'Chat Makes Sense' - Conversational Intelligence for leadership teams....
#10 '....we have to look beyond ‘Either/Or’ and go past ‘Both/And’, so we can take on the unfamiliar discomfort of ‘Neither/All’.'
Chat Makes Sense is an exciting new mantra for improving conversational intelligence. It is a manifesto for making meetings more effective, especially those brought together to resolve complex problems, collaboratively.
The Way we Talk Creates the Reality we Live By
Everything we do comes to life through language. By improving our conversational intelligence, we create better ideas, make better decisions and add more value, together.
Here are the guidelines for improving it:
#1 Get to Know Each Other
Good personal relationships create a climate of trust, openness, willing co-operation and mutual accountability. Differences of opinion are resolved more quickly. Conversation is enjoyable between friends. And more creative.
#2 Stay on Task and on Time
Productive meetings keep conversations on task and on time. If they wander off, bring them back. If they need more time, allocate it. Don’t let them over-run and steal precious time from the next item on your agenda.
#3 Be Curious, Together
Promote a diverse and inclusive climate of curiosity. In collaborative problem-solving meetings, asking, ‘What questions do we need to answer today?’ invites everyone to get involved and be curious with a purpose.
#4 Argue Assertively and be Willing to Climb Down
Argue passionately for ideas you believe in. Climb down when a better idea comes along. The latter is harder for most of us. It takes humility. But it is not a loss of face. It is an act of leadership that others will notice and be led by your example.
#5 Connect and Build
In complex problem-solving, collective intelligence outperforms individual brilliance. In 21st century leadership, the honours go to those who link, connect and combine ideas, building something new that no individual can say was ‘theirs’.
#6 Engage Others and Take Them with You
Listen well and talk clearly. Ask questions, ask for an example, an analogy or a metaphor. Read back what you heard and the meaning you made of it. Pick up and use the words they use. Explain your ideas in terms they will understand. Check you have been understood. Make conversational progress together.
#7 Thoughts and Feelings
Teams with higher collective intelligence respond to each other’s thoughts and feelings. Empathy and compassion are as important to them as logic and reasoning. ‘How do you feel about that?’ may not be familiar. But at times, it will be better than, ‘What do you think of this?’ We need plenty of both.
#8 The Broad and The Narrow
Systemic appreciation anticipates how ideas might work ‘in context’. And context is a matter of scale. Conversational intelligence looks at new ideas in relation to their local, specific and narrow contexts of action. It also looks at them in their wider, strategic and global context of interdependencies and sustainability. We need to be good at considering the broad as well as the narrow.
#9 Fast and Slow
Speed matters. Great leaders accelerate value creation – but they don’t do everything fast. They may set aggressive time-scales, but they also set time aside to slow down, to reflect and think creatively in a mindful state, free from distraction. Great teams do this, too.
#10 From ‘Both/And’ to ‘Neither/All’
The corporate search for operational excellence in the 80s and 90s was a quest for perfection. Answers were either right or wrong. Not so in today’s world. To find our solutions we have to look beyond ‘Either/Or’ and go past ‘Both/And’, so we can take on the unfamiliar discomfort of ‘Neither/All’.
We cannot respond to the human, technological, economic and environmental challenges we face unless we do. In this new landscape, conversational intelligence will help us find our way.
#11 Raise and Praise
Improving conversational intelligence increases our potential to address difficult, complex and risky issues. It improves the quality of collaborative thinking and helps us make better decisions.
Everyone can play a part in putting conversational intelligence to work. To make it last, raising the standard and making it stick require encouragement, recognition and praise from influential leaders. Calling people out with positive appreciation for their conversational intelligence makes a huge difference. 'We're only human, after all.' Thanks for that, Rag 'n' Bone Man!
Making a Start
Next time you get together to work on a difficult, complex or risky issue, put these principles to work.
And if you want some help getting started, just let me know.
About the Author. Tim Coburn is an OD and Leadership Consultant with 30 years experience at world class companies. Today, he works with leadership teams and equips leaders with the skills to succeed the 21st century - critical thinking, learning agility, real engagement and conversational intelligence. Read more at Chat Makes Sense.