1. 2016 SAIGE National Training Program
June 9, 2016

2. CRUCIAL CONVERSATIONS: Tools for talking when stakes are high
Presenter: Christina Navarrete-Wasson
IRS Field Director, Submission Processing, Fresno, CA

3. Why are you here in this workshop?
Recent fight with significant other?
Need to tell someone that they are not performing?
You need to have a serious conversation with a rebellious teen?
Video
Thoughts??? We all came into conversations with our own stories shaped by our upbringing, socio economic status, life’s experiences which can lead to crucial conversations.

4. Crucial Conversation -- Definition
Discussion between two or more people were:
Opinions vary
Stakes are high
Emotions run high
Different personalities
Typical ways they play out
Avoidance
Face but handle poorly
Handle well

5. Principle #1– Start with the heart
Focus on what you really want
Start with the right motives
Stay focused no matter what happens
Work on Me First
Remember that the only person you can directly control is yourself.
Focus on What You Really Want Not to just win
When you find yourself moving toward silence or violence, stop and pay attention to your motives.
Ask yourself: “What does my behavior tell me about what my motives are?”
Then, clarify what you really want. Ask yourself: “What do I want for myself? For others? For the relationship?”
And finally, ask: “How would I behave if this were what I really wanted?”

6. Principle #2 – Learn to Look
Learn to spot crucial conversations
Learn to look for safety problems
Style under stress
Self Assessment
Video CC: To help catch problems early, reprogram your mind to pay attention to the signs that suggest you’re in a crucial conversation. Some people first notice physical signals—their stomach gets tight Others notice their emotions before they notice signs in their body. They realize they are scared, hurt, or angry and are beginning to react to or suppress these feelings. Some people’s first cue is not physical or emotional, but behavioral. They see themselves raising their voice, pointing their finger like a loaded weapon, or becoming very quiet. It’s only then that they realize how they’re feeling.
Safety: When others move away from healthy dialogue either forcing their opinions into the pool or purposefully keeping their ideas out of the pool then they are not feeling safe. We’re asking you to recode silence and violence as signs that people are feeling unsafe. We’re asking you to fight your natural tendency to respond in kind. Do something to make it safe.
Stress: Perhaps the most difficult element to watch closely as you’re madly dual-processing (content/Condition) is your own behavior. People were always talking about how mean this guy was who lived on our block. But I decided to go see for myself. I went to his door, but he said he wasn’t the mean guy, the mean guy lived in that house over there. ‘No, you stupid idiot,’ I said, ‘that’s my house.’”
Learn to look at content and conditions.
Look for when things become crucial.
Learn to watch for safety problems.
Look to see if others are moving toward silence or violence.
Look for outbreaks of your Style Under Stress.

7. Principle #3 --Make it Safe
Build Safety
Pieces to Establish Safety
Mutual Purpose
Mutual Respect
Once you’ve spotted safety problems, you can talk about the most challenging of topics by stepping out of the content and building enough safety that almost anything becomes discussable. For example: “Can we change gears for a minute? My goal isn’t to make you feel guilty, and I certainly don’t want to become defensive. What I’d really love is for us to come up with a solution that makes us both satisfied.”
Mutual Purpose. Do others believe you care about their goals in this conversation? Do they trust your motives?
Mutual Respect. Do others believe you respect them? Before you begin, examine your motives. Ask yourself the Start with Heart questions:
What do I want for me?
What do I want for others?
What do I want for the relationship?
Skills to rebuild
1) Apologize When you’ve clearly violated respect, apologize.
2) Contrast When others misunderstand either your purpose or your intent, use Contrasting. Start with what you don’t intend or mean. Then explain what you do intend or mean.
3) CRIB Commit, Recognize, Invent a Mutual Purpose, Brainstorm New Strategies 5

8. Principle #4-MASTER MY STORIES
Skills for mastering our stories
Retrace your Path
(Act) Notice your behavior
(Feel) Get in touch with your feelings
(Tell) Analyze your story
(See/Hear) Get back to the facts
Control conversations by learning how to take charge of your emotions. By learning to exert influence over your own feelings, you’ll place yourself in a far better position to use all the tools we’ve explored thus far.
Just after we observe what others do and just before we feel some emotion about it, we tell ourselves a story. That is, we add meaning to the action we observed. To the simple behavior we add motive. Why were they doing that? We also add judgment—is that good or bad? And then, based on these thoughts or stories, our body responds with an emotion.
Walking the dog.
Here’s how to retrace your path:
[Act] Notice your behavior. Ask:
Am I in some form of silence or violence?
[Feel] Get in touch with your feelings.
What emotions are encouraging me to act this way?
[Tell story] Analyze your stories.
What story is creating these emotions?
[See/hear] Get back to the facts.
What evidence do I have to support this story?
By retracing your path one element at a time, you put yourself in a position to think about, question, and change any one or more of the elements.
Clever stories : Victim, Villain, Helpless Story For example, we move to silence or violence, and then we come up with a perfectly plausible reason for why it’s okay. “Of course I yelled at him. Did you see what he did? He deserved it.” “We call these imaginative and self-serving concoctions “clever stories.” They’re clever because they allow us to feel good about behaving badly.

