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Change Your Life How to Turn Ideas into Habits

To improve is to change; to be perfect is to change often.
—WINSTON CHURCHILL

One day you “overhear” yourself enthusiastically talking about a professional wrestling match. You’re speaking with such gusto that you give yourself the willies. You think to yourself: “You know what? It’s time to expand my cultural horizons.” So you vow to read more widely and to watch three programs on the science channel for every episode of reality TV.

While you’re at it, you commit to trimming down a bit as well. A reasonable diet and moderate exercise program couldn’t hurt. To top it all off, you note that you’re nearly consumed with your work, so you swear to spend more time with your family.

More culture, better health, a stronger family—certainly you’ll quickly transform such worthy desires into daily habits.

Hardly. Changes of this sort are rarely easy. When it comes to turning our wispy hopes into concrete realities, our success rate is mixed at best. This being the case, what are our chances of improving something as deeply rooted in our psyches as the way we communicate? Actually, it depends. There are a lot of variables that affect our chances. Consider the following factors.

SURPRISE

You’ve been asked to conduct your first meeting. To avoid embarrassing yourself, you read a book where you learn all about agendas, pacing, and the like. When it’s time to lead your first meeting, you arrive early, adjust the chairs, set the markers just so, and lay out an agenda for each participant. As participants arrive, you greet them cordially. Then you kick off the meeting with a rousing icebreaker and you’re off and running.

Implementing meeting skills is as easy as falling off a log. That’s because meetings are evident. You know when you’re in one. You’re seated at a table along with a bunch of other people. How could you not know you’re in a meeting? They’re also predictable. You can plan for them. You even have time to go over underlined portions from the book.

Crucial conversations, in contrast, are far less evident. You don’t sit in a crucial conversations room. You don’t pass around a picture of your Path to Action. Instead you get thrown into a heated discussion where you rarely think, “Oh yes, I’m in the middle of a crucial conversation. That means I need to think about all that stuff I read last week.”

Discussions are also less predictable. Nobody sends you an invitation stating: “Would you please engage me in a crucial conversation next week after the team meeting where you’re going to make a policy that will miff me?” High-risk discussions don’t come with notices and reminders. More often than not, they come as unwelcome surprises.

EMOTION

Emotions don’t help much either. And, of course, crucial conversations are defined by their emotional characteristics. Your ability to pull yourself out of the content of a discussion and to focus on the process is inversely proportional to your level of emotion. The more you care about what’s happening, the less likely you are to think about how you’re conducting yourself.

It’s almost unfair. The bigger the deal, the less likely you are to bring your newly acquired skill-set into the conversation. Like it or not, if your adrenaline is flowing, you’re almost guaranteed to jump to your Style Under Stress.

Between surprise and emotion, it’s hard to know which is the bigger enemy of change. Both make it hard to remember to act in new ways.

SCRIPTS

Now let’s look at still another enemy of change—scripts. Scripts are prebundled phrases we use in common conversations; they form the very foundation of social habits and often make change almost impossible. Consider the following.

When we learn to speak, first come words, then phrases, and then scripts. The larger the bundles of words we carry around, the less we have to worry about combining them into sensible expressions. Also the less we have to fret over syntax or grammar—that work has already been done for us.

Unfortunately, predetermined expressions also put us into a sort of mental autopilot. Consider what happens when you walk into a fast-food restaurant. Do you think about the words you’ll choose? Probably not. That’s because when you enter familiar circumstances, you’re carrying not only words and phrases, but an entire script in your head.

With a script, you know both sides of the conversation. You know that the person at the counter is going to ask for your order. You’re certain that the perky young woman with the paper hat is going to ask you if you want fries. Even if you include fries in your original request, she’s still going to ask, “Do you want fries with that?” And if you say yes, you can bet the farm that she’s going to ask, “Do you want to super-size that?”

The good news about packing around scripts is that you don’t have to give conversation much thought. The bad news is that the more scripted an interaction, the more difficult it is to pull yourself out of the routine and try something new. For example, as you walk up to a fast-food counter, your spouse reminds you to ask for extra ketchup.

You step up to the counter and say: “I’ll have two house specials, three kiddy delights . . .” and then you slip into autopilot. The words that pour out of your mouth have no relation to your thoughts. Your brain is somewhere else entirely. You’re musing over a menu that sports a sandwich made out of “ribs” that have no bones. “What poor animal has boneless ribs?” you’re thinking to yourself.

