Nine Ideas to Inspire More Meaningful Conversations at Work
A leadership guide for understanding the type of conversation you need have—and how to have it effectively
As a leader, 90% of my job is getting people to work together to solve problems. The magic of people collaboratively designing something no individual could have created alone gets me out of bed every morning.
“No matter how it looks at first, it’s always a people problem.” — Gerald Weinberg, in his book The Secrets of Consulting
Over the years, I came across a handful of concepts and ideas that fundamentally changed the way I interact with other humans. As a result, I was able to strengthen relationships and ultimately create more meaning in my work. I hope this collection yields inspiration for you, too. I added a list of training, books and videos that inspired this article at the end.
1. The shared pool of meaning
Whenever we’re having a conversation, two or more realities meet and create something new. Every fact, perspective, idea, experience and emotion that we and the humans we’re talking with contributing to a conversation form a pool of shared meaning. It’s unique to every conversation and can only be filled when everyone feels safe contributing. It’s our common ground, paramount to moving forward constructively. I love the appreciative way of thinking about a conversation. It helped me be more intentional about what I contribute and how I do so.
2. How to spot crucial conversations
At work, we tend to have surface-level conversations about content like daily to-dos, objectives, the project or the next quarter. It’s easy to speak about those. It’s not like content conversations aren’t valuable. But if we’re only ever having content conversations, we’re missing out on deepening our relationships at work in a meaningful way.
Occasionally, we have more crucial conversations. With high stakes and opposing opinions. With the potential for strong emotions. They’re the conversations that strengthen our long-term relationships and have the potential to solve our more fundamental challenges that are deeper rooted.
If we feel nervous, uncomfortable, anxious, or the sort before a conversation, chances are it’s not a pure content conversation. It’s not just about the “what”. Instead, we might want to address the underlying pattern or relationship issue and get behind the “why”.
“Anytime you find yourself stuck, there’s likely a Crucial Conversation you’re either not holding or not holding well.” — from the training handbook Crucial Conversations
I recently learned about the concept of content, pattern and relationship conversations, with their different levels of depth. Let me share an example:
Content
Robin is your team member. Robin was meant to send a follow-up email to the customer after a workshop until the end of the week. They share on Friday afternoon that they won’t be able to send the email in time. — This sounds simple, doesn’t it? You have a conversation with Robin and find a solution to this particular instance.
Pattern
It’s been three times that Robin committed to sending follow-up emails but didn’t get to it in time. You start to wonder why this keeps happening. Not that simple anymore, is it? — This will likely be a conversation requiring more exploration of the why. You can’t just focus on the most recent incident but will need to address the pattern.
Relationship
It’s been three times that Robin missed sending follow-up emails, and the emails aren’t the only thing that Robin doesn’t follow through on. Their behaviour starts to damage the client relationship and reflects poorly on you. You begin to wonder whether Robin was, in fact, the right candidate for the role you hired them for two months ago. — Not easy anymore, is it? This situation might include all sorts of emotions like disappointment, resentment or regret. — This conversation will likely be a relationship-based conversation where you’ll get to the bottom of what the pattern does to your relationship.
I started to identify crucial conversations by reflecting: where and with whom do I feel some negative emotions at work? What keeps on annoying me? Where am I not being heard? Where am I not expressing what I think/need/feel? Those are the crucial conversations that we all should prioritise.
3. We’re all imaginative storytellers, and that’s not helpful
We like to think that imagination is one of our most valuable assets. But unfortunately, the stories and speculations we tell ourselves about other people’s intentions aren’t helpful.
Let me explain: let’s say your colleague Sam continues to answer your questions with a simple yes or no. That’s a fact that you and others can observe and hear. What we don’t have evidence for is why they do this. The wild thing about our minds is that we like to make things up in the most negative ways in the absence of factual evidence. And we’re pretty good at convincing ourselves that these stories are facts.
Let’s say you had a disagreement with Sam yesterday. What stories might you tell yourself? “Sam is still angry with me.”? Your mind will try to put Sam’s reaction into context — making stuff up that may or may not be accurate.
Why is it so dangerous when we are anticipating things? It’s quite simple. When we assume the worst, our actions, body language and tone of voice will reflect this. And that’s perhaps just what the other person needed to confirm their constructed story about us. So it’s a downward spiral.
How can we break the downward spiral? By questioning our own emotions. Are they tied to a story we’re telling ourselves about the other person? What actual evidence do we have?
The tricky bit is that sometimes, our narratives are true. We may have a good intuition as to what people’s motives are. So it’s even more critical to curiously investigate our emotions and what has led us to feel them. For example, by asking ourselves: What did I hear or see that makes me think this?
Ultimately, we like to tell ourselves stories to not have to act. We like to portray ourselves as victims, “It’s not my fault”, the other person as the villain, “It’s all their fault!” or retreat to a state of helplessness: “There’s nothing I can do!”. Neither of these black-and-white patterns is helpful to move forward with any challenge or relationship issue.
4. Expressing ourselves — in a nonviolent way
Isn’t it odd that when it matters the most, we often communicate our worst?
It’s essential first to address emotional needs in any conflict to be able to move forward to the facts part. For this, I love the format Nonviolent Communication.
If you don’t yet know Marshall Rosenberg’s “Nonviolent Communication — A Language of Life”, — go check it out! It’s a great way to increase empathy and give conversation partners the ability to contribute their perspectives in a way that doesn’t degrade, threaten or otherwise scare them away — and hence improve the quality of work/life for both.
