conversation, I need to show my conversation partner that I am a peer, another human being. Somebody who cares what he/she has to say, that I want to know more about him/her and that I am willing to be personally vulnerable. (Performance feedback from a manager to an employee is not technically a Courageous Conversation. That's just our job to give and receive feedback. Uncomfortable? Absolutely. Personally risky? Not so much.)

Talk to you soon, Tim.

Lesson #9 - Examine

Step Six of the Relate Model is to Examine. Do I feel more at ease approaching this person again? (04:58).

Congratulations! You finished your Courageous Conversation. Now it is time to step back, review what happened and decide: what worked? what didn't?. Examine the conversation and decide what behaviors, phrases, questions did you use that helped to engage with the other person and build a relationship to him/her? And what behaviors didn't help so much or got in the way?

Download The Relate Model and worksheets before viewing the video.

The Relate Model:

Rapport - Do you know how you will start the conversation?

Engage & Encourage - Did you demonstrate your willingness to take a risk?

Listen - Are you sincerely curious about the other perspective?

Ask & Acknowledge - Does your conversation partner feel heard and respected?

Talk - Did you go beyond hello?

Examine - Do you feel more at ease approaching this person again?

Talk to you soon, Tim.

Lesson #8 - Talk

Step Five of the Relate Model is to Talk. Did I go beyond hello? (03:50).

All the moving parts of the conversation - listening, asking questions, challenging my own certainties and assumptions - come into play. I need to stay in the conversation and work hard to gain understanding of how my conversation partner sees the current situation.

Download The Relate Model and worksheets before viewing the video.

The Relate Model:

Rapport - Do you know how you will start the conversation?

Engage & Encourage - Did you demonstrate your willingness to take a risk?

Listen - Are you sincerely curious about the other perspective?

Ask & Acknowledge - Does your conversation partner feel heard and respected?

Talk - Did you go beyond hello?

Examine - Do you feel more at ease approaching this person again?

Talk to you soon, Tim.

Lesson #7 - Ask & Acknowledge

Step Four of the Relate Model is to Ask and Acknowledge. Does my conversation partner feel heard and respected? (05:22).

As my conversation partner speaks about his/her experience, shares his/her story, tells me about how he/she sees the issue, am I paying attention to what he/she is saying? Asking open-ended, follow-up questions that are geared towards understanding?

The key: ask a question, listen to the answer, ask another question about something he/she just said that is of interest to you. The conversation changes immediately.

Download The Relate Model and worksheets before viewing the video.

The Relate Model:

Rapport - Do you know how you will start the conversation?

Engage & Encourage - Did you demonstrate your willingness to take a risk?

Listen - Are you sincerely curious about the other perspective?

Ask & Acknowledge - Does your conversation partner feel heard and respected?

Talk - Did you go beyond hello?

Examine - Do you feel more at ease approaching this person again?

Talk to you soon, Tim.

Lesson #6 - Listen

Step Three of the Relate Model is to Listen to my conversation partner. Am I being sincerely curious about his/her perspective? (04:09).

My goal now is to stop talking about how I see the issue, the topic, the situation. But to work to take on the interactive, extremely hard task to listen and hear my partner's view on the topic at hand. I need to give him/her airtime to speak. And I need to ask clarifying questions - not questions to "prove" something or to "catch" him/her, or to show how smart I am about this topic - but to understand why my partner sees it the way he/she does and to learn how smart he/she is about this issue.

Download The Relate Model and worksheets before viewing the video.

The Relate Model:

Rapport - Do you know how you will start the conversation?

Engage & Encourage - Did you demonstrate your willingness to take a risk?

Listen - Are you sincerely curious about the other perspective?

Ask & Acknowledge - Does your conversation partner feel heard and respected?

Talk - Did you go beyond hello?

Examine - Do you feel more at ease approaching this person again?

Talk to you soon, Tim.

Lesson #5 - Engage and Encourage

Step Two of the Relate Model is to Engage and Encourage with my conversation partner. (03:46).

In this step, I want to raise the discussion topic and then demonstrate my willingness to take a risk by exposing something personal about myself regarding the topic. At this point we are both demonstrating courage just by being in the conversation. My job, as the initiator of this dialogue, is to take a little more risk than the receiver to put myself at ease as well as demonstrate my true intentions.

Download The Relate Model and worksheets before viewing the video.

The Relate Model:

Rapport - Do you know how you will start the conversation?

Engage & Encourage - Did you demonstrate your willingness to take a risk?

Listen - Are you sincerely curious about the other perspective?

Ask & Acknowledge - Does your conversation partner feel heard and respected?

Talk - Did you go beyond hello?

Examine - Do you feel more at ease approaching this person again?

Talk to you soon, Tim.

Lesson #4 - Build Rapport

Step One of the Relate Model is to Build Rapport with my conversation partner. To establish a personal connection to my partner, before launching into the topic that makes this a Courageous Conversation (race, gender, orientation, innapropriate behavior, etc.). Here is my instruction on how to prepare for the hardest step - getting started.

Download The Relate Model and worksheets before viewing the video.(05:39)

The Relate Model:

Rapport - Do you know how you will start the conversation?

Engage & Encourage - Did you demonstrate your willingness to take a risk?

Listen - Are you sincerely curious about the other perspective?

Ask & Acknowledge - Does your conversation partner feel heard and respected?

Talk - Did you go beyond hello?

Examine - Do you feel more at ease approaching this person again?

Talk to you soon, Tim.

Lesson #3 - Getting Results

"In business terms, it meant a half-million dollars in new business" - Trey Birdsong, Director, The Coleman Center.

In this lesson (06:23), learn how an average sales conversation became a Courageous Conversation, as well as, learn the 8 Characteristics of a Courageous Conversation.

Download 8Characteristics.pdf (79.4K)

This Courageous Conversations podcast is available at the iTunes Store.

Lesson #2 - Practice conversation with FlexTime

Here is a practice conversation. The manager is attempting to begin a conversation with her employee. She is going to ask him to stop working a flextime schedule and be in the office five days-a-week. (06:45)

Your assignment in this segment is provide some alternative opening statements and ideas to this conversation. How would you begin this dialogue to set the tone? What have you, or your managers done in the past to be successful in these conversations?

Send your answers to me. I will respond back with some ideas and suggestions on improving and executing your Courageous Conversation. Or you can post your work on our site. I will still respond, but you can also tap the expertise of our Courageous Conversations community.

I look forward to working with you.

Talk to you soon, Tim.

Subscribe to our Courageous Conversations podcast is on the iTunes Store

Lesson #1 - What are the conversations I need to be having?

Four questions in this clip (07:37):

• What are the conversations I wish I, and/or my managers, were having better, more of, less of?


• What is my greatest hope about those conversations, e.g., what is the best possible outcome if I engaged in those conversations?


• What is worst fear, e.g., what is the worst thing that could happen in, or as a result of, the conversation?


• One thing you would personally like to gain from learning to engage in a Courageous Conversation?

Take a few minutes, jot yourself some answers to those questions, and email them to me. I will compile the information (maintaining anonymity) and return it to you.

The Lesson #2 is "How to get started" with a Courageous Conversation and Lesson #3 is "What are the results" of engaging in a Courageous Conversation.

Talk to you soon, Tim.

Subscribe to our Courageous Conversations podcast is on the iTunes Store