Crucia1 C0nversations - Part 1

Last week, I had the chance to attend a two-day workshop on the topic Crucia1 C0nversations. Subtitled “Tools for talking when stakes are high”, this particular set of communication skills was developed by Kerry Patterson, Joseph Grenny, Ron McMillan, and Al Switzler of Vita1 Smart. More information can be found on the Crucia1 C0nversations website. I thought that the stuffs I learnt are pretty useful (not that I’ve had the chance to practice much of them yet) even when only a portion is applied, so I thought I’d share them with you, hoping it’ll help enhance my own understanding as well.

Okay, some introduction to begin with. First, what are crucia1 c0nversations? Crucia1 c0nversations (as these people define it) usually involves three elements: when opinion differs, stakes are high, and emotions are strong. Sometimes you enter a crucia1 c0nversations, at other times a normal conversation can turn to a crucia1 c0nversations. Example of the first case: you have a colleague who consistently missed his deadline and this is affecting your work. You would like to approach him to talk about this; and that would probably be a crucia1 c0nversation. Example of the second case: you are casually discussing with your husband on the plans for the weekends. But suddenly you both find each other’s suggestions unacceptable so you start to argue, in other words you entered a crucia1 c0nversation.

Second, does it really make any difference? The authors are confident that: whenever you find yourself stuck, look for the crucia1 c0nversations that you are not holding or not holding well, and you can get yourself unstuck. Of course they’d say that, it’s their baby. But I put on the sceptic glasses and say: in my personal opinion, there definitely are instances when you can solve your problems using crucia1 c0nversations skills, but perhaps not all of them. An example (given in the book): a hospital is suffering from various issues including errors in prescription/surgery, post-operation infections increasing, and high turnover of nurses. These consultants were called to help. Their finding: nurses dare not question the doctors’ order even when they think something’s not right, in other words there’s no crucia1 c0nversations taking place when there are real needs to be. Another example: a wife feels that she could use some help from her husband with some of the household chores, but doesn’t feel safe to talk about it with him for fear of retaliation, and instead stooped to giving hints and sarcastic remarks, hoping he’d understand what she really wished.

But talking is just talking right? Well, apparently, during crucia1 c0nversations, our body might react to the ‘threat/fear’ by releasing more adrenaline into our blood, which in turn gets pumped to our muscles and legs (in a fight or flight primal response to a stress reaction), and more often than not left our brain drained. Learning these skills helps us to be aware of what’s happening, and hopefully will help us to be master of our own dialogues. Oops, don’t mean to overpromote actually.

The following are the topics that will be covered, insyaAllah:

Start with Heart
Learn to Look
Make it Safe
Master My Stories
STATE My Path
Explore Others’ Paths
Move to Action