Reposted from https://hbr.org/2014/06/choose-the-right-words-in-an-argument
When addressing a conflict with a colleague, the words matter. Sometimes, regardless of how good your intentions are, what you say can further upset your coworker and just make the issue worse. Other times you might say the exact thing that helps the person go from boiling mad to cool as a cucumber.
So, when things start to heat up with a colleague — you don’t see eye-to-eye on a project or you aren’t happy with the way you were treated in a meeting, for example — how can you choose your words carefully? To help answer this question, I talked with Linda Hill, the Wallace Brett Donham Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School and faculty chair of the Leadership Initiative. She is also the co-author of Collective Genius: The Art and Practice of Leading Innovation and Being the Boss: The 3 Imperatives for Becoming a Great Leader.
Hill explained that the words we use in confrontations can get us into trouble for three reasons:
First, the stakes are usually high when emotions are. “With conflict, there are typically negative emotions involved, and most of us aren’t comfortable with those kinds of feelings,” she says. Our discomfort can make us fumble over our words or say things we don’t mean.
The second reason that we often say the wrong thing is because our first instincts are usually off. In fact, it’s often the words we lead with that get us into so much trouble. “That’s because too often we end up framing the issue as who’s right or who’s wrong,” she says. Instead of trying to understand what’s really happening in a disagreement, we advocate for our position. Hill admits that it’s normal to be defensive and even to blame the other person, but saying “You’re wrong” or “Let me tell you how I’m right” will make matters worse. “We’re often building a case for why we’re right. Let that go and focus on trying to resolve the conflict,” she says.
Third, there’s often misalignment between what we mean when we say something and what the other person hears. “It doesn’t matter if your intent is honorable if your impact is not,” Hill says. Most people are very aware of what they meant to say but are less tuned into what the other person heard or how they interpreted it.
So how do you avoid these traps? Hill says it’s not always easy but by following a few rules of thumb, you’ll have a better chance of resolving the conflict instead of inciting it:
Say nothing. “If the emotional level is high, your first task is to take some of the emotion out,” she says. “Often that means sitting back and letting someone vent.”
The trouble is, Hill says, that we often stop people before they’ve gotten enough of the emotion out. “Hold back and let them say their piece. You don’t have to agree with it, but listen,” she says. While you’re doing this, you might be completely quiet or you might indicate you’re listening by using phrases like, “I get that” or “I understand.” Avoid saying anything that assigns feeling or blame, like “Calm down” or “What you need to understand is.” If you can do this effectively, without judging, you’ll soon be able to have a productive conversation.
Ask questions. Hill says that it’s better to ask questions than make statements. Instead of thinking about what you want to say, consider what you want to learn. This will help you get to the root cause of the conflict and set you up to resolve it. You can ask questions like, “Why did that upset you?” or “How are you seeing this situation?” Use phrases that make you appear more receptive to a genuine dialogue. Once you’ve heard the other person’s perspective, Hill suggests you paraphrase and ask, “I think you said X, did I get that right?”
Own your part. Don’t act like there is only one view of the problem at hand. “You need to own your perception. Start sentences with ‘I’ not ‘you,'” Hill says. This will help the other person see your perspective and understand that you’re not trying to blame them for the problem. Instead of saying “You must be uncomfortable”, try “I’m feeling pretty uncomfortable.” Don’t attribute emotions to other people. That just makes them mad.
So, how do you choose the right words to use in a conflict? Of course, every situation is different and what you say will depend on the content of what you’re discussing, your relationship with the other person, and the culture of your organization, but these suggestions may help you get started:
Scenario #1: You have a criticism or dissent to offer. Perhaps you disagree with the popular perspective or perhaps you’re talking to someone more powerful than you.
Hill suggests you get to the underlying reason for the initiative, policy, or approach that you’re disagreeing with. Figure out why the person thinks this is a reasonable proposal. You can say something like, “Sam, I want to understand what we’re trying to accomplish with this initiative. Can you go back and explain the reasoning behind it?” or “What are we trying to get done here?” Get Sam to talk more about what he’s up to and why. Then you can present a few options for how to accomplish the same goal using a different approach: “If I understand you correctly, you’re trying to accomplish x, y, and z. I’m wondering if there’s a different way to approach this. Perhaps we can…”
In a situation like this, you also want to consider the venue. “You may be able to have a more candid discussion with someone if it’s one-on-one meeting rather than in front of a group,” she says.
Scenario #2: You have bad news to deliver to your boss or another coworker. You missed a deadline, made a mistake, or otherwise screwed up.
