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Chapter Six

ACTION 2
Mastering the Art of
Great Conversation

People who Glow know the art of great conversation and use conversation as the bedrock of their cooperation with others. They are able to bring emotional authenticity and analytical rigor to their conversations.

When you Glow, one thing that is striking is the way you talk with other people. Sure, some of your conversations will be of little consequence, but many will be considerably livelier: thought-provoking, fascinating, and purposeful. People who Glow and the Hot Spots they inhabit bubble with great conversation—and great conversation is what ties you together as you cooperate with others. So if you want to Glow by finding, flourishing, or creating Hot Spots, you’d better take a look at how you converse with others.

A Great Conversation

Here are some snippets from a high-quality conversation. We join the team of a company that markets coffee and tea; it’s the very beginning of a Hot Spot that will develop as time goes on, and Adam and his colleague Barbara are beginning to cooperate with each other and share the knowledge that will enable them both to Glow. We drop in as they are talking about going to work on their coffee products.

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Adam and Barbara continue to talk about this as they stroll down the corridor. Their conversation is rigorous in the sense that they brought in analytical information from the market research and focus groups. However, great conversation is not just about the ideas and knowledge, or what we might call “analytical rationality.” In great conversation, you are also able to bring something of yourself—you are able to disclose your beliefs and views in a way that is authentic to who you are. This links back to the cooperation habit of being open about yourself to others. As you listen to Barbara and Adam’s conversation, you can hear how it moves into the realm of emotional authenticity. We rejoin them later that day:

Here you can feel the conversation moving toward the emotional as they both disclose something about how they feel. Barbara is practicing the cooperative habit of being open, and she is also sharing a valuable connection with Adam since she has decided to introduce Adam to Ramona, who is an important contact for her. Notice that Barbara is also practicing the cooperative habit of using the language of cooperation, using the word we and engaging Adam in her conversation. Adam is also being open when he reveals his cynicism about some of the aspects of Fair Trade. This is a high-quality conversation in that they are both sharing important analytical information and at the same time being open about their own values and experiences—so it has an element of both analytical rationality and emotional authenticity. I have discovered that people Glow when they are engaged in great conversations, and this creative sort of dialogue can be crucial to creating and flourishing in Hot Spots.

You will see this in Figure 6.1. The combination of analytical rationality and emotional authenticity creates four distinct types of conversations you might have. This framework can help you diagnose your own conversations, both to help you understand the causes of poor conversations and to suggest ways to achieve more creative dialogues.

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Four Ways to Have a Conversation

Figure 6.1 shows that there are four ways to have a conversation. Ask yourself this question: In what way do I most typically converse, and what would it take to make my conversations more rigorous and authentic?

Dehydrated Talk

How many of your conversations are “dehydrated” and ritualized? In these conversations, you bring neither the sharpness of analytical rigor nor the warmth of emotional authenticity. These conversations contain no doubt, no curiosity, and no puzzling. Perhaps they feel to you like simply a string of trivial and unrelated fragments, which are ritualistic rather than authentic. Dehydrated talk is not the foundation for cooperation, and it certainly won’t help you Glow. So why do you engage in it?

FIGURE 6.1 A Conversation Matrix.

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Here is an example of what I would categorize as dehydrated talk between Barbara and her team leader, Karen, later that day.

This is dehydrated talk in the sense that it contains no real facts and neither Karen nor Barbara is being particularly authentic or revealing about herself. Think about the times when dehydrated talk happens to you. My guess is that it happens most often when you are in a formalized situation, simply going through the motions. Barbara is merely going through the ritual of a performance-management conversation with her team leader. Of course, sometimes performance-management conversations can be full of feedback and insight—but more often they are simply formalized exchanges in which the outcomes were predictable.

Some dehydrated conversations are like this, well-rehearsed “set pieces” with predetermined scripts and outcomes. Other conversations become dehydrated when the agendas are tightly defined and the opportunities for exploration or discovery are constrained. Or perhaps the timing is so tight that there is no opportunity for pause or reflection. Dehydrated talk does little to help you to cooperate with others or encourage you to Glow, since it does not add any value to anyone.

Disciplined Debate

There are good conversations, like Barbara and Adam’s initial conversation, in which analytical rigor is strong. In the conversation between Adam and Barbara, what you heard was disciplined debate. They listened to each other, appreciated each other’s point of view, and brought in new information to help them address the question that Adam posed.

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As you try to perfect the art of conversation, you may want to think about one of the greatest conversationalists of all times, the ancient philosopher Socrates. The so-called Socratic approach was central to Socrates’s conversational style. Socrates asked carefully constructed questions, on the assumption that he could learn most from others and could contribute most to others through disciplined debate. Socrates used the art of conversation to analyze issues and ideas in a systematic way. This was his gift to others and the way in which he cooperated in debates with others.

