Apr

17

Building Bridges in Conversation

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Our leadership conversations need to build bridges, not walls! Too often I see daily interactions that result in unnecessary conflict because of how we conduct ourselves in conversations. The best attitude to adopt in conversation is one of learning with the objective of building bridges. You can significantly improve your conversation by practicing the following three communication principles:

Replace “Yes But….” with “Yes and…”

Renata Guizzardi (Via Mathemagenic) posted describes this principle:

There are two distinct ways to collaborate with someone on their research work: the ‘and’ way and the ‘but’ way. In the ‘and’ way, one focuses on the positive aspects of the ideas being presented, adding new insights on top of them. Conversely, in the ‘but’ way, one identifies the limitations of the proposed ideas, focusing solely on negative aspects. Although both ways are valid, there is a risk in taking the ‘but’ strategy, since looking at the obstacles before an idea is sufficiently mature may lead to a creativity block.

A “yes, but…” response says you disagree with the speaker, “yes, but…” response makes them wrong. A “yes, and…” response shows you have a different point of view, this helps to prevent the conversation from becoming a battle over who’s right.

Seek to Understand

As often quoted by Stephen Covey “Seek first to understand, then to be understood”, a well known principle that’s not widely practiced. Give your full attention and listen to what’s being said and what’s not being said. Then, check your understanding by repeating a summary, of your understanding, in your own words, of what you heard was said. Only move to another topic once you have confirmed you both agree on what was said. GottaGettaBlog wrote and interesting post on listening, in it he quoted from a Harvard Business Review article, written in 1957 by Ralph G. Nichols and Leonard A. Stevens, called “Listening to People,” that described listening process as follows:

“The newspapers reported not too long ago, that a church was torn down in Europe and shipped stone by stone to America, where it was assembled in its original form. The moving of the church is analogous to what happens when a person speaks and is understood by a listener. The talker has a thought. To transmit his thought, he takes it apart by putting it into words. The words, sent through the air to the listener, must then be mentally reassembled into the original thought if they are to be thoroughly understood. But most people do not know what to listen for, and so cannot reconstruct the thought.”

Lead with Open Questions

The best way to lead a discussion on a topic is to lead the conversation with open questions. An open questions is one that allows for a range of responses, for example, “What do you think our options are?”. Closed questions allow only for one word responses like “yes” or “no”, for example “Do you think option A will work?”. Open questions allow for exploration and encourages a sharing of various opinions and experiences.

These three changes in your daily conversation, if practiced, will make a big difference in your conversations, help to building bridges and not walls. A learning attitude toward our conversation and the practice of these three principle I’ve found makes a significant difference.

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