Dear Crucial Skills,

I’m faced with the challenge of training people who are rather low self-monitors. That is, they don’t read social cues particularly well and as a result often annoy or offend others. They tend to push too hard or talk about topics that others are no longer interested in or simply hang back and don’t offer their ideas when they should. Many are skilled professionals in their field but since they don’t come off well in social interactions, they are being discounted. Our company can’t afford the luxury of not hearing from or discounting the opinions and ideas of some of our best thinkers.

Here’s the problem: when I work with this particular group, many are blind to the fact that they have a blind side. They view social skills training in general as a waste of time and the fact that they are in particular need of it often escapes them. How can I deal with this sensitive situation?

Signed,

At a Loss

Dear At a Loss,

First of all, it’s important to make sure those you’re training understand that using crucial skills in the workplace isn’t about looking pleasant or making people happy. Effec¬tive employees don’t charm people into their good graces. If any¬thing, they’re tough on infrac¬tions, vio¬lations, and failed prom¬ises. They con¬fidently step up to prob¬lems and hold the other person account¬able.

Honest, complete, and effective communication is about getting the results you want and need. Interpersonal skills matter because you work in a social environment made up of small groups and teams. People who “don’t work and play well with others” cause companies fits. Individuals who aren’t able to express themselves well aren’t heard, so their best ideas are often missed. Companies can’t afford that.

That said, the challenge here lies in first helping people realize that they aren’t reading the cues well, and second, helping them apply high-level reasoning to an activity that most people do intuitively (picking up on social cues). It turns out that the first challenge isn’t all that great. Most people who stumble in social settings are well aware of the fact that they aren’t doing well. They’ve been given more than enough feedback over the years to realize that they don’t always shine in complex social interactions. They know this in general, but still struggle in the moment. Many also realize that the typical training they’ve been given or books they have been asked to read haven’t given them much help. This is often because the material deals with what to do and say but offers little to no help when it comes to when and how. This is where they struggle. They don’t know when because they aren’t reading the cues and the often don’t know how because they aren’t reading the responses well enough to then make subtle adjustments to their behavioral attempts.

What’s a person to do? We all need help in reading social cues, some just more than others. If you’re offering social skills (influence, accountability, communication) training for those who have been tagged at risk, spend as much time talking about the entry condition or cue to the skill in question as you do on the skill itself. This can feel odd because it seems so obvious, but it isn’t to everyone. In fact, we all have problems at times. For instance, when we’re caught up in an argument, all of us have missed the process of what’s going on around us and plowed on ahead no matter how others respond. We’ve all seen people resist our ideas only to push harder and cause more resistance. In short, we all missed the cues.

Without going into detail here, suffice it to say that you’ll need to slow down the skill you’re teaching, focus on what others are doing or saying BEFORE the skill is called for and actually spend time looking for both the verbal and nonverbal cues that would drive a person in one direction or another. Then look at how people might respond to what you’ve just learned–with particular emphasis on what it looks like when the skill is working and when it isn’t. “Oops, that didn’t work. Let me try something else.” Once again, this calls for slowing down, looking for both verbal and nonverbal hints, talking about them, and then identifying where to go given the response. It’s a little hard to describe this in the abstract, but this ability to read social cues lies (both behavior and after a behavioral attempt) at the heart of your problem and you won’t be providing people the full solution to their problem if you merely focus on the traditional elements of influence or communication training.

Good luck with a challenging and often touchy task,

Kerry

Dear Crucial Skills,

How can I convince my manager to give me the promotion and pay raise I am owed?

This year I came back into mainstream office activity after resolving some personal problems. I got more and more responsibility over the course of the year and my supervisor reassured me he had no concerns about my performance and that he would see about getting me my promotion at year-end.

I recently approached him about the promotion and he said that I first needed to write up my strengths and weaknesses as well as long-term goals. He said he couldn’t support me getting my promotion until he had this in his hands. It seems like he’s adding steps after the fact. It was a big letdown from the expectations he set earlier in the year.

How can I convince him to see my point of view?

Signed,

Put Off

Dear Put Off,

I’ve got a few thoughts that I think could be helpful but I’d like to beg permission to take a few logical leaps here. I sincerely don’t want to be hurtful and yet since we’re not face to face I worry I will be. I trust that you were sincere in your request for advice, so I’ll venture forward hoping you’ll know my heart’s in the right place even if my brain isn’t. Okay?

