Fierce Conversation Principles Part 2
If you read my previous article. I discussed the initial 4 principles of Susan Scott’s book ‘Fierce Conversations’. This week I want to look at the final 3 principles that support powerful, impactful and transformative conversations, so you can complete your thinking about what these conversations mean in reality and importantly how you can have them to benefit your personal and professional relationships. Firstly, a reminder of the first 4 principles in brief:
Master the courage to interrogate reality.
Come out from behind yourself and make the conversation real.
Be here, be prepared to be nowhere else.
Tackle your toughest challenge today.
Now to move onto the final 3 principles in Susan Scott’s book:
5. Obey your instincts.
This principle is about getting us to be more aware of our thoughts and feelings – our instinct. There is frequently infinite value in paying attention to this. This means during conversations, it is not only the specific words that matter, but also the emotion and intent you are experiencing too. These aspects are frequently very valuable for picking up the nuances of what isn’t being said in words, something I frequently mention in my body language and voice workshops! Often we dismiss our instincts for fear of being wrong or offending someone, think about embracing these more, just think about the how.
6. Take responsibility for your emotional wake.
This principle is about thinking about the impact we have on others. Susan Scott makes the point that in an important relationship there is no trivial comment and anything said can have a positive or negative long-term effect. Making your intent clear will make sure people take the right message away appropriately. It’s also vital that important conversations are completed and not left hanging, so people aren’t filling the rest in with unreality.
7. Let silence do the heavy lifting.
This final principle focuses on the power of silence, it enables a slowing of conversations to make sure the real conversation is had, it can allow time for the greater meaning of the conversation to become clear and it gives all of us time to think about how we feel and how we will react. Many senior people I come across fail to use pausing and silence effectively. Mastering it can give you a big advantage for several reasons.
As a reminder, this is all about enriching relationships, so have a think today about what really needs confronting. As I suggested last time, make a list and prioritise it according to how much the on-going issue affects you/the relationship and the importance of the relationship in your world. If you have done that already, start to build on this with the positive actions and attitude that you want to apply to each of these relationships, (keeping these conversation principles in mind) to take the relationships forwards.
If you are having challenges with work relationships, get in touch [email protected]. I have helped many clients understand how their behaviour impacts others and how other people are impacting them, so they can make powerful changes for improved individual career progression and organisational performance.
If you want to buy Susan’s book.
Image courtesy of freeimages.com/MischavanLieshout