In a disciplined debate, what you are talking about is based on fact rather than lazy thinking or prejudice. Disciplined debate can be a crucial igniter of a Hot Spot because it creates a context in which people feel prepared and able to ask the “big questions” that can engage and excite others and act as a focus for latent energy to emerge.

So how can you ensure that at least some of your conversations with others are disciplined debate? Here are two ways to think about it:

Ask vigorous and disciplined questions. These types of conversations need a Socrates—a source of vigorous and disciplined questioning. If you want to add value in your cooperation with others, you may want to ask yourself whether you are being sufficiently rigorous and analytical. In Action 7, asking questions that spark energy, you will find some ideas about how to get started (see Chapter Fourteen).

Actions to take now to ask rigorous and
disciplined questions

Action 2.1 Asking rigorous and disciplined questions. Over the course of a few days, make a note of the questions at work that strike you as interesting and important. Don’t be worried if some of the questions you note down seem less than major—as Socrates found, sometimes it is in simplicity that the greatest insights can be found. When you have your list, select the two questions that seem really exciting and interesting to you at the moment, and find someone to talk with about them.

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Seek high-quality and relevant information. To have a disciplined debate, you need to have high-quality and relevant information to bring to the conversation. In the disciplined debate earlier, both Adam and Barbara are bringing in new information and insights that take the debate forward. If they simply used the same information they used in the past, they would simply be repeating the same conversation. You have to get different information if you want different conversations.

Actions to take now to find high-quality and
relevant information

Action 2.2 Finding high-quality information. Ask yourself, “Where do I normally get my information from? Is this a narrow range? And if it is, how might I widen it?”

Remember that sometimes the most interesting and relevant information is outside your immediate circle of colleagues.

Take action to spread your information search beyond the immediate group. Take a look at Action 5, jumping out of the boundaries that constrain you, to learn ways to widen your information search (see Chapter Eleven).

Intimate Exchange

In the second conversation between Barbara and Adam, emotional empathy was high because both were prepared to share something about themselves. Barbara talked about her experience in Brazil and was open about the impact it had on her joining the company. She must have had some sense of trust in Adam to be prepared to share what could be rather private information. Adam, for his part, listened to what Barbara said and responded authentically, expressing his own feelings about the topic. Such intimate exchanges can really make a difference to the quality of conversation and ultimately to your ability to Glow.

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One of the mistakes of the workplace, it seems to me, is to deny the role of emotions. Hot Spots arise and you Glow when you have an opportunity to talk about your emotions in an authentic way, to share what is exciting to you, and to connect your feelings with others. That’s why the cooperative habit of being open is so important. It is during these times of authenticity that trust flourishes and cooperation is built. Yet how many times have you heard “You’re being emotional” as a stern put-down when you express your feelings in the course of a conversation—the term emotional perhaps being used as a euphemism for irrational.

Emotional conversations flourish in your private life as you build trusting relationships with family and friends. You are able to talk about your emotions, explain your feelings to others, and try to understand where they are coming from. This creates the basis for appreciating others. If you are to create cooperation as a foundation for Glowing in your work life, you need the same level of empathy, mutual understanding, and trust at work.

Here are some actions you can take now to ensure that your conversations have the element of emotional authenticity that is so crucial to creating cooperation.

Actions to take now to be open
about your emotions

Action 2.3 Devote time to conversations. It seems to me that one of the most pressing challenges many of us face at work is the challenge of time. Do you share my feeling that too often your conversations with others occur in snippets? Think about the last time you sat down with a colleague and gave each other undivided attention? This may well be a rare occurrence. If you want to bring emotional authenticity to your conversations and to build strong cooperative relationships with others, you have to be prepared to investment time.

Be open about your emotions, and have personal conversations. Conversations build trust and cooperation when you are being open. Think back to Barbara. By being open about her values and her experience, Barbara helped Adam know more about her. By taking the lead in opening up, she also gave Adam permission to open up about himself, even if he disagreed with her.

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It can be tough to have far-ranging personal conversations, particularly if you are working in a bureaucracy where one of the essential features is depersonalization—you are expected to play defined roles, and everything that is personal about you is expected to be left at home. So the first requirement for having emotional conversations is to repersonalize the workplace; to recognize that you and your colleagues are real people, with feelings and emotions that affect your work.

Action 2.4 Having wide-ranging conversations. People need to know who you are and what you believe in if they are to establish a trusting relationship with you. So when you have your one-hour conversations, talk about what is important to you. You may want to begin by talking about your past experiences and your hobbies. As you become closer, you can deepen the emotional part of the conversation by talking of your family or your personal hopes for the future; your fears and apprehensions; the way you like to work; your philosophy of leadership. It is in such wide-ranging conversations that trust is built.