Hills says the best approach here is to get to the point: “I have some news to share that I’m not proud of. I should’ve told you sooner, but here’s where we are.” Then describe the situation. If you have a few solutions, offer them up: “These are my ideas about how we might address this. What are your thoughts?” It’s important to own up that you made a mistake and not try to point out all the reasons you did what you did.
Scenario #3: You approach a coworker about something he or she messed up.
Here you don’t want to launch in right away, Hill says, but ask permission to speak to the person about what happened: “Mary, can I have a moment to talk to you about something?” Then describe what happened. You can say: “I’m a little confused about what occurred and why it occurred. I want to discuss it with you to see how we can move this forward.” Use phrases like “I understand that X happened…” so that if Mary sees the situation differently, she can disagree with your perspective. But don’t harp too long on what happened. Focus on figuring out a solution by engaging her with something like: “What can we do about this?”
Scenario #4: You approach a colleague about feeling mistreated or you’re upset about something he or she said.
Hill points out that this is a good place to talk about the difference in intent versus impact. After all, you don’t know what your coworker’s intent was; you only know that you’re upset. You can start off with something like: “Carl, It’s a little bit awkward for me to approach you about this, but I heard that you said X. I don’t know whether it’s true or not. Regardless, I thought I should come to you because I’m pretty upset and I thought we should talk about it.” The focus shouldn’t be on blaming the person but airing your feelings and trying to get to a resolution: “I want to understand what happened so that we can have a conversation about it.”
If Carl gets defensive, you can point out that you aren’t questioning his intent. “I’m not talking about what you intended. I thought it was better to clear the air, rather than stewing about it. Would you agree?”
Scenario #5: A colleague yells at you because of something you said or did.
This is where you might stay quiet at first and let them vent. People usually run out of steam pretty quickly if you don’t reciprocate. Keep in mind though, Hill says, that you never deserve to be yelled at. You might say: “I realize that I’ve done something to upset you. I don’t respond well to being yelled at. Can we sit down when I can be better prepared to have a conversation about this?”
Scenario #6: You’re managing someone who engages in conflict regularly and is annoying or upsetting the other people on your team.
Sometimes you have a hothead on your team — someone who seems to even enjoy conflict. Of course disagreements aren’t always a bad thing, but you need to help the person explore how he might be damaging his reputation and relationships. You can try something like: “I like having you around because from where I sit, you raise important issues and feel strongly about them. I also know you’re well-intentioned. I’d like to talk you about whether you’re having the impact you want to have.” Get him to think through the consequences of his regular battles.
Of course, even if you follow this advice, sometimes there just aren’t the right words and it’s not possible to have a constructive discussion. “Occasionally, you need to let it go and come back to it another time when you can both have the conversation,” says Hill. It’s OK to walk away and return to the discussion later, when you’re ready to make a smart and thoughtful choice about the words you want to use.
Thursday
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Sunday
Gossip, Rumors, and Lies
Originally published
https://randsinrepose.com/archives/gossip-rumors-and-lies/
meetings are a symptom, not the cure
Gossip, Rumors, and Lies
Everyone is just… sitting there.
Six of you. All managers who report up to Evan, your boss, who decided two weeks ago that “it’s probably a good idea for this leadership team to get together on a regular basis and talk about what is up.” He dropped an agenda-less, sixty-minute recurring meeting on everyone’s calendar and that meeting is now.
Six of you. You know these humans. You work closely with two of them every single day. You’ve had occasional projects of significance with two others. The last two are friendly first names.
Evan kicks off the meeting repeating exactly what he told each of you face-to-face and in the meeting invite. It’s probably a good idea for this leadership team to get together blah blah blah. He finishes his bland opener and everyone is just… sitting there. Saying nothing.
Welcome to your first staff meeting.
An Unacceptable Amount of Crap
I’m solidly on the record as 1:1s being the most important meeting of the week. A very close second is the staff meeting. I find that 1:1s beat staff meetings in two important categories: trust building and quality of signal. But, there are ongoing compounding benefits to a regular well-run staff meeting. Team building, efficient information dissemination, and healthy debate are three I can think of off the top of my head. There are more.
Definitions first. I define a staff meeting as “the correct collection of leadership gathered together to represent a team, product, company, or problem.” Lot of words. A simpler and perhaps more immediately applicable version is, “a meeting of your direct reports.”
Great! You have directs which means you should have a staff meeting, right?
Maybe.
The decision to start your first staff meeting requires judgement. Ask yourself the following questions:
- How many direct reports? 2? Yeah, no staff meeting necessary. 3 or more? Keep reading.
- How many of your directs spend time working together? If it’s more than half, consider a staff meeting
- Do your directs have direct reports? You needed a staff meeting awhile ago.
- How much has your team grown in the last six months? A lot? Have a staff meeting.
