A good leader is willing to adjust her goals for the conversation based on the discoveries she makes about others’ needs, while staying true to her own values. They respond to others’ needs as they surface, thereby building trust. The best leaders go beyond good listening to make a caring connection at an emotional level. We encourage executives to prepare a complete list of intents and depending on their ease with the more abstract ones, talk through how they might convey them ahead of time. “You failed to deliver the second-quarter results.”) And those abstract messages are often the most important ones to get right. I want her to think I still believe in her potential”) are miscommunicated more often than concrete messages (e.g. The fact is that in difficult conversations, even senior executives have trouble being either direct or comprehensive with their pre-meeting objective intents. In many cases the executives themselves expressed surprise at their low scores as well. We had imagined that senior leaders would be more effective at covering the vast majority of key points they had planned to discuss. In Hsieh’s scoring of dozens of one-on-one conversations by Asian CEOs and CXOs in this manner, we were surprised to see a median score of only 43% of intended objectives met, and a range of scores between 20 and 65%. If we interviewed her after the meeting, what percentage of these outcomes would she believe the conversation had achieved? “She knows that I really want her to succeed and will do everything i can to help her.” You might typically have ten desired outcomes in a one-on-one chat. Keep going until you exhaust the more abstract ones: e.g. Try this for your next one-on-one: list the outcomes you desire, starting with concrete ones such as “She will agree to these two specific performance goals”. Your audience must understand and trust the purpose you have stated for the conversation. Does the space allow good eye contact? Does it project the right informality? Does it promote reflective dialogue when called for? Try a different format, include or exclude one or two people, see what happens and learn from it. You know the typical problems: some people use multiple one-on-one’s when they should have a group interaction or vice-versa group meetings are rarely productive attendance is restricted to only certain senior members and some executives will do anything to avoid town halls because they are visibly nervous or wooden in front of a crowd. The right participants and the appropriate settingįirst, be sure you invite the right people to and select the right type of meeting for the conversation. The effectiveness of each style of meeting depends on the participants and setting, the credibility and completeness of your intent, and your responsiveness to and emotional engagement with your audience. There are three types of critical conversations for leaders to master - one-on-one meeting, small group discussions, and one-to-many town-hall style convenings - and three ways for improving them. Good leaders embrace technology to enhance communication productivity, but they are careful not to replace the in-person conversations required to get difficult things done. But problems arise when they are used to avoid critical or challenging messages that can have significant impact on a business. Virtual, asynchronous communications such as email, sms, Twitter and Facebook postings are faster, cheaper, and more convenient than in-person options for staying connected and sharing information. Most important leadership transactions still take place in live, in-person conversations. The most effective leaders also know how to have courageous conversations. Leaders get things done through others they constantly need to prioritize tasks, develop growth strategies, and delegate responsibilities. This post expands on that theme and is based on leadership research he has conducted over the last five years in Asia, North America, and Europe. Recently Tsun-yan wrote a guest blog entry on recognizing the decisive moments in leadership. He is Director Emeritus at McKinsey, as well as a member of the Cue Ball Collective. I have co-written this week’s blog entry with Tsun-yan Hsieh, who has spent the past three decades working with global leaders to help them become more effective.
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