Crucial Accountability: Tools for Resolving Violated Expectations, Broken Commitments, and Bad Behavior, Second Edition

You’ve talked about broken commitments that are blocking performance — whether the barriers are due to motivation, ability, or both — and come up with a few ideas that will lead to a solution. Now it’s time to take these ideas and move to action.

Here’s what accountability experts do after the conversation to ensure that the problem doesn’t keep showing up like a bad penny:

• The best at managing accountability create a complete plan. They build a solid foundation by being specific about what comes next. This includes who does what by when and follow-up (Chapter 7, “Agree on a Plan and Follow Up”).

• They piece together all the theories and skills into a complete accountability discussion. They carry a model in their heads and apply it to difficult interpersonal challenges (Chapter 8, “Put It All Together”).

• In summary, we’ll take a look at how the principles and skills we’ve learned apply to some very common and complicated issues (Chapter 9, “The 12 ‘Yeah-Buts’”).

7 Agree on a Plan and Follow Up How to Gain Commitment and Move to Action

Never grow a wishbone … where your backbone ought to be.

— CLEMENTINE PADDLEFORD

By now you’ve done a lot of work. You noted a violated expectation and decided to talk openly about the gap. You told yourself the whole story and took care to step up to the right issue. You then worked hard to deal with both motivation and ability issues. You even dealt with a new problem, used your bookmark, and then solved the original disappointment. Jointly, you found solutions that seemed promising. Good job!

But don’t exhale too quickly. The way you complete the interaction is as important as the way you start it. If you do this well, you build commitment and establish a foundation for accountability. If you don’t finish the job — if you swap your backbone for a wishbone — you set yourself up for a whole new set of problems. Let’s look at some of these challenges and then explore the skills and tools that accountability experts use to plan and follow up.

Certain bad endings are so common that after you hear no more than a sentence and a half, the whole messy situation comes to mind. For instance, see how long it takes before you can identify where these interactions are headed.

How Good Is Your Crystal Ball?

At the end of last week’s meeting, Jane said to Joe, “So you’ll get the report done?”

“Absolutely,” Joe exclaimed, mentally figuring how to fit another assignment onto a plateful of tasks so overflowing that it was starting to interfere with his bowling.

A week passes, and Jane is at the door: “I needed that report yesterday afternoon. Can I have it now?”

“Now? I had that scheduled for next week,” Joe laments.

Jane responds by rolling her eyes: “You must have known I needed it.”

Joe hates that eye thing and responds under his breath, “My crystal ball was at the cleaners.”

“What was that?” Jane asks, raising her voice.

“Nothing,” Joe grunts.

“You said something!” Jane accuses him.

“I said ‘My eye is on the ball,’ and I mean it!” Joe lies.

What Exactly Is Creativity?

During a formal review discussion, Barb talked to her direct report Johnson about being more creative. Her exact words were, “During the next quarter I want you to use more creativity. You know, come up with more ideas on your own.”

In an effort to be more creative, Johnson did indeed come up with more ideas on his own, just as requested. That was the good news. The bad news was that he also implemented many of his ideas without involving Barb or anyone else. He interpreted the request to be more creative as permission to do pretty much whatever he pleased.

When Barb eventually learned that Johnson had changed the company’s entire inventory system and hadn’t given her so much as a heads-up, she blew a gasket and told him that he had gone well beyond his authority. He responded by arguing that he was just trying to be “more creative” and now she was taking him to task for doing what she had asked him to do all along.

Must We Play Word Games?

Dad is stewing. It’s a sultry summer night, and for the last hour and a half he has been staring at the clock. During that time he has tried very hard not to get angry. It’s now 1:24 a.m., and his daughter opens the door. Dad shouts, “Shelly, you’re really late!”

“No, I’m not, Dad. Last week my friend Sarah didn’t come home until nine the next morning; that’s really late.”

“Don’t be smart-mouthed with me!” Dad retorts. “You’re supposed to be in by midnight, and you’ve been coming in late all month.”

“You’re right,” Shelly says with a sly smile. “I have been coming in at about 1 a.m. for a month, ever since my birthday. And you haven’t said one thing about it at all until now. I thought it was okay.”

Dad comes back with his best quip: “Well, ah, ah, hmmm …”

DON’T ASSUME

How long did it take before you recognized the problem in these examples? Jane and Joe made a sketchy plan. Without their agreeing on a specific deadline, that plan was doomed from the get-go. They had to play “read my mind” or “take my best guess.”

Johnson and Barb faced a different problem. The assignment included who was going to do what by when, but the details about the what were not clear. She told him to be creative, but that term is far too subjective. Once again, an accident waiting to happen.