Let me start with the most abrupt thought. Your very request is worded in a way that makes me wonder if your first challenge will be to change your motives. You asked, “How can I convince him . . . ?” If my goal in a conversation is to convince the other person, then I tend to come at it in ways that reveal my motive. My goal becomes to “be right” and “prove my point” or “win” with all the behaviors attendant to those motives. This is doomed from the outset and tends to cause the other person to resist rather than consider my views.

The goal of dialogue is not to “convince” but to “contribute to the pool of meaning.” You have some very clear and compelling concerns based on your experience that it is important for your boss to consider. And yet, he probably has some other views that you are unaware of. Your goal in the conversation must not be to get your raise; it must be to get a fair and reasonable outcome. Put differently, your goal must be to come to a common understanding of where you and your boss stand. If that is your motive, you will approach this as dialogue rather than monologue.

Second point. The root cause of most violated expectations is unclear expectations. We have conversations and leave drawing different conclusions. Or we remember it differently. Or things change and we assume others are revising their expectations accordingly–and they aren’t! Unfortunately, this advice will be useful in the future but not the present. It is this. If you do not have a written confirmation of your pay and promotion expectations with your boss, then you made a mistake. Never let a conversation about such a high stakes topic end without summarizing and even documenting your agreements. If you have this documentation, it becomes the starting point for the conversation you are trying to have now. If you don’t have it, you have no clear starting point.

Third, given your history (a problematic previous year or two, recently returned, increasing return of responsibilities over the year) and given your bosses response, I have a strong intuition that he is not leveling with you. He may well be putting you off because he has been less than candid about his view of your performance. If that is so, then once again, the purpose of your crucial conversation needs to be to solicit his views and concerns. You must make it safe for him to be totally honest with you about your performance. If you don’t, he may continue to feel a need to be political with you.

Finally, just fill out the darned form. If all he’s asking for is a simple sheet with your self assessment and goals–why quibble about it? You may be telling yourself a story that makes this out to be bigger than it is. The next step in my view is for you to change your story–let this be a small bureaucratic request in your mind not a big retreat from your expectations. Comply with it. And see if that doesn’t solve the problem!

I wish you the best and hope for an outcome that is positive for both of you.

Happy Holidays,

Joseph

Dear Crucial Skills,

What do you do when someone violates an agreed upon decision-making process?

Four other supervisors and I recently made a process improvement decision. Two weeks later one of my peer supervisors called a meeting that I assumed was a chance to review progress on implementing these decisions. I sent one of my staff who was perfectly capable of reporting our progress. She returned and said this supervisor drove a whole new set of process decisions in the meeting. I called this supervisor to ask why she had done this and she said simply, “I forgot we had an agreement.” My concern is that she not only forgot, but she also drove a bunch of decisions that should have required the consent of the other supervisors. I apologized to my employee for “setting her up” like that.

How should I approach this supervisor? Should I involve my boss?

Signed,

Violated Expectations

Dear Violated Expectations,

Please allow me to shotgun a bit here. Your situation allows an opportunity to teach a few very important points about crucial conversations. I hope you’ll find some of the points I make relevant to your problem.

First and foremost, I worry that you might be telling yourself a story that is exacerbating the problem. In “Crucial Conversations,” we teach how the emotions we feel are created by us, not by what happens to us. A strict reading of your note suggests that this is the first time something like this has happened. If that is true, then you are at risk if you draw generalized conclusions about the untrustworthiness or insensitivity of your peer. If she said, “I forgot” and apologized, you may be the problem if you are harboring a grudge about it and drawing a deeper conclusion than that this was an innocent mistake. If this is not the first time this has happened, or you have accumulated other “data points” to suggest this supervisor is untrustworthy, then we can move on to the next potential pitfall.

The second thing you might need to remedy is the error of confronting the wrong problem. In “Crucial Confrontations” we teach that the first thing you have to do is be sure you confront the right problem. If things like this have happened before, then the conversation you should be having focuses on the pattern of violating agreements–not the most recent instance. If you confront only the most recent instance and the person explains it away, then you’ll walk away feeling obligated to accept the explanation without feeling satisfied with it. The reason? You confronted the “content” issue rather than the real “pattern” or “relationship” concern you harbor. Again, a strict reading of your note suggests that after your peer said, “I forgot” you let the issue drop. You allowed the conversation to turn from, “I thought our agreement was not to change process without all four supervisors present” to “Why did you change the process we had agreed to previously?” Can you see the difference? The first is a decision-making process conversation. The second is a content issue related to a decision you thought you made. There’s a difference. And when you accepted “I forgot,” you allowed the topic to change to the wrong problem.

