Crucial Conversations

The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place. —GEORGE BERNARD SHAW

What makes each of these conversations crucial—and not simply frustrating, frightening, or annoying—is that the outcome could have a huge impact on either relationships or results that affect you greatly.

Crucial Conversation (krōō shel kän´vŭr sa´ shen) n A discussion between two or more people in which they hold (1) opposing opinions about a (2) high-stakes issue and where (3) emotions run strong.

You can measure the health of relationships, teams, and organizations by measuring the lag time between when problems are identified and when they are resolved.

If you fail to discuss issues you have with your boss, your life partner, your neighbor, or your peer, will those issues magically disappear? No. Instead, they will become the lens you see the other person through. And how you see always shows up in how you act. Your resentment will show up in how you treat the other person.

When conversations turn from routine to crucial, our instincts conspire against us. Strong emotions don’t exactly prepare us to converse effectively. Countless generations of genetic shaping drive humans to react to interpersonal threats the same way we deal with physical ones. Our natural tendencies in moments that seem threatening lean toward fight or flight rather than listen and speak.

We discovered that the only way to really strengthen relationships is through the truth, not around it.

In most organizations we studied, employees fell silent when these crucial moments hit. Fortunately, in those organizations where people were able to candidly and effectively speak up about these concerns, the projects were less than half as likely to fail.

Most leaders get it wrong. They think that organizational productivity and performance are simply about policies, processes, structures, or systems. So when their software product doesn’t ship on time, they benchmark others’ development processes. Or when productivity flags, they tweak their performance management system. When teams aren’t cooperating, they restructure. Our research shows that these types of nonhuman changes fail more often than they succeed. That’s because the real problem lies not in implementing a new process, but in getting people to hold one another accountable to the process. And that requires Crucial Conversations skills.

Mountains of research suggest that the negative feelings we hold in and the emotional pain we suffer as we stumble our way through unhealthy conversations slowly eat away at our health. In some cases, the impact of failed conversations leads to minor problems. In others, it results in disaster. In all cases, failed conversations never make us happier, healthier, or better off.

When it comes to Crucial Conversations, skilled people find a way to get all relevant information (from themselves and others) out into the open.

Conversely, when people aren’t involved, when they sit back during touchy conversations, they’re rarely committed to the final decision. Since their ideas remain in their heads and their opinions never make it into the pool, they end up quietly criticizing and passively resisting.

When facing a Crucial Conversation, most of us unconsciously make a “Fool’s Choice”—we think we have to choose between “telling the truth” and “keeping a friend.” Skilled communicators resist this false tradeoff and look for ways to do both. They look for a way to be both 100 percent honest and 100 percent respectful at the same time.

One of the biggest mistakes we make is assuming that just because we’re talking, we must be solving the right problem. It’s not that simple. If you’re not addressing the right issue, you’ll end up in the same conversation over and over again.