- How much of the crap that you’ve dealt with in the last month smells like it could have been resolved if people on your team were just talking with each other? If the amount of crap is unacceptable to you, have a staff meeting.
- Did something recently organizationally explode? Have a staff meeting.
A Well-Intentioned Hatred of Meetings
A new staff meeting is understandably a pretty quiet affair. It’s a delightful combination of unfamiliarity combined with a well-intentioned hatred of meetings. In our hypothetical example above, Evan set horrible initial meeting tone because he committed the worst meeting sin: no agenda.
Here’s an initial agenda:
- The Minimal Metrics Story
- Rolling Team-sourced Topics
- Gossip, Rumors, and Lies
Before I dive into these agenda topics, let’s talk about two essential meeting roles. 95% percent of the activity in a well-run staff meeting is healthy conversation and debate. Keyword: “healthy.” It’s a clear signal that a staff meeting is working when attendees jump into conversations and drive those conversations in unexpected directions. It’s a clear sign that no one is curating those conversations when those unexpected directions are not revealing insight or value.
The Meeting Runner has two jobs: set the agenda and manage the flow. We’ll talk agenda shortly, so let’s first talk about managing flow. The Meeting Runner is responsible for making the following call throughout the meeting: When is this particular conversational thread no longer creating enough value? It’s a nuanced job, but without this human curating the conversation, a staff meeting can turn into directionless heated vent session. Fortunately, as we’ll learn shortly, the Meeting Runner has an essential driving force at their disposal – the agenda.
The role of Meeting Runner is traditionally the human who called the meeting. It’s usually the he or she accountable for the team, which allegedly gives them the context to run the meeting efficiently. Usually.
The second role is Meeting Historian. This non-obvious role is not required in the first few get-to-know-you meetings, but is essential long term. Their job: capture the narrative of the meeting. We’re not looking for every single word, we’re looking for major themes and points that are discussed. Action items, relevant thoughts, jokes, it’s all captured by the Meeting Historian.
Two guidelines for Meeting Historian. First, it can’t be the Meeting Runner because this human has their hands full keeping this meeting pointed in the right direction. Second, the Meeting Historian is not responsible for editorial or curation. Their job is to capture everything. This seems like a no-brainer until you understand that your next job is to send these notes to the entire company.
Wait. What?
Humans have complicated relationships with meetings. If they’re in the meeting and it’s not meeting their expectations, they’re mad. If they’re not invited to a meeting where they believe they should be present, they’re mad. Combine this slippery situation with that fact that meeting efficiency devolves as a function of the number of humans greater than seven and you’ve got a maddening set of complicated constraints. The simple but perhaps controversial practice I’d recommend is that every single meeting have a Meeting Historian and the work of that Historian is broadcast to the whole company.
If you’re a frequent meeting denizen and the hair on the back of your neck stands up when you imagine the notes of your meeting being shared with the whole of your company, my question is, “What are you talking about in that meeting that can’t be shared?” Of course, the Meeting Runner will remove confidential information about individuals as well as other clearly confidential company information before sending. If that doesn’t calm you down, I’m still curious what you think is being said in this meeting that can’t be shared with your team?
Meetings create power structures. Intentionally or not, they become a measure of status. Are you in that meeting? No? Well, I am. If you found sound reason to have a staff meeting in my list above, I’m not worried about the first three month of this meeting’s existence. It’s year two when that good reason may have vanished and now you have this formerly important meeting purely out of habit.
The rule is: in the absence of information, humans fill the gap with the worse possible version of the truth. Two years into your meeting when you’re not sharing the notes, the humans not in the meeting tell the most interesting and untrue stories about what happens in your meeting. I guarantee it. This isn’t out of spite. They aren’t being malicious. They just don’t know what is going on, so they’re going to tell their version of the story.
Share your notes. Every time. The act of doing so will force you to ask the following question before you share them “Is what we are doing here valuable?”
A Three Point Agenda
The Minimal Metrics Story is the list of essential metrics this group must review on a regularly basis and I recommend leading with them because they frame the whole meeting. Not knowing precisely why you chose this precise time and situation to start a staff meeting makes it tricky to recommend what type of metrics you need to review.
What are the key metrics this group is responsible for? Revenue? Application performance? Security incidents? Number of critical bugs filed? The list is endless and it’s ok if your first meetings don’t have these defined. But after a month, if these haven’t shown up, I’m wondering why you pulled this group together? What problem are you trying to solve? I’m not saying you demonstrated poor judgement by calling the meeting, but if a concrete set of measurable things hasn’t shown up, why is the group meeting on a regular basis?