Finally, I hear a lot of “expectations” in your question but not a lot of explicit agreements. For example, it sounds like you “expect” that all four supervisors will agree on process changes. You “expected” that the meeting you sent your rep to was about implementation status. If you did not make these expectations explicit and even document them, then you may have been part of the problem. It is absolutely essential in emotionally and politically risky situations to be crystal clear on how decisions will be made, who will do what by when, and how you’ll follow up. If you are not carefully specifying and appropriately documenting these key decisions, you leave room for your expectations to be violated and for you to tell yourself stories that villainize those who contribute along with you to violating them.

My advice at this point is (assuming this is a single instance concern):

1. Master Your Story – ensure you are seeing your role in creating this problem–that you are seeing it as a single instance problem and not a deep character flaw in your peer–and soften your emotions accordingly.

2. Have a crucial conversation about the decision-making process first with the specific peer, then with all four supervisors. And document the agreement in a brief e-mail!

Best wishes,

Joseph

  Dear Crucial Skills,

I’ve entered that magical world of senior management, but now I feel I know less than I did when I was a middle manager. I have to dig harder for the truth, and work harder to prove it is still “safe” to talk with me. Two months ago a lot was shared with me–now that isn’t the case, and even my staff members, who were once my peers, share less.

How do I demonstrate “it’s still me”?

Signed,

Outside Looking In

Dear OLI,

You’ve described a situation that lots of people have experienced–that is, when you have power, how can you help others honestly share what’s on their minds? This situation can arise when you move to senior management, when you are the person on your team with the most experience or the most technical knowledge, when you are the new manager, or when you are the parent. All of these require some insight and skill to help others feel “safe” talking with you.

Here are a few tips we’ve learned as we’ve studied people who are very effective at helping others feel safe.

1. Remember the past. The situation you’re facing might have been created by the other person’s past experiences–with you or with someone else. I recall just such an experience. We were doing interviews in an organization that was, to be delicate, struggling. People were tight-lipped, nervous, and cautious. Occasionally someone would share the example of a manager who yelled at employees–Murphy. Another would tell a story of how employees were belittled by a boss–Murphy. Still another got emotional about how some supervisor had limited an employee’s career–Murphy. Later that afternoon, we asked one of the new executives if we could interview Murphy. We couldn’t. Murphy had retired seven years earlier. But his ghost, his memory, still stalked the halls of this organization. Many of the new managers, newly promoted managers, and even old managers who had never mistreated an employee were treated like they were Murphy–or at least next of kin. Managers and supervisors had to deal with this history when they asked others for input.

Sometimes we are living with a past that we personally created. I remember a man sharing with a group as he was going through Crucial Conversations training, “I’ve got it. Finally. My kids are nervous around me. Why? For 99.9 percent of the time, I’m Dr. Jekyll, and only .01 percent do I lose my temper and become Mr. Hyde. But my children are always looking for Mr. Hyde.”

When you have to deal with situations clouded by the past, remember to give the other person the benefit of the doubt. Ask, “Why would a reasonable, rational, decent person act nervous or unsafe?” Are there situational or historical factors that are influencing him or her?

2. Share your intentions. We learned from dialogue masters to clarify issues by Contrasting. A Contrasting statement clarifies what you don’t intend and what you do intend. This helps the other person understand your good intentions and dispels worries about selfish or harmful motives. Often the “don’t” part is the most important. For example, when you’re beginning a talk with a person who is hesitant to share, say something like, “I’d like to talk about this topic candidly. I wonder if there has been some hesitancy on your part because I’m now in senior management. I don’t want to let my new position get in the way of important communication that needs to be shared. My intention is to be a good listener so that I can hear the issues that affect you and the job. What do you think?” It may take a time or two–or three. The main issue here is to deal with mutual purpose–what do both of you want?–rather that dealing first with the content of any particular issue.

3. Be consistent. If you want to get input from people who are hesitant or feel unsafe, you have to be consistent. After you share your intentions and try to understand others’ points of view, keep up the process of engaging them in dialogue. Ask, listen, and respond. Sometimes the response will be “Great idea, let’s do that.” Sometimes it will be, “Interesting, let’s discuss what that means to our budget or to customers.” Once in a while, it will be, “Let me repeat what I heard. Is that right? I see that differently. Can we compare our points of view?” The main point is this: To have people believe that you are really interested in hearing their thoughts, you have to consistently make it safe for them to share over time. Then come trust and credibility.