It’s essentially formulating a statement that includes an observation, how it made you feel, what you need, and a concrete action request towards meeting this need.
5. Make the other person feel safe and check your intent
Think back to any of the fables you were told as a kid. Remember the villain that pretended to want the best for the hero but secretly wanted to boil them in their cauldron? Did you shout, “don’t trust them!”? Whilst those stories wildly overstate the situation, most people have developed a sense of when their counterpart doesn’t come from a place of good intent.
We will likely fail if we’re having a conversation from a place of bad intent. So it’s critical to gain clarity about our intent. Don’t start the conversation until you’ve found a way to frame your motive that values all conversation partners.
Motives might be: exploring a situation, finding the truth, finding a win-win situation, creating long-term results or strengthening the relationship. I like to spend quite a bit of time getting my motivation right and framing it in a way that feels authentic.
Sharing our good intentions upfront is like laying down one’s arms: “Hey, I’m here because I want the best for us / our relationship.”
What if the conversation started safely, but you notice the other person is becoming more silent or retreats to verbal violence? This might show through:
- Sarcasm
- Sugarcoating
- Phrases like “some people” instead of “I” when sharing opinions
- Changing the topic
- Withdrawing from the conversations
- Using absolutes (the worst, the best, the only)
- Name-calling
- Taking over a conversation through constant/loud speaking
- Asking directive questions
- Belittling others or their ideas
- Threatening
Focus on rebuilding the safety immediately. Address safety concerns openly, and clarify what you don’t mean. Don’t continue the conversation until you’ve rebuilt safety.
6. If we don’t say it, our body will tell it
I find opening up about my feelings, perspectives and stories quite intimidating at times. I understand that sometimes, not sharing holds me back from achieving what I want. I didn’t realise for a long time that while not speaking up verbally, my body does a fair share of unconscious communication. It’s one thing holding back words. But completely altering our body language and facial expressions — that’s a skill that not even spies master, as seen in this video about non-verbal communication. Joe Navarro, a former FBI agent, explains how to read body language:
“We may think we’re very sophisticated, but in fact, we are never in a state where we are not transmitting information.” — Joe Navarro
7. Prepare for a conversation from different perspectives
What should this conversation bring about? It’s helpful to prepare this question from different perspectives:
- What do I want for myself?
- What do I want for the other person?
- What do I want for our relationship?
- What do I want for our organisation?
The Negotiation Canvas
I was introduced to a valuable tool in a recent training on “Strategic Business Thinking” — the Negotiation Canvas. It is a helpful guide to preparing the different perspectives in a negotiation and a valuable primer for a crucial conversation.
Empathy Map
Empathy maps are a tool from the design world to empathise with the users of a product/service. It’s a living document meant to shift the attention away from technology toward humans, with their emotions, goals and challenges. They help teams to build better services. So why not use it to empathise with colleagues at work? It allows us to put ourselves in their shoes and design a conversation from a “we” perspective rather than an “I” perspective.
8. Appropriate depends
This is a lesson I quickly learned when I first became a manager of an international team. The company I work at, VMware Tanzu Labs, is a global organisation. We have branches in London, Berlin, Paris and Amsterdam in Europe. The people in my team are from Germany, the US, the UK, France, Italy and the Netherlands. I’m Austrian. Every person has a slightly different way of communicating, and we’re just spread across Europe and the US!
For example, it differs greatly how literal and direct people like to say things. With my quite explicit Austrian nature, I’m having a hard time recognising when my colleagues from the UK subtly try to tell me I’m doing something stupid. And the other way around: what I deem a considerate way to deliver feedback might be quite upsetting to others.
I’ve recognised this gap and am working on adopting a global communication style toolkit I can localise as needed. For everyone working with or leading an international team, I can recommend Erin Meyer’s The Culture Map. This book helped me understand how I can adapt the way I communicate and subsequently have better conversations.
9. How to be more memorable
What about the conversations that aren’t per se crucial, that happen after work or during lunch? The ones we might frame as small talk? They feel less deep but are valuable to strengthen our relationships because they help others see us as humans, with our uniqueness and flaws. I reflected a lot on how much of my personality I want to show at work without being inappropriate.
A short read that I love is “How to Be a Good Guest” by The School of Life. Essentially: don’t be a mirror to the other person. Mimetic people aren’t memorable; they aren’t interesting. A more characterful person offers a fresh perspective, respectfully disagrees, and speaks a bit about themselves. It’s a mix of being candid — like a four-year-old child — but with the empathy of a socially aware adult.
A good, genuine conversation at work is about intentional, interpersonal risk-taking. I prefer occasionally overstepping over being an unmemorable blurb.
Credits
Nothing is written out of a vacuum. I was inspired by the perspectives of
- Most fundamentally, this two-day training on Crucial Conversations by Crucial Learning. Sections 1–3 and 5–7 are my takeaways from the training
- Recent workshops with The School of Life on diplomacy, adaptability, failure and confidence
- A leadership class on Strategic Business Thinking (now called Strategic Design Leadership) by SecondWaveDive
- The book Nonviolent Communication by Marshall Rosenberg
- The book The Culture Map by Erin Meyer
- This video on non-verbal communication by former FBI agent Joe Navarro
What ideas and concepts have helped you better communicate with others? I’m curious about your feedback! Find me on LinkedIn.