9. Tell the Rest of the Story
Your role in the problem?
Why would someone do this?
What do I really want?
What would I do for these results
What’s the best way to fill in the missing details? Quite simply, it’s done by turning victims into actors, villains into humans, and the helpless into the able
Turn victims into actors. If you notice that you’re talking about yourself as an innocent victim (and you weren’t held up at gunpoint), ask:
Am I pretending not to notice my role in the problem?
Turn villains into humans. When you find yourself labeling or otherwise vilifying others, stop and ask:
Why would a reasonable, rational, and decent person do what this person is doing?
Turn the helpless into the able. Finally, when you catch yourself bemoaning your own helplessness, you can tell the complete story by returning to your original motive. To do so, stop and ask:
What do I really want? For me? For others? For the relationship?
As we tell the rest of the story, we free ourselves from the poisoning effects of unhealthy emotions. Best of all, as we regain control and move back to dialogue, we become masters of our own emotions rather than hostages.

10. Principle #5 – State My Path
How to speak persuasively, not abrasively
Speak from the heart- attitude counts
Use your head- understand the 5 skills
Here’s what we’ve learned. Our hearts need to be in the right place. We need to pay close attention to crucial conversations—particularly when people start feeling unsafe. And heaven forbid that we should tell ourselves clever and unhelpful stories.
Start with Heart. Think about what you really want and how dialogue can help you get it. And master your story—realize that you may be jumping to a hasty Victim, Villain, or Helpless Story. The best way to find out the true story is not to act out the worst story you can generate. That will lead to self-destructive silence and violence games. Think about other possible explanations long enough to temper your emotions so you can get to dialogue.
STATE When you have a tough message to share, or when you are so convinced of your own rightness that you may push too hard, remember to STATE your path:
Share your facts. Start with the least controversial, most persuasive elements from your Path to Action.
Tell your story. Explain what you’re beginning to conclude. ( reasonable, rationale, and decent conclusion)
Ask for others’ paths. Encourage others to share both their facts and their stories.
Talk tentatively. State your story as a story—don’t disguise it as a fact. I've talked to three of our suppliers who think that…
Encourage testing. Make it safe for others to express differing or even opposing views.

11. Principle # 6– Explore Others’ Paths
How to listen when others blow up or clam up.
Four skills needed – AMPP
Ask to get things rolling
Mirror to confirm feelings
Paraphrase to acknowledge the story
Prime when you are getting nowhere
To encourage the free flow of meaning and help others leave silence or violence behind, explore their Paths to Action. Start with an attitude of curiosity and patience. This helps restore safety. When we help others retrace their path to its origins, not only do we help curb our reaction, but we also return to the place where the feelings can be resolved—at the source, or the facts and the story behind the emotion.
Then, use four powerful listening skills to retrace the other person’s Path to Action to its origins.
Ask. Start by simply expressing interest in the other person’s views.
Mirror. Increase safety by respectfully acknowledging the emotions people appear to be feeling. “You seem angry at me”
Paraphrase. As others begin to share part of their story, restate what you’ve heard to show not just that you understand, but also that it’s safe for them to share what they’re thinking.
Prime. If others continue to hold back, prime. Take your best guess at what they may be thinking and feeling.
As you begin to share your views, remember:
Agree. Agree when you do.
Build. If others leave something out, agree where you do, then build.
Compare. When you do differ significantly, don’t suggest others are wrong. Compare your two views.

12. Principle # 7- Move to Action
Why great ideas never transform into action
Unclear expectations on how decision will be made
Poor job of action on decisions
Accountability!
The two riskiest times in crucial conversations tend to be at the beginning and at the end. The beginning is risky because you have to find a way to create safety or else things go awry. The end is dicey because if you aren’t careful about how you clarify the conclusion and decisions.
Decide How to Decide
Command. Decisions are made without involving others.
Consult. Input is gathered from the group and then a subset decides.
Vote. An agreed-upon percentage swings the decision.
Consensus. Everyone comes to an agreement and then supports the final decision.
Finish Clearly
Determine who does what by when. Make the deliverables crystal clear. Set a follow-up time. Record the commitments and then follow up. Finally, hold people accountable to their promises.

13. Putting It All Together
Pick a chapter you found relevant (possibly one with a low score in your Style Under Stress test) and read it again. This time, implement what you learned over a three- to five-day period. Look for opportunities. Pounce on every chance you get. Step up to the plate and give the skills a try. Then pick another chapter and repeat the pro
Rehearse with a friend. Start by rehearsing with a friend. Ask a colleague or coworker to partner with you. Explain that you’d like to practice the skills you’re learning. Briefly discuss the skill you’ll be attempting. Provide the details of a real problem you’re facing. (Don’t include names or otherwise violate privacy issues.) Next, ask your friend to play the role of the other person and practice the crucial conversation.
Ask your partner to give you honest feedback. Otherwise you could be practicing the wrong delivery. Remember, practice doesn’t make perfect; perfect practice makes perfect. Insist that your practice partner hold you to a high standard. Make sure you’re constantly improving.