Safety is not easy sometimes. But dealing with it is essential.

May you have terrific results from your efforts!

Al

Dear Crucial Skills,

I am a corporate lawyer. I have been trying to tell our VP of Legal Affairs that I believe the company is at serious risk for litigation on an issue. Each time I do she cuts me off without listening and argues that we’re fine. I see major holes in her counterarguments and don’t believe they would stand up in court. This particular issue is a specific area of expertise of mine. The VP–while very smart–has no real background in this particular area. Mainly I just want her to listen to and consider my points. If after listening she still thinks she is right, I am fine with her making the final judgment.

This is especially risky because she has a short fuse and both yells at and fires people who disagree with her. How do I get her to listen on this important issue that I’ve already unsuccessfully approached her on several times?

Signed,

Gag Order

Dear Gag Order,

It’s interesting to me how often our answers are embedded in our questions–particularly when it comes to crucial conversations. Other people (like me) look smarter than they deserve when they do little more than play back what you just told them. I believe that may be the case with your question. You ask the question, “How do I get her to listen to us on this important issue that I’ve already unsuccessfully approached her on several times?” My first piece of advice is to have a conversation with her about precisely that. Don’t talk to her about this issue. Talk to her about your inability to talk to her about the issue.

If you ever find yourself having the same conversation twice, odds are you’re having the wrong conversation. If your real concern is how the conversation is going, then that’s what you should be talking about. Now, with that said, it’s important to ensure that she feels safe when you do talk. Otherwise she’ll likely attribute bad motive to you (you’re doing this because you’re arrogant, or gunning for her job, or whatever) and then she’ll feel totally justified in yelling at you or firing you. Not a good outcome. In the critical first 30 seconds–what we call the “Hazardous Half Minute”–of this crucial conversation, you must do three things:

1. Make it safe. Help her know that you respect her and that you care about her best interests.

2. Describe the gap. Describe factually what has happened compared to what you expect to have happen. Be sure to avoid hot, judgmental, emotional words that would damage safety.

3. Make it motivating. Help her understand the natural consequences of her not engaging with you on this topic–obviously emphasizing consequences she’ll care about.

Here is a possible script just for illustration. Your choice of actual words will best be informed by your best guess at what makes her feel unsafe when others challenge her and what consequences motivate her the most.

“Ms. Finch (for fun let’s pretend she’s Atticus’ daughter), I have a concern I’d like to discuss if that’s okay. I want you to know my whole reason for raising it is to be sure I’m doing the job I was hired for, and to be loyal to you in every best sense of the word. Can I take a minute to share my concern? (Make it safe–clarify your intentions and respect). Here’s the concern: On three occasions I’ve attempted to describe some legal risks I see on issue X. On each occasion you’ve disagreed so quickly that I have not been able to do justice to my argument (Describe the gap). Here’s my concern–I don’t think you want me to check my brain at the door. And yet that’s what I’ve felt tempted to do. I’m also absolutely sure that you care a great deal about this company–and hope you see me having the same value. I know you wouldn’t lay low if you saw a big risk–and I suspect you’d see me as delinquent if I did the same (Make it motivating–give her a reason to listen to you and describe motivating natural consequences of not listening). May I have five minutes to make my argument? After that, I’d like to have you shoot holes in it–and give me permission to do the same with your points if that’s okay?”

Now–I don’t know that this is the right script. But so long as your VP has some good motives somewhere inside her, I think I’ve accurately described your objective. In the first 30 seconds, you must Make It Safe, Describe the Gap, and Make It Motivating for her to listen to you. Once you get started–particularly if she’s an impatient person and begins to cut you off again–you’ll need to hold her to the agreement she just made. Very politely remind her of her commitment to your five minute speech–and continue on. Then be sure to be true to your commitment to listen to her counterarguments and support her final decision.

I especially loved your question because your attitude is 100 percent right. Organizations are not democracies. We don’t all get to vote about the final decisions. But we do have an obligation to speak up when we have important meaning to contribute. You clearly do–and I wish you the best in discharging your responsibilities!

Warm regards,

Joseph

  Dear Crucial Skills,

I read with interest the Q&A posted 9/8 (“Being Micromanaged”) and handled by Joseph Grenny.