Finally, Dad and daughter represent still another issue. By not confronting his daughter for coming in late (following up on a previous agreement) for several days running, he let Shelly assume that what she was doing must have been okay. Like it or not, Dad had given his tacit approval. At least that was what Shelly thought.

Nailing Jell-O

These problems appear familiar because we create them all the time. We finish a perfectly good accountability discussion and then make sketchy plans that are peppered with vague, unspoken, and unshared assumptions. All bets are off. We can’t hold people accountable to do something, sometime, somehow. It’s like attempting to nail Jell-O to the wall.

A complete plan, in contrast, assumes nothing. It leaves no detail to chance. It sets clear and measurable expectations (from whence all future accountability hails). It builds commitment and increases the likelihood that we’ll achieve the desired results. It also enables both parties better to have the next discussion — for accountability, for problem solving, or for praise.

The key to making a complete and clear plan, free from all assumptions (and thus improving a proper accounting), is to make sure to include four key components:

• Who

• Does what

• By when

• Follow-up

As we just noted, problems typically arise because assignments have only two or three of these components. Let’s look at each of the four and see what the experts (our much valued positive deviants) have taught us from the trenches.

Who

This first issue is the easiest: someone’s name has to be attached to each task. But there’s the rub. Someone’s name has to be attached. Someone needs to be in charge or accountable. At the end of a meeting, the supervisor says, “Okay, we should get it done by Friday at noon.” Come Friday, nothing is done. The boss exclaims, “Where is it?” And the finger-pointing party begins.

We is too vague. In business the term we is often synonymous with nobody. There is no we in accountability. Parents often make this mistake. Mom says to her kids, “Now before you go play with your friends, let’s clean our rooms.” Later, to the frustrated mom, the kids whine, “But Mom, you said you’d help.”

For accountability to work, a person needs to know what he or she is expected to do. If the task requires many hands, each person needs to know what his or her part of the assignment is. The “team” can be as ambiguous as “us” or “we.” Therefore, when it comes to large jobs, make sure one person is responsible for the whole task and then link specific people to each part.

What

Deciding exactly what you’re after can be challenging. Johnson ended his performance review with Barb by accepting the responsibility to be more creative during the next quarter. So they followed the rules, right? It was clear who would do what by when. Not exactly. Barb needed to provide a detailed description of the exact behaviors she was looking for: “By being more creative I mean I’d like you to come up with more product ideas on your own. I’d love for you to come to our weekly meeting and present new ideas for improvements. The same is true for solutions. When you see a problem, rather than asking what needs to be done, come up with suggestions and then present them to me.”

Ask

When you end an accountability discussion and are deciding exactly what to do, don’t take the what for granted. Ask if there are any questions about quality or quantity. Ask if everyone has the same characteristics in mind. Ask what might be confusing or unclear that has to be clarified now, in advance.

Contrast

If you suspect that other people are likely to misunderstand you, use Contrasting: “I want you to think of new plans. I don’t want you to implement them until we’ve had a chance to talk, but I do want you to take the initiative to present them.” Those of you who have had cataract surgery recently are familiar with the hospital version of this technique. A nurse draws (in magic marker and on your forehead, no less) an arrow over the eyeball that is about to receive the surgery, meaning “this eye, not the other one.” When the stakes are high, leave nothing to chance. (How many wrong surgeries were performed until someone came up with this trick?)

By When

Time is a concept of our own construction. It comes with specific names and numbers. It’s quantifiable and exact. Thus, when it comes to setting follow-up times or deadlines for change, you’d think there would be no room for confusion. But we find a way. For example, consider the expression “I need it next week.” This may be specific. If you are perfectly happy to receive the finished product any time in the next week, you have a clear agreement. Technically, the expression promises nothing before 11:59 p.m. on Saturday. However, if you need it before 5:00 p.m. on Friday, say so. If you need it on Wednesday, clarify. If you need it by noon on Wednesday … you get the point.

What makes this issue particularly intriguing is that the more urgent the task and the more critical the timing, the more vague the instruction: “This is hot; I need it ASAP.” “Get right on it.” “Hey, did you hear me? This baby is top priority. I need it yesterday.” These terms of urgency are train wrecks waiting to happen. Think of it this way: “ASAP: the do-it-yourself ulcer kit.”

This problem comes up at home too. The following are statements begging for different interpretations: “Don’t be late.” “I’ll get that to you soon.” “You need to clean up your mess in the kitchen.” We could be wrong about this, but it seems that teenagers have an amazingly well-developed ability to find the cracks in incomplete plans and use them to their advantage. Clarity helps you fill in the cracks.