And guess what? As you robotically state your order, one word spilling out after another, you forget to ask for extra ketchup. What do you expect from a person who’s devoting no real brain time to the interaction? In fact, your spouse’s request never even makes it onto your radar screen—which is currently filled with images of Jell-O-like, ribless creatures mooing and slithering across a backdrop painted by Salvador Dali.

Scripts place us on a smooth and familiar track. They take us across known territory and at a comfortable pace—freeing our brains for more novel work. But then again, when we’re on rails, we travel along the prescribed route with such finesse and ease that it’s almost impossible to make an unscheduled turn.

WHAT ARE OUR CHANCES?

So let’s see what we’re facing when we try to change our Style Under Stress. Tough conversations come at us out of nowhere, fill us with adrenaline, and evoke comfortable (but not necessarily good) routines. They are spontaneous, emotional, and backed by years of practice.

Consequently, when you examine people working through crucial conversations, they look a lot more like racehorses charging out of the gate than human beings making choices. Conversationalists are shocked into motion by surprise, whipped up to speed by high stakes and strong emotions, and propelled along a completely predictable course by scripts that offer few if any options.

TRANSFER TIPS

Given the challenges of altering routine scripts, can people actually change? Early in our research, we (the authors) once examined forty-eight front-line supervisors who were learning how to hold crucial conversations. As we watched the trainees back at work, it became clear to us that only a few of them transferred what they had learned in the classroom back to their work site. The bad news is that most of them didn’t change an iota. The good news is that some of them did. In fact, they used the new skills precisely as instructed.

The supervisors who found a way to apply the new skills taught us the following four principles for turning ideas into action:

First, master the content. That means not only do you have to be able to recognize what works and why, but you have to generate new scripts of your own.

Second, master the skills. You must be able to enact these new scripts in a way that is consistent with the supporting principles. As it turns out, simply understanding a concept isn’t enough. While it’s helpful, even necessary to talk the talk, you have to be able to walk the talk. You have to be able to say the right words with the right tone and nonverbal actions. When it comes to social skills, knowing and doing are two different animals.

Third, enhance your motive. You must want to change. This means that you have to care enough about improving your crucial conversation skills to actually do something. You have to move from a passive sense that it would be a good idea to change, to an active desire to seek opportunities. Ability without motive lies dormant and untapped.

Fourth, watch for cues. To overcome surprise, emotion, and scripts, you must recognize the call to action. This is usually people’s biggest obstacle to change. Old stimuli generate old responses. If a problem doesn’t cue your new skills, you’ll return to your old habits without even realizing you missed a chance to try something new.

Master the Content

There’s too much material in this book to try to master in one sitting. Despite the fact that you may have read this book rather quickly, a rapid once-over rarely generates much of a change in behavior. You may have a feel for the content, but probably not enough to propel you to change.

Here are some other steps you can take to help master the content.

Do something. Years ago, Dale Carnegie recommended that you read his now classic How to Win Friends and Influence People one chapter at a time. Then, once you finished the chapter, he suggested you go out and practice what you learned from it. We agree. Pick a chapter you found relevant (possibly one with a low score in your Style Under Stress test) and read it again. This time, implement what you learned over a three- to five-day period. Look for opportunities. Pounce on every chance you get. Step up to the plate and give the skills a try. Then pick another chapter and repeat the process.

Discuss the material. When you first learn something, your knowledge is “preverbal.” That is, you might recognize the concepts if you see them, but you’re not able to discuss them with ease. You haven’t talked about them enough to make them part of your functional vocabulary. You haven’t turned the words into phrases and the phrases into scripts. To move your knowledge to the next level, read a chapter and then discuss it with a friend or loved one. Talk about the material until the concepts come naturally.

Teach the material. If you really want to master a concept, teach it to someone else. Stick with it until the other person understands the concept well enough to pass it on to someone else.

Master the Skills

There’s a story going around the self-help talk circuit about a Vietnam War prisoner who played golf in his head in order to help maintain his sanity. He’d mentally step up to each hole at his favorite golf course and “play” an entire round. After being released, he eventually found his way to the course, where he promptly shot his best score ever, one under par. When his friends acted astonished at his new-found talent, he explained, “Why shouldn’t I have shot under par? I never once shot over par while I was in prison.”

This tale is routinely used to teach the power of mental preparation. Gurus can’t say enough about the power of the mental game. While we agree that thinking is an essential part of the process, we’d like to emphasize the greater importance of doing. Evidence suggests that mental preparation can make some difference in execution, but thinking isn’t enough. If you really want to improve your ability, practice. Step up to problems and give the material a try.