I’d like to reverse the scenario and ask what should the manager who believes that his/her direct report is “wanting to have country club freedom and no accountability” do? As a manager, I resist micromanaging at all costs; it’s not the way I want to be managed and it’s not the way I want to manage. However, I may well be a manager who can be taken advantage of, and that doesn’t feel particularly good. I’m in higher education where there is high value placed on collegiality. This translates most often into a great deal of autonomy at the expense of accountability. With one employee I recently approached this crucial conversation perhaps too delicately. How can managers find the proper balance with employees?

Thank you,

Dr. Delicate

Dear Dr. Delicate:

As I respond to your question, I want to extend it to other situations. I don’t think people want to micromanage or be micromanaged anywhere. Micromanagement is not desirable even in tense environments such as airport towers, nuclear power plants, or emergency rooms. It’s certainly not what people want at home with partners or with children. “Take out the garbage. Did you put in a new liner? Did you put the lid on the garbage can? Did you close the garage door?” All of this sounds like nagging. It certainly minimizes autonomy and initiative. And, as you noted, it minimized collegiality and other positive forms of relationships.

On the other hand, particularly in high-risk situations or where there is a track record of performance problems, managers or leaders don’t want to say, “I don’t want to micromanage, so I’ll just trust you to perform and get back to me when you find it convenient.”

So what can be done to hold people accountable without micromanaging? Here are a few suggestions.

1. Excellent performance begins with clear expectations. As you set expectations with individuals or groups, make sure you not only include what the desired results are, but also get agreement about how you will talk about issues or problems that come up. Talk about the process of accountability and about how you define management vs. micromanagement–from both sides.

It could sound something like this: “We’ve agreed that the proposal will be submitted for review to me by next Tuesday at noon. Can we talk for a few minutes about what each of us should do if we run into problems or barriers?” In this discussion, you can talk about what the other person will do to keep you informed in advance if there is the possibility of a delay, or if he or she needs additional input, or whatever. Also, you can get agreement about how you’ll check in with the person. The outcome of this conversation is that both of you should feel comfortable with and clear about the outcomes and the process you’ll use to ensure accountability. Ask specific questions such as: “Do you feel okay about the process?” and “Are you comfortable with our plan concerning accountability?” These questions give you opportunities to make sure that your intention is to get results and not to micromanage. To emphasize this point, you need agreements about how you hold others accountable. What is your comfort level about frequency and specificity? What is the other person’s comfort level? The balance comes from the dialogue you have up front.

2. Look at your story. Too often people tell themselves that if they confront someone, the person will see it as micromanaging. This can be a “Sucker’s Choice”: a choice where we see only two options–both of them bad. (e.g., “If I confront people, they’ll see it as being ‘on their case’; or I can not confront them and let the results suffer.”) In reality, there is often a third, better alternative: You can confront the issue of accountability AND not micromanage. So you mentally push yourself to find the AND. “How can I confront this issue so the results are achieved AND avoid having the other person think I’m micromanaging? In fact, how can I deal with performance issues AND strengthen our relationship?” Such questions, of course, help you to focus on what you really want for you, for the other person, and for the relationship. You don’t have to choose between performance and relationship…you can get both.

3. Describe the gap. If you need to discuss a performance issue, you can create the safety needed for a helpful discussion by describing the gap. Describe what you agreed on and then what you observed and how it differed from what you expected. The gap between these two is what you are going to talk about. If you can begin well, the rest is often easy. Make sure you start with facts, not emotions or conclusions. You begin with an observation, not an accusation. When you can do this well, you send a message that says, “I’ve noticed this and I’m interested in learning what happened–I have not pre-judged you or the issue.” Also, when you have an agreement upfront about how accountability discussions will be held, there are no surprises. With no surprises and lots of safety, holding talks about performance is not seen as micromanaging.

I hope these three points help. I also hope that you and others can see how they can be applied at a college, in manufacturing, other businesses, and at home.

Best wishes,

Al

  Dear Crucial Skills,

The director of the agency I work for has decided (after three years) to call us in every month or so to discuss what’s going on in our departments and the agency in general. I’ve had two of these conversations with her. What it turns out to be is, “You’re doing a great job” (no details), then focusing on a “problem.” She tells me what she sees as a problem, tells me what agency policy is, and vaguely tells me how to handle it. She never asks my side of the problem, never asks how I currently handle the issue (exactly the way she says it should be handled!), and leaves me feeling unsupported and on the outside. I’ve been coming up with some ideas for these conversations such as asking her to define certain words she uses to describe me and find out if she means them positively or negatively–it’s often difficult to tell since she has a perpetual negative look on her face and in her tone.

