Improving Conversations through Understanding and Practice

“‘The conversation is the relationship.’ Is a quote I come back to often from the book Fierce Conversations from Susan Scott. What this means to me… is that the quality of our relationships depend on the quality of our conversations, which of course then directly impacts the quality of our work together as a team.” - Winnie da Silva

In this episode, Winnie and Peter explore the concept of high-quality conversations and their importance within teams. They discuss the significant impact of conversation quality on relationships and team effectiveness, emphasizing that it is critical to all other building blocks in Peter’s methodology.

Episode Highlights:

"The Conversation is the Relationship"

• Winnie shares this quote from the book "Fierce Conversations" that underscores the idea that the quality of relationships depends on the quality of conversations. This, in turn, directly affects the quality of teamwork.

Survey on Conversation Dynamics

• Unequal participation, lack of candor, and poor understanding of others’ reasoning are common dynamics in meetings and discussions, and they stress that these are problematic.

Business Case for High-Quality Conversations

• Peter encourages the audience to consider the costs associated with low-quality conversations.
• Winnie and Peter assert that it's not enough to bring people together for work; it's essential to ensure the conversations are of high quality, with broad participation, candor, and the sharing of views and reasoning.

How to Work with Teams on High-Quality Conversations

• Winnie explains that working on high-quality conversations is a relatively straightforward process.
• They emphasize creating a climate for conversations where people feel psychologically safe to speak up and engage with others in open discussions.
• The aspiration is to achieve broad participation, candor, and mutual understanding within team conversations.

Three Steps to Implement High-Quality Conversations

• Describe the attributes of high-quality conversations, why they matter, and how they look.
• Identify barriers to these attributes, which can reveal hidden team dynamics.
• Encourage practice and the use of language and behavioral best practices to increase conversation quality.

Best Practices for High-Quality Conversations

• Winnie introduces six best practices that fall under three primary topics: Participation, Candor, and Understanding of Reasoning. For each practice, there are both "self" and "other" components to encourage improvement in conversations.
• Participation
• The objective is NOT that everyone speaks for the same duration.
• The objective is to ensure that everyone has an equal opportunity to speak, and on important topics and decisions, everyone has been heard.
• Candor
• Winnie and Peter discuss the importance of managing self by speaking candidly and pushing one’s comfort zone on this.
• They explain that, when interacting with others, one can inquire about what others are thinking to encourage candid dialogue.
• Understanding of Reasoning
• Peter stresses the importance of sharing reasoning when stating opinions.
• In interactions with others, he encourages asking questions about the reasoning behind others' opinions.

Understanding of Reasoning

• Peter stresses the importance of sharing reasoning when stating opinions.
• In interactions with others, he encourages asking questions about the reasoning behind others' opinions.

Implementing Best Practices

• Winnie advises keeping these six best practices visible during meetings and on team agendas.
• The practices can serve as reminders for the team to work on their conversation quality.

Challenges in Implementing High-Quality Conversation

• Peter discusses the relative ease or difficulty of implementing changes in participation, candor, and understanding of reasoning within a team.
• He emphasizes that increasing candor is the most challenging, as it often requires a shift from historical norms of not expressing true thoughts.

Benefits of High-Quality Conversations

Winnie and Peter emphasize the significance of high-quality conversations in team effectiveness and describe the growing confidence and sense of accomplishment that teams experience when improving their conversations.

Always prioritize high quality conversations.

Resources

Winnie da Silva on LinkedIn 

Get the whole season and the companion guide at Winniedasilva.com



Fierce Conversations by Susan Scott