Rehearse with a friend. Start by rehearsing with a friend. Ask a colleague or coworker to partner with you. Explain that you’d like to practice the skills you’re learning. Briefly discuss the skill you’ll be attempting. Provide the details of a real problem you’re facing. (Don’t include names or otherwise violate privacy issues.) Next, ask your friend to play the role of the other person and practice the crucial conversation.

Ask your partner to give you honest feedback. Otherwise you could be practicing the wrong delivery. Remember, practice doesn’t make perfect; perfect practice makes perfect. Insist that your practice partner hold you to a high standard. Make sure you’re constantly improving.

Practice on the fly. You’re going to be holding crucial conversations at home and at work, or you wouldn’t have bought this book in the first place. So practice the skills you’ve been reading, teaching, and rehearsing. If you have children, hardly a day will pass that you won’t have a chance to practice.

Start immediately. If you wait until you’re perfect before you give something a try, you could be waiting a long time. To make it safe, pick a conversation of only medium risk. Trying out something new is hard enough without applying it to a monumental problem.

Practice in a training session. For those of you who would like more material and practice opportunities than you can extract from a book and other static materials, attend one of our live training seminars. Give us a call and see if you can either schedule a session at a location near you or bring the training into your company.

Our training materials library is equipped with a variety of delivery tools ranging from leader-guided workshops to off-site intensive courses.

Enhance Your Motive

We all have ideas about how to motivate others, but how do you motivate yourself? While you may feel 100 percent committed to improving your crucial conversations right now, what can you do when you’re staring at an angry coworker and your commitment to improvment drops to, say, 10 percent?

The truth is that we often need to take steps to ensure that our most well-founded wishes (those made during peaceful moments where we’re taking an honest look at the future) survive turbulent, less forward-looking circumstances.

Apply incentives. Start with the obvious. Use incentives. For example, people going through self-help courses are often encouraged to put their money where their mouth is. Every time they fulfill an assignment, they’re given back a portion of their tuition. On the other hand, if they don’t step up, it costs them. When incentives are added, results improve fairly dramatically.

So every time you deftly hold a crucial conversation, celebrate your victory. Treat yourself to something you wouldn’t otherwise enjoy. And don’t wait for perfection. Celebrate improvement. If you used to get in a heated argument every time you brought up a certain problem, and now the interaction is merely tense, enjoy the victory. Self-improvement is achieved by individuals who appreciate direction more than those who demand perfection.

Apply disincentives. You might consider disincentives as well. Take a look at what went on at Stanford a few years back. Subjects who were trying to lose weight were asked to write a donation check to an organization they despised. These checks were then set aside, never to be mailed unless the subjects failed to live up to their goals—at which point five hundred dollars was sent to Americans for Nuclear Proliferation or something equally distasteful to the subject. As predicted, subjects did better when they used disincentives.1

Go public. Let others know that you’re trying to routinely hold crucial conversations. Explain what you’re doing and why. Over half a century ago, Dr. Kurt Lewin, the father of social psychology, learned that when subjects made a public commitment to do something, they were more likely to stay the course than if they kept their wishes to themselves.2 Tell people what your goals are. Get social pressure working in your favor.

Talk with your boss. If you want to take it a step further, sit down with your boss and explain your goals. Ask for his or her support. If you want to put some real teeth into your goal, build your plan into your performance review. As a leader, you’re almost always asked to pick one “soft area” listed on your performance review forms and work on it. Select dialogue. You might as well tie your plans for improvement into the formal reward system. Align your personal, family, and organizational goals to a single goal—improving your dialogue skills.

Remember the costs; focus on the reward. Perhaps the most predictive piece of social science research ever conducted was completed with small children and marshmallows. A child was put in a room and then told that he or she could have either one marshmallow now or two if he or she was willing to wait until the adult returned in a few minutes. The adult would then place one marshmallow in front of the child and exit. Some of the children delayed gratification. Others ate the marshmallow right away. Researchers continued studying these children.

Over the next several decades, the children who had delayed gratification ended up doing far better in life than those who hadn’t. They had stronger marriages, made more money, and were healthier.3 This willingness to do without now in order to achieve more later turns out to be an all-purpose tool for success.

How did the children who were able to delay gratification fight off their short-term wishes? First, they looked away from the scrumptious marshmallow that sat in front of them. No use torturing themselves with the vision of what they couldn’t have. Second, they kept telling themselves that if they waited, they would get two, not one. What could be simpler?

As you step up to a crucial conversation and wonder if it’s really worth trying out something new and untested, remind yourself why you’re trying new skills in the first place. Focus on improved results. Remember what happens when you fall back on your old methods.