Signed,

Anxious and Confused

Dear Anxious,

I’m glad you asked this particular question because it brings up an issue that we’ve explored in some depth. The challenge in this case is: Which problem or problems do you deal with, and how do you start the conversation?

1. Which problem?

This is a classic case of one set of circumstances serving up a variety of problems–all related, and yet distinct and different. Let’s look at the array you mention in your description.

-It’s been three years without feedback.
- Your boss’s choice of words is vague, often leaving you wondering exactly what she’s talking about–with both your problems and successes.
- You’re not sure how she defines certain terms.
- Her tone and look are perpetually negative.
- She fails to involve you in problem solving, providing only her view.
- At the end of the conversation you don’t feel supported.
- She doesn’t recognize that you’re currently solving problems in the way she suggests.

In addition to the issues you allude to in your question, you may also have doubts about her motive (I know I would). Is she trying to help you? Or is she following a recent mandate, using the time to exert her influence, doing her best to show off in your presence, etc.?

As you try to choose from this rather long and varied list, ask yourself: What bothers you the most? What do you complain about when you go home at night? In short, what do you really want? This last question helps you select from the various options (you can’t discuss all of the issues in one sitting).

My guess is that while it may help clarify matters if your boss defines her terms, this is a far less important issue than several others you mentioned and wouldn’t be the best place to start. The fact that she fails to ask for your input and doesn’t recognize your current skills sounds far more important and both problems may be contributing to your feeling unsupported. Clarifying her words might help a little and would certainly be easier to discuss, but isn’t likely to get you what you want.

So, think about the various issues, talk about the component parts with a friend, ask yourself what you really want, and then reduce the problem to a single sentence–forcing yourself to get at the core issue.

2. How do you start the conversation?

Choosing what to talk about is only the beginning. Now you have to talk. Before you open your mouth, keep a good thought. Don’t enter the conversation feeling angry, smug, or superior. Most of us aren’t good enough actors to hide our underlying emotions. If you hold court in your head and find your boss guilty, the verdict will come out in your tone of voice and choice of words. Your nasty conclusions will make your boss defensive and put you at risk. Make it safe for both yourself and your boss by assuming that she’s simply unaware of the problem and doing her best. Then start by asking for permission–after all, this is your boss. For example: “I’m wondering if we can take a few minutes to talk about the new feedback process.”

When you’ve got permission, start by describing the problem. Don’t start with your conclusions or feelings. Both are controversial and typically cause others to become defensive. Start with the facts. For example: “In our last discussion you pointed out a problem and then made a suggestion on how to solve it. The last two times you’ve offered suggestions, I was already doing exactly what you proposed. It left me wondering if you have an accurate view of what I do and how I do it.” Then pause and wait for your boss’s response.

Now, a lot more will follow as the conversation unfolds, but this forum doesn’t allow for a complete handling of the confrontation. For now, let’s assume that you want to start off on the right foot and to do so you have to do two things well: select the right problem and then describe it in a way that makes it safe for the other person. Do these two things well and you’ll be heading down the right path in a way that will likely lead to a healthy confrontation.

Good luck and may all your conversations be effective ones.

Kerry

Dear Crucial Skills,

My boss is out of control. He fabricates facts to support his personal agenda. He applies or ignores corporate policies at his whim. He makes blatant displays of favoritism–punishing some employees severely while overlooking others who do the exact same thing. He accuses employees falsely, and then creates evidence if needed to support his claims.

He has taken the Crucial Conversations class and uses it as a means of attack. He starts with “This is a crucial conversation,” and then follows with a litany of insults and accusations, omitting any attempt to make things feel safe.

Our institution has no sanctioned course of action where a supervisor can present a complaint. Several have gone to his superior and gotten nowhere. How can we use Crucial Conversations skills to better remedy a situation where honesty and truth are considered a secondary priority?

Signed,

Nearly Hopeless

Dear Nearly Hopeless,

Sounds like the crucial conversation you need to have is with yourself. The best service you could offer to yourself is to find a different job. And the best service you could offer to your organization is to hold a very candid exit interview once you’ve lined up the next job. Unfortunately, weakness at crucial conversations is not confined to direct reports. Bosses are just as inclined to avoid them at all costs.

