I recently read Crucial Conversations by authors else wit slur Kerry Patterson Ron Macmillan and Joseph granny a crucial conversation is a critical confrontation that needs to be handled with care examples include calling a client who hasn't paid an overdue invoice or walking into your boss's office to talk about a promotion he promised you but hasn't delivered on yet we're confronting a lazy teammate who isn't doing his share of the project or talking to your sibling about your parents inheritance navigating a crucial conversation is like diffusing a bomb touch the wrong button or hit the wrong wire and you set off an explosion of emotion the best way to avoid an emotional explosion and prevent a conversation from going silent or verbally violent is to keep the dialogue going if there's dialogue and there's a chance you can work through whatever issue is at the heart of the conversation in the book crucial conversations I've discovered a toolset that you and I can use to defuse the tension during a crucial conversation and get back to productive dialogue everybody walks into crucial conversations with a story that story might be my teammate doesn't care about my project because he doesn't come to my meetings or my boss doesn't care about my career because he hasn't given me a promotion yet if you approach a crucial conversation with a story and the conclusion already in mind there's no room for dialogue because your minds already made up for there to be any hope for productive dialogue you must assume that you don't know the full story and you need the help of the person you're talking to you to get a complete picture a great way to communicate this is to replay the situation as you saw it by using a when I invite as in when this happened and that happened I felt like this and jump to this conclusion if you need to confront a teammate who's not doing his fair share of work on a team project use the when I framework by saying when you don't show up to team meetings and don't deliver work to your teammates on time I fear you don't care about this project and aren't putting in the same effort as your teammates then after your when I invite them to share their story something like I'm probably not seeing the whole picture can you help me see what's going on you could use this when I invite to confront a client who hasn't paid you for weeks by saying when I fail to see a payment from you for several weeks and don't get a response to my emails I worry that you'll never pay me then quickly invite them to share their story by saying something like can you help me understand what's happening on your end when you use a when I invite you're not being passive or aggressive you're being assertive with the facts and honestly sharing your experience chances are the person you're confronting will be less inclined to defend their character more inclined to clarify the situation but sometimes you can do everything right at the beginning of a crucial conversation and the conversation will still turn into a heated argument and that's because the person you're talking to you sees you as an opponent as an enemy they must defeat to get their way to avoid a yelling match and get back to productive dialogue you must convince the person you're talking to that you're not their opponent you're not their enemy you're actually on the same side to do this you need to find and communicate a common goal value or purpose if a crucial conversation with the teammate is not going well remind him that you both want to enjoy working together and you want the project to go well because you both want your year-end bonuses if a conversation with your spouse isn't going well pause and say there's no need to fight you and I both love this family and we both want what's best for this family when you find common ground you'll realize that you and your conversation partner simply have conflicting strategies to achieve the same ultimate goal once you identify and communicate that ultimate goal your conversation transforms from a fight - more like a strategy brainstorming session so when emotions start to escalate get back to dialogue by using sentences such as I don't want to fight I just want to find a way for both of us to then talk about a common goal or purpose or I know we both care about and then talk about a common value like your country or the team or your family then follow that up by saying let's see if we can find a way that allows both of us to get what we want at this point if the person you're talking to you remain silent try nudging them back to productive dialogue by priming their point of you here's an example from the book when a factory manager announced to his staff that they had to rotate between their regular nine-to-five shift to a 3:00 p.m. to midnight shift every two weeks naturally the team members were pissed off and went silent in an effort to spark a conversation about the new work schedule and engaged his staff members he primed them by guessing what they were thinking he said are you thinking that the only reason we're doing this is to make money that maybe we don't care about your personal lives after a brief pause someone answered well it sure looks like that do you have any idea how much trouble this is going to cause then someone else chimed in and the discussion was off and running priming is a reference to priming a pump when you start a pump you often have to pour water into the pump to initiate the pump and get the pump up at the right speed often times you can get a conversation up to speed by offering a good-faith guess at what your conversation partner is thinking making a good-faith guess requires you form two beliefs about the conversation first the person I'm talking to is a reasonable rational and decent person and second I'm largely responsible for this conversation going sideways and I'm willing to own up to it with these two foundational beliefs any attempt to guess what people are thinking will come with a dose of good will and a sense of humility both of which get a conversation back to productive dialogue if you learn to start your Crucial Conversations by using when I invitations and deescalate emotions by finding common ground and priming with goodwill you can transition every crucial conversation away from verbal violence or silence and into a realm of productive dialogue the more you engage in dialogue the greater chance you have to find agreements and the more likely you are to work together to resolve the problem at the heart of a crucial conversation that was the core message that I gathered from crucial conversations there were many more tools in this book to help you navigate any difficult conversation I highly recommend this book if you would like a one-page PDF summary of insights that I gathered from this book just click the link below and I'd be happy to email it to you if you already subscribe to the free productivity game email news this PDF is sitting in your inbox if you liked this video please share it and as always thanks for watching and have yourself a productive week