Obstacles to building Conversational Capacity in Organizational Teams
Part 1 Flight: When Candor Gives Way to Caution
Minimizing—the conversational manifestation of the flight response—is a problem almost everyone can relate to. Conversational capacity drops because the behavior of well-intentioned people is seized by their need to play it safe. They shut down when they should speak up. They soft-pedal a point when they should assert it with force. They bring up their concerns in the hallway after a decision is made rather than in the meeting when it matters.
Typical Minimize Behaviors
When we minimize, it’s not that we don’t have an agenda, it’s that our agenda is subverted by a strong need to keep things comfortable, to avoid conflict, to keep things calm. When stuck between our good intentions and our need to minimize, we often slip into a variety of conversational tactics that emphasize caution at the expense of candor. What follows is a list of behaviors that we often employ when our minimizing reflex has been triggered and demonstrates the complex and varied ways the flight response manifests itself in our conversations.
1.??????We cover up our views, ideas, information, or concerns.
“To refrain from an act is no less an act than to commit one.”
2.??????We feign agreement or support.
We say we agree when we don’t. We see this when we tell someone, “Your idea is brilliant” when we’re really thinking, “I’ll bet your parents are first cousins.”
3.??????We engage in “hallway” dynamics.
When an issue isn’t addressed in a meeting or with the person with whom we have the issue, it almost always gets aired in the hallway, the parking lot, or behind closed doors with a like-minded colleague.
4.??????We ease in.
To make an issue more palatable and less offensive, we water it down, soften it, or make it look less serious than it is. We do this when we sugarcoat our opinions, downplay our point before we make it, or butter someone up before we dump bad news on him or her.
5.??????We prematurely withdraw.
We pull the rip cord on the conversations and bail out before we make progress because our need to keep out of trouble overwhelms our desire for progress.
6.??????We gradually reveal our point.
Like someone sticking a toe in the water to test the temperature, we often employ a “strategy of gradual revelation,” slowly letting our opinions or judgments trickle out into the open, in an attempt to avoid triggering a defensive reaction in others.
7.??????We ask leading questions.
Rather than make our point directly, we’ll ask a series of questions designed to “lead” the other person to our point. “So, do you think that was a good way to run the meeting yesterday? Do you think you might have done a few things differently? I am just thinking out loud here, but do you think maybe an agenda would help?”
8.??????We avoid the issue or change the subject.
We steer a conversation away from any issue that might spark tension, conflict, or discomfort. When such an unwelcome issue is raised, a way to reduce the tension is to move the conversation to a safer subject.
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9.??????We’re deliberately ambiguous.
By speaking in foggy, obfuscated terms, we can more easily back away if someone reacts defensively.
10.??We employ caveats.
We often pepper our language with caveats and qualifiers to make it seem less direct, offensive, or off-putting: “I’m sure this is a bad idea, but I’m wondering if perhaps we might consider the idea of maybe moving the meeting to Thursday? That’s probably a bad idea, right?”
11.??We use third-party examples.
We pretend we’re talking about someone else and hope that the person we’re talking with gets the message. “I know this guy, a friend of mine, who tells his people that he likes people to talk to him straight but then shoots them down when they do. I don’t think he realizes he’s doing it. What do you think I should tell him?” Another way we use a third party is by citing others as the source of our negative feedback or information.
12.??We display submissive body language.
?To signal that we’re no threat and keep ourselves from harm’s way, we limit our eye contact, lower the volume of our voices, and diminish our physical presence to make ourselves smaller targets.
13.??We use denial.
We deny our concern for fear it will raise the tension and lead to an unpleasant consequence, saying, “No, I don’t have any concerns about the strategy at all,” when we really harbor grave doubts.
14.??We make excuses.
We let people off the hook by making excuses, which reduces tension, but at the expense of learning or progress. “I am sure you have a good reason for doing what you’re doing, and you’re under a lot of stress, so people should just stop their whining and do what you’re asking.”
15.??We take the “monkey.”
Minimizers will often avoid tension or negative emotions by taking responsibility for an issue. “Don’t worry about it,” managers may say,” I’ll take care of it,” when they should let their employee deal with the problem. This self-sacrificing behavior may protect them from the short-term discomfort associated with holding others accountable, but long term it leads to the accumulation of “monkeys”—tasks that rightfully belong to others—that we’ve placed on our own back.
16.??We unilaterally control the situation to keep it safe and comfortable.
?We decide what is and isn’t discussable in a conversation and then withhold from others that we are doing so. We must do this unilaterally, for if we explained that we were adopting this strategy, it would defeat the purpose of the strategy.
17.??We use e-mail or voice mail to raise our concerns.
We often use voice mail or e-mail to raise our concerns, not because they’re the most responsible or effective ways to express our views but because we don’t have to be there for the reaction when the other person gets the message.
Think about your own experience. Can you recognize any of these behaviors in yourself or others?
What other behaviors do you see yourself and others using to minimize the level of negative emotion or tension in a conversation?
(From the book Conversational Capacity by Craig Weber)