Now, I’m making two important assumptions–but provided my assumptions are correct, the primary problem here is that your boss’s superior is AWOL from his or her job. When an employee takes the enormous risk of giving skip-level feedback (i.e., going over her boss’s head to share concerns about her boss), the manager has a special obligation to protect the employee and to respond vigorously to the concerns. Clearly that has failed here. Now, in fairness, I need to share the big assumptions I’m making. I’m assuming that:

1. You and others have made a skillful attempt to give your boss feedback about his chronic untrustworthiness.

2. You and others have been skillful in how you communicated your concerns to your boss’s boss.

If you’ve done reasonably well at both of these, then you have–in my opinion–discharged your conscience marvelously and are left only with the obligation to move yourself to a healthy work situation. I know that can be a tough decision to implement, but it should be a fairly easy one to make. As long as you stay where you are you are enabling your boss’s bad behavior by robbing him of the natural consequences of it. The natural consequence of bad leadership is the loss of good talent. But even more important, you are falling short of your obligation to place yourself in environments where you can flourish and serve best.

I wish you the best in both creating better circumstances and positively influencing your current boss through the change.

Best regards,

Joseph

  Dear Crucial Skills,

I have a problem. Our business results are below expectations and upper management believes it’s because our supervisors are not holding their employees accountable for results. I have witnessed times when an employee does something not according to company policy and the employee’s immediate supervisor does nothing. We have had training courses galore in supervisory skill development, so I know the supervisors have been exposed to how to set expectations, how to observe and measure results, how to provide performance feedback, etc. It just seems that they do not want to confront the employees about performance problems because they don’t want to give the bad news.

The business unit vice president wants to start firing the supervisors. I don’t think that is the solution. I think we need to get our supervisors comfortable with confronting their employees about the performance issues.

Any ideas on how I can convince the Vice President?

Signed,

Conflicted in Connecticut

Dear Conflicted,

You asked the right question. Why is it that people who’ve been trained in a specific skill don’t use it? This just happens to be the subject of twenty-five years of our research, so bear with me as I try to answer this often-asked question.

When people don’t enact a certain behavior, it’s for one of three reasons. They don’t want to do it, they don’t know how to do it, or both. When your bosses suggest that maybe they should start firing supervisors, it sounds as if they’ve made the following diagnosis: “The supervisors simply don’t WANT to do what they should do–everyone knows it isn’t fun holding employees accountable–so maybe firing a few will add an extra incentive to those who are left behind.”

This is hardly the correct solution. It’s more an act of frustration and desperation and will likely cause a whole host of new problems. It also doesn’t model what the bosses want the supervisors to do when dealing with employees who aren’t living up to their expectations. Fire them straight out of the chute? Surely there are other methods.

Here’s what we’ve generally found to be true with reluctant supervisors. Your diagnosis is right. It’s almost always an issue of perceived ability. Supervisors don’t have confidence that what they have learned will actually work when dealing with their employees. This can stem from one of several different sources. They may have only been given general directions, but don’t know exactly what to do and say. Most accountability training is long in theory and short in genuine skills. If supervisors have been given actual skills or best practices, they may not feel as if they know how to do them as of yet. Perhaps they weren’t given enough time to practice until the language was comfortable and the method was second nature.

Beyond effectiveness, you have to deal with relevancy of the training they’ve received. Did the supervisors see what they learned as something that would actually work with their people? Much of what is taught today fails this test. Those in the training look at the examples taught and think, “My people would NEVER react like that.” If the skills are out of date or out to lunch, who can blame the learners for discounting the material and not giving it a whirl at work? It’s possible that the training the supervisors had was well intended but wasn’t skill based enough, relevant enough, or long enough to create comfort.

Another common hindrance is related to social issues. If you’re asking supervisors to now hold people accountable to standards that you used to let go, who’s going to be the first to step up? Who wants to run the risk of being seen as the “tough nut” while everyone else is letting the issue slide? Who wants to look like a naive do-gooder? So people wait for others to say something before they speak up.

If this is the case, it’s important to meet as work groups, talk about the new expectations, explain the need for the new standard, and then hold people to it as a group. If you haven’t held these sessions, supervisors are going to stay mum. Nobody wants to look erratic.

What if the standard you’re asking people to keep is something you’ve asked for before, maybe even for years, but never really held people accountable to keep? You have, in effect, cried wolf, and now you expect people to believe you when the real wolf is at the door. You’ll have to make this sad truth part of your explanation to teams as you talk about the new/old standard. People are smart. They know you’ve been lax and that they’ve gotten away with poor performance. It’s part of today’s real standard, and you have to address this problem as well.

Additionally, a number of motivational factors could be influencing the supervisors’ behavior–ranging from the formal reward system to the informal actions of the big boss.

