The following article was contributed by: http://sealthedealsuccesskit.com/
Do you know how to consciously create conversations that are powerful? Having powerful conversations is a key to producing extraordinary results. Your ability to have a powerful conversation demonstrates that you are committed to having a powerful relationship. Extraordinary results are a function of extraordinary relationships.
Extraordinary results occur when you expand your ability to listen beyond what is merely being spoken and are able to communicate such that people are left inspired to take action.
Powerful conversations lead to:
- Building Trust
- Engaging in healthy conflict
- Expressing your commitment
- Being accountable and holding others accountable
- Attention to results
- Focus on impact
- Generating powerful results
Most of the time at work and in our personal lives we both consciously and unconsciously avoid having the conversations that will get us the results we want. Why do we avoid having conversations with each other? We avoid having conversations because we are paying more attention to our concerns or feelings rather than to the commitment we have for the relationship. When we are interested more in our own experience than that of the other person, we become self-conscious, self-focused, and ineffective. When we are working to get the words right, to sound sincere, to sound knowledgeable, to come across in a particular way, then we are focused more on being interesting than being interested. The secret to success in powerful conversations as well as powerful relationships lies in our ability to be more interested in the experience of the other person than in ourselves.
When you are paying attention to yourself, your experience, your output, your impact, we call that being interesting versus being interested (or paying attention to the other person).
Access to powerful and effective conversations comes from understanding of and mastery in dialogue.
What is dialogue?
Real dialogue occurs when two or more people engage in a conversation where mutual sharing of ideas occur. The opposite of dialogue is monologue.
Monologue is that little voice in your head, self-talk, often referred to as noise or the gremlin. Often people communicate the monologue out loud (you know the type) and this type of communication rarely includes the mutual sharing of ideas. It does however include opinion, assessments and judgments, evaluations and concerns. The monologue- deliverer believes that his thoughts are true, and that everyone else needs to benefit from his truth.
Rarely are we able to communicate our concerns, particularly when they are hidden concerns. Hidden concerns are a function of our assessing that something is unsafe, or a fear that something is going to happen that will cause an upset or create suffering in ourselves or the other person. Sometimes we just opt out of the dialogue in order to avoid confronting our own hidden concerns.
So how do you stay in dialogue?
Communicate your concern. Talk about what you think will happen if you actually communicate what you are about to say.
By communicating your concern first, you create context for what you want to really communicate.
The key here is to ask yourself: “Is there a conversation I need to have before I have the conversation I really want to have?”…and then communicate that.
Some common pre-conversations include:
• A conversation to create the opportunity to have a conversation (scheduling it)
• A conversation to express concerns or doubts or fears about raising that topic
• A conversation about how you’d like the other person to listen to you or to hear what you are about to say
• A conversation about what you need from the other person in order to feel safe to have the conversation
• A conversation about what is important to you and why it is important to you to have the conversation you are about to have
• A conversation to determine if you and the other person are ready, open, prepared to have the conversation you want to have
If you do not distinguish and articulate that it is unsafe for you by communicating your concern you will do one of the following: (click or right-click the button below to download full 6 page article)