Action 2.5 Asking emotional questions. One way to get started is to do what people skilled in this do: take the lead by asking an emotion-laden question, such as “How do we feel about one another, and how could we work better together?”

Creative Dialogue

Rationality brings structure to conversations; emotions bring meaning. Rationality is deductive, focusing attention on tangible data and their interrelationships. Emotions, by contrast, are holistic, emotions deal with your feelings and ideas. As a result, the two are always hard to combine. Yet like the yin and yang of Chinese philosophy, the most creative, insightful, and energizing conversations you can have will occur when the two are combined: one hard, the other soft; one rooted in the categories of structure, the other in the images of meaning. Bringing thinking and feeling together is difficult, but if you can do it, you move from fragmentation to unity.

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When you have creative dialogue, the results can be spectacular and will play a crucial role in you capacity to Glow and to find and flourish in high-energy Hot Spots.

Let’s return to Barbara and Adam for a moment to see how their conversation became a creative dialogue. Barbara has introduced Adam to her friend Ramona, who has just returned from working with an NGO in Brazil.

In a very short space of time Ramona, Adam, and Barbara are engaged in a creative dialogue. Ramona has brought in ideas they had not considered earlier, they have all contributed to the conversation, and they have arrived at a set of possibilities that is exciting and has real potential. In other words, they are on their way to creating a Hot Spot, and by radiating energy and excitement, they are experiencing the positive emotions of Glowing.

Creative dialogue is crucial to your becoming energized and innovative. Here are some of the actions you can take now to make sure this happens.

Broaden and widen the topics. To have creative dialogue, you want to converse with people who are interesting and exciting and who are able to converse on broad and wide topics.

Actions to take now to broaden and widen the
topics of conversation

Action 2.6 Broadening the topics of conversation. Many of the previous actions are about putting aside time in your schedule for one-on-one conversations with others. Now think about how you are going to spend that time, and decide in advance the questions you want to discuss and also some interesting ideas or information you would like to bring to the conversation. Take a look at Action 5, Jumping out of the Boundaries That Constrain You, to see how you might broaden and widen conversations by forming associations with people who are very different from you (see Chapter Eleven).

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Beware of spell breakers. Creative dialogues arise when the topics are crucial to you and your colleagues and when you are feeling positive and engaged. The conversation among Barbara, Adam, and Ramona worked so well precisely because each of them really cared. Adam cared about increasing the range of the product, Barbara cared about serving the customers, and Ramona cared deeply about the coffee growers. Each of them had a personal engagement with the topic. Conversely, there is nothing more effective at destroying the quality of conversations than indifference and cynicism—people who drift in and out physically or intellectually, who remain superficial, who break the spell. It is not easy to remain positive and in the moment at all times in these conversations. And I am sure you know people who, when they enter a room, bring down the energy and enthusiasm of everyone present.

Actions to take now to avoid the spell breakers

Action 2.7 Neutralizing spell breakers. Highly negative people have to be kept away, lest their negative contribution prevent creative dialogues from occurring.

• First, identify your spell breakers. Think back over the last six months to conversations you have had that have left you feeling deflated. Who participated in these conversations? If the same names come up again and again, you have found your spell breakers.
• Next, work out a strategy to avoid the spell breakers in your everyday life. This can be as simple as walking on the other side of the corridor, making sure you don’t linger with them after a meeting, or remembering not to stand next to them at a social event.

So what happens if your spell breaker is your boss? Now it gets a little trickier. Here are three ideas:

• Neutralize your boss’s negative energy by always being upbeat and positive when you are together and keeping your conversation to a minimum.
• If you are up to it, use this as an opportunity to practice your emotional skills by asking questions like “Why can’t we work together?”
• If all else fails, take a very close look at Action 3, acting on the “smell of the place.”

Key Points in Chapter Six
ACTION 2
Mastering the Art of Great Conversation

People who Glow, and the Hot Spots they inhabit, abound with great conversation—and great conversation is what ties you together as you cooperate with others. So if you want to Glow by finding, creating, and flourishing in Hot Spots, you must examine how you converse with others.

Great conversations have elements of both analytical rationality and emotional authenticity.

Dehydrated Talk
Dehydrated talk results when you have neither analytical rationality nor emotional authenticity.

Disciplined Debate
Disciplined debate uses high-quality information to move the conversation forward.

Action 2.1 Asking rigorous and disciplined questions

Action 2.2 Finding high-quality information

Intimate Exchange
Intimate exchange brings emotional authenticity to conversations and is crucial to conversations that Glow.

Action 2.3 Devoting time to conversation

Action 2.4 Having wide-ranging conversations

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Action 2.5 Asking emotional questions

Creative Dialogue
Creative dialogue results when analytical rationality and emotional authenticity are brought together to create important and meaningful conversations.

Action 2.6 Broadening the topics of conversation

Action 2.7 Neutralizing spell breakers