So, what’s a person to do in the face of these possibilities? You’ve got to get to all of the underlying causes. Expand your search for causes beyond simply “the supervisors don’t want to do what they’ve been told to do.” Think about what may be making it difficult for them to hold others accountable–what barriers could be removed? What motivation and ability components are coming into play here? There are bound to be several.

In any case, stick to your convictions. Conduct a quick diagnosis and then share with the bosses the various elements that are leading to the supervisors’ reluctance. Armed with a more complete picture as well as a more complex solution, they won’t feel compelled to fire people who are caught in a web of problems that are keeping them form doing what you want.

Good luck!

Kerry

Dear Crucial Skills,

My boss has started micromanaging me. She constantly asks me for updates. One morning by 10 o’clock I had already received ten e-mail messages from her and it took me an hour and a half just to reply to her requests for updates! To add to things, she’s related to the vice president so I feel like if I try to bring this up and it goes awry my working days could be numbered. This management style has started to affect my sleeping and eating habits and even my self-esteem.

Any suggestions on how I can gently bring this up to her?

Signed,

Frazzled

Dear Frazzled,

After reading your e-mail, I asked around my office to see if someone had written this about me! Now that I know we’re talking about someone else I’ll be happy to offer advice (wry chuckle).

Micromanaging is almost always a crucial conversation someone is acting out rather than talking out. A leader is feeling nervous or vulnerable and acts it out through incessant hovering and controlling. The result is that the direct report often feels hurt and resentful and acts it out through withdrawal or other displaced hostility. The solution is to talk it out. Unless and until you can have a conversation about trust and autonomy, this game will get worse and worse.

So, here are three pieces of advice I hope will help you and others step up to this kind of crucial conversation. And as an added bonus, I’m taking the third tip from our new book, “Crucial Confrontations: Tools for Talking about Broken Promises, Violated Expectations, and Bad Behavior.”

Tip #1: First, hold the right conversation. Don’t let this get sidetracked into a discussion of how a project is going or other diversions from the real issue. The topics you need to explore thoroughly with your boss are:
- How much confidence do you have in me in my key areas of responsibility?
- What level of communication is both efficient and sufficient between us given your level of trust in me?

If in exploring her confidence in you you discover there are serious concerns, you can then turn the topic to ways you can create evidence for her that more trust is warranted. If you find she has great confidence but just requires much more communication, move on to the next two tips.

Tip #2: Second, make it safe for your boss (and you). When you open the conversation, head off any misunderstanding she may have of your motives by declaring them candidly. If you fail to do this, she’ll hear you as being critical of her, or worse, wanting to have country club freedom and no accountability. Help her know you just want to be as productive as possible, to feel proud of your work, and to gain her confidence by performing up to expectation. For example, you could use the Contrasting skill we teach as follows:

“Could we talk for a few minutes about how we work together? I’ve noticed a couple of things that are keeping me from being as productive as I can. It’s a bit sensitive, and I worry about sounding like I’m not supportive of you, or that I know better than you how things should be done. I don’t feel that way at all. And yet I think it’s worth talking about because it could help me do a better job for you and create a climate where I can feel good about my work. Would that be okay?”

Tip #3: Finally, Make It Motivating. You can help your boss want to deal with this by sharing concrete examples of how her behavior has created problems she would care about. When you hold a “Crucial Confrontation” (confronting gaps between what you expect and what you observe–for example in your boss’s management style) with someone you think won’t care about your concerns, you need to work hard to see how the issue you’re raising is creating problems for him or her. One of the reasons we’re so ineffective during crucial confrontations is that we’re so absorbed in thinking about how the problem affects ‘us’ that we give no thought to how it’s affecting the other person. Those who are most skilled at crucial confrontations are able to influence others to address their concerns by helping them see consequences they already experience that they can change by changing their behavior. For example:

“I know one thing that’s important to you is that I meet your deadlines. That’s important to me, too. The level of reporting you sometimes ask of me makes that somewhat harder. For example, one morning I had ten requests for updates from you by 10 a.m. I know that’s an extreme example, but it illustrates the point that the hour and a half I spent answering those was time taken from getting the job done.”

Or

“You ask me at times how I like my work. And you know, I really do. But there are times I spend a whole evening in a funk because I think you don’t have confidence in me and I’m not sure how to earn it.”

If you help your boss see how her behavior is creating consequences she doesn’t want, she’ll not only feel safe with you, but she’ll also be more motivated to make changes.

Good luck–and please give me frequent updates on this crucial conversation. (Just kidding!)

Joseph