DIALOGUE SKILLS ARE LEARNABLE

And now for the really good news. The skills required to master high-stakes interactions are quite easy to spot and moderately easy to learn. First consider the fact that a well-handled crucial conversation all but leaps out at you. In fact, when you see someone enter the dangerous waters of a high-stakes, high-emotion, controversial discussion—and the person does a particularly good job—your natural reaction is to step back in awe. “Wow!” is generally the first word out of your mouth. What starts as a doomed discussion ends up with a healthy resolution. It can take your breath away.

More important, not only are dialogue skills easy to spot, but they’re also fairly easy to learn. That’s where we’re going next. We’ve isolated and captured the skills of the dialogue-gifted through twenty-five years of nonstop “Wow!” research. First, we followed around Kevin and others like him. Then, when conversations turned crucial, we took detailed notes. Afterward, we compared our observations, tested our hypotheses, and honed our models until we found the skills that consistently explain the success of brilliant communicators. Finally, we combined our philosophies, theories, models, and skills into a package of learnable tools—tools for talking when stakes are high. We then taught these skills and watched as key performance indicators and relationships improved.

Now we’re ready to share what we’ve learned. Stay with us as we explore how to transform crucial conversations from frightening events into interactions that yield success and results. It’s the most important set of skills you’ll ever master.


My Crucial Conversation: Bobby R.

My crucial conversation began on the night before my first deployment to Iraq in 2004. There was a lot of tension between members of my family caused by past events and conflicting perspectives. The stress of my leaving to combat only increased the tension. On that night, one well-intended but deeply loaded question from my father sent me through the roof. The way I reacted over the next couple of hours started a downward spiral that affected my entire family. Siblings, cousins, aunts, uncles, parents, children, and grandparents all took sides.

My family ties continued to unravel as I led a platoon of soldiers through the streets of Baghdad. My wife was home with our one-year-old and pregnant with our second. During my tour, additional family encounters only worsened the situation, and when I came home after fourteen months in combat, I came home to a family that was completely broken at every existing generation. The silence between me and my father continued for five years.

Crucial Conversations saved my relationship with my parents. A neighbor who is a Crucial Conversations trainer invited me to his class before my third tour in Iraq. A couple of weeks before I deployed I reached out to my father to let him know about the two children he had never seen and that I was leaving for combat. I told him I couldn’t make the same mistake I had made five years earlier, and we agreed to meet.

On a beautiful sunset balcony in Houston, my dad and I spent three tense hours dealing with a lot of pain and built-up resentment. I kept in mind what I had been taught and, rather than compromising candor, tried my best to create the conditions where we could be both honest and respectful. It was incredibly difficult. Sometimes the honesty threatened to put us right back in the angry state that got us there. But I kept focusing on what I really wanted—a relationship with my family.

At the end of the conversation, we met my mom for dinner. She had been the most hurt by my anger in the past and was skeptical that I was still the argumentative, sarcastic, spiteful, and arrogant child of my youth. She gave me a chance based on my father’s assessment of my respect, remorse, and clear demonstration of Mutual Purpose. While we haven’t dealt with everything, I am now in a loving relationship with my wife, four children, and parents. We have agreed to never bury our concerns in silence again.

I attribute the relationship I have today to the success of that one crucial conversation on the balcony. Had I not practiced what I had learned, my relationship with my father would have died from anger and indifference. That conversation happened because of a friend who introduced me to Crucial Conversations.

—Bobby R.


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