Think ”things.” How can things help motivate you? Actually, this particular concept isn’t easy to grasp. An example might help. You’re unsuccessfully trying to lose weight. It turns out that your early-morning iron will turns into midday rubber as your stomach begins to growl and you sniff the air of the restaurant you frequent for lunch. What can you do with things to help keep you on track?

Pack a sensible lunch first thing in the morning when your will is strong. Take no money with you. That way it won’t be easy to cave in to your weaker, afternoon wishes. By structuring around your self-control cycles, you heighten the power of your stronger motives while lessening the blow of you weaker moments.

Schedule crucial conversations when you’re feeling confident. Practice beforehand. Take notes. Set up your office the way you would like. Armed with smart timing and material support, you’re far more likely to step up to tough problems effectively.

Build in Cues

To remind yourself to use your new skills, create helpful cues.

Mark hot spots. People who go through stress-reduction training learn to mark physical items that are closely linked to their sources of tension. People who freak out in traffic put a small red circle on their steering wheel. Individuals who are constantly in a rush put one on their watch.

When it comes to the tough conversations you face, you might want to make use of small visual cues as well. Place one on the computer that spits out results that drive you nuts. Build a cue into your copy of the agenda of any meeting that typically serves up tough problems.

Set aside a time. Perhaps the best way to remind yourself to use your new skills is to set aside a time each day to walk around in search of both successes and problems. When you see a success, celebrate. When you encounter a problem, bring your best dialogue tools into play.

Read reactions. If you’re not doing a good job of holding crucial conversations, the results are going to be right in front of you. If you see that you’re getting off track, back up and start over. Use real-life cues (e.g., the other person’s jaw tenses, he or she clams up, etc.) to remind yourself that maybe it’s time to try a new tactic. If necessary, apologize. Move to an earlier place in the discussion and follow the process.

Build in permanent reminders. Order a poster of the model, place it on the wall, and look at it each morning as you start the day.

Carry a reminder. Along with the poster, order a set of cue cards you can tuck into your purse or shirt pocket.

A DIGITAL ASSIST

We’ve tried to include in this book everything you’ll need to conduct crucial conversations. Our goal was to provide a complete, stand-alone tool for personal change. Nevertheless, when it comes to improving social interactions, the digital domain has a lot to offer as well. Audio, video, and other digital tools can enhance your learning experience.

As an additional resource, we invite you to our website. There you’ll find a variety of tools for helping you transform the printed word into daily actions. Digital tools include conceptual, behavioral, and cuing tools.

Conceptual Tools

Watch. To give you live-action views of the skills we cover, we’ve added video examples to our website. Visit us at www.crucialconversations.com and check out video clips for specific skills.

Listen. Many people enjoy listening to audiotapes or CDs as they commute to and from work each day. We’ve put together an audio mastery course that not only reviews the material chapter by chapter, but also provides audio examples of what the skills sound like when put into action. Move your knowledge from the abstract to the concrete as you hear how the theories translate into words and the words build into usable scripts.

Behavioral Tools

If you’d like to practice specific skills with the aid of a role-play tool, go to our website and check out Free Resources to download role-play rehearsals. Print out the role plays and then work with a partner until you’ve mastered the skill.

Cuing Tools

Visit www.crucialconversations.com to sign up for regular tips, reminders, and other resources to keep you watching for opportunities to use your crucial conversations skills.

A PARTING THOUGHT

We’ll be forever indebted to the wonderful people who allowed us to roll up our sleeves, work side by side with them, and study their best practices. We’re particularly grateful to individuals who allowed us to watch them as they struggled to work through crucial conversations. It’s hard enough to sort out facts, stories, and feelings without being scrutinized under a microscope while you’re doing it.

We hope that by sharing the theories, skills, and models we’ve learned from these dear friends and colleagues, we’ll help you feel more comfortable stepping up to your own crucial conversations. You’ll be able to add to the pool of available meaning, make better decisions, and work in a way that both gets the job done and enhances your relationships.

So we encourage you to pick a relationship. Pick a conversation. Let others know that you’re trying to do better, then give it a shot. When you blow it, admit it. Don’t expect perfection; aim for progress. And when you succeed, celebrate your success. We hope you’ll take pleasure in knowing that you’re improving and so are your relationships. Finally, when the chance arises, help others do the same. Help friends, loved ones, and coworkers learn to master their own high-stakes discussions. Help strengthen organizations, solidify families, heal communities, and shore up nations one person—one crucial conversation—at a time.