Crucial Conversations - Book Review, Part 5

Let's start now with our fifth and final installment of Crucial Conversations. I hope you've enjoyed this series on Crucial Conversations. I think if you go back and review and really internalize the concepts here, and ideally read the book, it will really help you with your communication style and with your ability to navigate through these Crucial Conversations that occur in all aspects of life, not just work but also at home.

Part five, remembering the ABC's. You want to agree, build, and compare. When you agree, just agree and move on. Lots of times we agree but we want to fight regardless. You want to build, you want to state what you agree with and avoid the trivial disagreements. "I agree and ..." and leave out the facts that are irrelevant.

Then you want to compare. Start with, "I think I see things differently. Let me describe how."

Chapter nine, Move to Action. Failure to convert these ideas into action occurs for two main reasons.

1. There's unclear expectations about how decisions will be made.
2. They do a poor job of acting on decisions they do make.

Dialogue is not decision-making, so you want to decide on how to decide. Not everyone gets to make the decisions. You want to make the line of authority and decision-making clear.

There's four methods of decision-making. There's command, there's consult, there's vote, and there's consensus.

• Command: There's no choice in the matter such as government decisions. We only need to decide on how to make it work.
• Consult: We invite others to influence before we make our choice.
• Vote: There's agreed efficiency in voting, particularly when there's a number of good choices, but you don't need to talk the issue to death.
• Consensus: You talk and everyone agrees on the decision. This is only used when high stakes and complex issues or everyone must support the final decision.

How to choose? You want to ask these four questions. One, who cares? If they have no interest they are not involved. Number two, who knows and has knowledge? Number three, who must agree? Involve them upfront. Number four, how many people is it worth involving to make a decision and get commitment?

Decision-making blenders and solutions, it's very important that you use command appropriately. You don't want to pass out orders like candies. When you force a command decision know what elements are flexible within that command decision and then explain why. For consultation there's some do's and don'ts. Explain before you start that you are consulting but that does not mean that the decision is going to be a consensus.

When do you want to consult? When many people will be effected. You can gather information easily this way, people care about the decision, and there are many options, and some of them are controversial. Don't pretend to consult. Announce what you are doing and then report the decision. Don't have the decision already made and then do the consultation process because it will become transparent.

Holding a good vote, you want to weigh the consequences of a vote and make sure the losers will be okay with losing and don't care that much. Know when to vote. When there's many good choices, and be careful not to cop out with a vote. For instance, "Alright, we'll never agree so let's just vote." This is not okay. Surviving the joys of consensus, consensus works when everyone is effected, everyone cares, and there's several options not equally liked.

Don't force consensus on everyone. Be discerning. Don't pretend that everyone gets his/her first choice, and don't take turns. Make the best decisions instead. No martyrs please, and don't engage in post-decision lobbying. Don't say, "I told you so," when an idea you agreed to does not work. Remember, you own it once you agree in consensus.

Making assignments, putting decisions into action, you need to establish who does what by when and how will you follow up. Who? Everybody's business is effectively nobody's business. You want to assign and make clear who the who is. Who does what? Spell out the exact deliverables to avoid disappointment. Explain what you don't want as well.

By when? Set a definite deadline. How will you follow up, agree on, and how often, and the method of follow up? Then you want to document your work. Take notes, document, and follow up, and review notes often. You want to hold people accountable and create a culture of integrity.

This book finishes up with a chapter called Putting it All Together. It says, "First you want to learn how to look from when silence or violence occurs and ask, 'Are we playing games or are we in dialogue?' Second you want to make it safe. Yeah but advice for tough losses, there are digital tools, conceptual tools, behavior tools, and queuing tools. A parting thought, you wan to try to improve, and when you fail admit it and then try again.

Celebrate when you succeed and then help others learn this information." This book, Crucial Conversations is a fantastic book, and if you can take this information and internalize it and digest it and use it, it will revolutionize your work life, your home life, and really human interactions, which is kind of the point of life in general for us, isn't it?

For the full "Crucial Conversations - Book Review, Part 5" podcast episode click here.

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