You’ll know you’ve found a good initial set of metrics when they tell a story and leave you with questions. Total billings in the last week were X millions. Recurring revenue added was Y thousands. Last week they were X and Y? That’s a big change. What do we think happened? The questions and the debate that surround the story both align the room and frame the rest of the conversation. There will be weeks where the metrics story is, “Tracking. Nothing to discuss,” but if it’s been three months and that’s the only story, you’ve either got the wrong metrics or the good reason to have this meeting has passed.
A Rolling Team Sourced Agenda is the heart of your meeting. For the first iteration of this meeting, you’ll need to build the agenda yourself. This shouldn’t be hard because there are pressing reasons for these humans to be together. Once, twice, or perhaps three times you can set the agenda for the meeting to address that pressing reason, but at end of the first meeting you say, “Here’s a document I’ve shared with everyone, please add any agenda topics for next time.”
They won’t.
The social fabric and the sense of team that you are building with this meeting will take time to form and you’ll need to be more involved in both building the agenda and moving the narrative along for the first handful of meetings. You’re looking for two important developments over the course of the first three meetings:
1) Unexpectedly useful conversational detours. You’re going to do a lot of talking in the first few meetings because you’re the leader, you’ve identified some problem, and you’re attempting to solve it. Good job, but very quickly you need to stop talking. Introvert leaders of the world will have no problem with this advice. Extrovert leaders. Listen to me. It’s not your meeting, it’s their meeting. You need everyone in the room to bring their experience, their questions, their curiosity, and their drive to the table and they each need to feel comfortable sharing these thoughts. If you don’t stop talking, they won’t start.
2) A similar positive health sign is the arrival of unsolicited agenda items by the rest of the room. I’m not talking about the ones you ask for, I’m talking about the agenda items that just appear. These random new additions are emerging proof that the rest of the room is beginning to see that this is a meeting where work is done.
Staff meetings are an hour. It feels like a lot of time, but when this meeting is working you’ll effortlessly fill the time.
It’s a rolling agenda because the steady healthy state for this meeting is that you never get through the agenda – there are too many topics to discuss.
It’s a rolling agenda because the steady healthy state for this meeting is that you never get through the agenda – there are too many topics to discuss.
Gossip, Rumors, and Lies is the final permanent agenda item. With the last five to ten minutes of your meeting, you’re carving off time for communication error correction. I’ll explain.
The reason you’re having this meeting is because of a seismic shift. Your team suddenly grew, your company changed direction, major responsibility shifted, or maybe a reorganization occurred. The knee-jerk move when a shift occurs is to call all the relevant parties into the room and ask, “WTF?” This feels good. People talk and explain their feelings regarding the shift. Information is shared, we nod, and feel aligned, but other than the therapy, we didn’t solve whatever problem existed that precipitated the need for this meeting. Meetings are a symptom of a disease, they are not the cure.
The metrics framing and rolling agenda should give you an actionable narrative. They should give you the opportunity for the airing and discussion of grievances. They should create a set of follow-up work that is far more likely the cure. However, you should still be asking, “WTF?”
This final section of your staff meeting is a safe place for all participants to raise any issue, to ask any random question, or to confirm any hallway or Slack chatter. Chances are, whatever seismic event caused this meeting to occur is still being organizationally digested and often the stories being told are absurd. Gossip, Rumors, and Lies is time to get that important absurdity out in the open, so you can begin to construct a healthy response.
Meetings are a Symptom, Not the Cure
High on my list of professional pet peeves is the emergence of corrosive politics within a company. Politics are a natural development in a large group of humans working together. Corrosive politics give me rage: taking credit for other’s ideas, hoarding information, or not allowing the best idea to win. The list goes on and on and when I discover this type of politics where I work there is rage, so I’ve spent a good portion of my career understanding the root causes.
Seismic shifts within your company or team create change, and humans attempting to get work done consistently, of high quality, and at velocity don’t like change. It harshes their productivity buzz. The intensity of their response to change is a function of their discomfort and that discomfort increases exponentially the longer their discomfort remains unresolved.
The reason meetings have evolved as an acceptable first response is because they do address one key issue: they give the team an opportunity to discuss their perceptions of the change. This feels good. The reason meetings are often hated is because while talking feels good, it’s not true progress.
If you’ve called the meeting for the right reason, if you’ve discovered story-filled metrics, if you build a compelling team-sourced agenda, if you give everyone time to discuss the absurd, and if you share the insights from this meeting with everyone, you’ve given the team a chance to collectively resolve the core issue. The sharing of this work will decrease miscommunication, it can help inoculate against politics, and it will create unexpected serendipity.
No one is going to just sit there when they understand the problems at hand, they trust they can be heard, and they can count on resolution.
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