Follow-Up

Once you’ve clarified who is supposed to do what and by when, the next step should be obvious: decide when and how you’ll follow up on what’s supposed to happen. Perhaps both you and the person you are working with have taken an assignment to do something to resolve the problem but things have come up. When it comes to problem solving with your direct reports or children, you don’t necessarily want to leave them to their own devices, particularly if the task is difficult and the people who have to deliver on the promise are unfamiliar with the territory. By the same token, you don’t want to be checking up on people every few hours. Nobody likes that.

When choosing the frequency and type of follow-up you’ll use, consider the following three variables:

• Risk. How risky or crucial is the project or needed result?

• Trust. How well has this person performed in the past; what is his or her track record?

• Competence. How experienced is this person in this area?

If the task the other person has agreed to do is risky, meaning that bad things will happen if it is not done well, and if it is being given to someone who is inexperienced or has a poor track record, the follow-up will be fairly aggressive. It’ll come soon and often. If the task is routine and is given to someone who is experienced and productive, the follow-up will be far more casual.

The two most common methods for checking on progress are scheduled and critical-event follow-up times. For routine tasks, schedule a time to see how much progress is being made. Often this is done during a routine meeting at which you’ll already be together anyway. With more complicated projects, base the follow-up on milestones or key events: “Get back to me as soon as you complete the initial plan.” Or you can combine the two: “If you don’t have the plan completed by next Tuesday at noon, let’s meet and discuss ways to speed things along.”

If you don’t have a defined relationship, follow-up can require more creativity. For example, a woman who discussed inappropriate behavior from a male coworker worried that talking about the infraction might not put an end to the behavior, and so she built in a follow-up. She concluded by saying, “Would it be okay if in a month we met in the cafeteria for lunch? I’d suggest our first agenda item be ‘Am I acting weird toward you since this discussion?’ and ‘Has the behavior stopped from my perspective?’ What do you say?” This candid, sincere, and respectful request was accepted. And when it was, this skilled woman gained four weeks of clear accountability. The behavior stopped.

If you find yourself in a conversation where you’re worried about backsliding, never walk away without agreeing on the follow-up time.

Micromanagement or Abandonment

How frequently you follow up with another person depends on that person’s record and the nature of the task. How your actions will be viewed by others depends on your attitude and objective. When it comes to following up, ask yourself, “What am I really trying to accomplish?” If you don’t trust others, your follow-up methods are likely to be seen as audits (“gotcha!”), and nobody likes an audit.

When people feel as if they’re being watched too closely, they tend to transmute into “good soldiers.” “Just tell me what to do and I’ll do it.” They check their brains at the door. They perceive follow-up as criticism. They feel that they are working for a micromanager and are given no chance to show initiative or creativity. In short, the relationship they have with their boss is not based on trust and respect.

Unfortunately, the sense of abandonment people experience at the other end of the follow-up continuum may cause just as many problems. Cutting people loose is certainly more common in today’s world of empowerment. Leaders don’t want to micromanage. They’ve felt it, they hate it, and they don’t want to deliver it. Micromanaging is bad, and so leaders scarcely follow up at all. Good goal, bad strategy.

Other factors also contribute to an excessively hands-off style. Many leaders (and parents) don’t believe they have time to follow up. They give a great deal of freedom to others, even to people who have been fairly unreliable. Nowadays people in authority spend so much time traveling, answering e-mail and text messages, and sitting in meetings that they don’t even notice that they don’t follow up very often.

Unfortunately, this hands-off style is rarely interpreted positively. People don’t say, “I understand. The boss is so busy that he can hardly find time to follow up.” More often than not, employees conclude, “The boss doesn’t care about me or my project.” Busy parents suffer the same fate. Busyness is interpreted as apathy, and this harms both the relationship and the results.

When it comes to how and when you follow up with others, your intentions will have a huge impact.

How about you? If you think you may be at risk of being seen as a person who micromanages or who is too hands-off, check it out. When making an assignment, describe the type of follow-up you think is appropriate. Explain why and be candid about your reasoning. Then sincerely ask if the other person agrees with the method. When you both agree on the frequency and type of follow-up and you both know it, you won’t be left wondering if you are being perceived as too hands-off or too hands-on.

Two Forms of Follow-Up: Checkup and Checkback

Who initiates the follow-up discussion? Does the person giving the assignment always take the lead, or are there times when the person taking the assignment follows up? Do a checkup when you’re giving the assignment and are nervous or have questions. You’ve looked at the risk, the track record, and the person’s experience, and you’re feeling anxious or uneasy, even tense. This is the time to use a checkup. You take the lead. Get your calendar out. Say something like the following: “Since this is such an important task, I’m wondering if we could meet next Wednesday at 10 to review how it’s going.” You write it down. You are in charge of the follow-up.

The fact that you’re taking the lead doesn’t mean that you are micromanaging. It means that you own the follow-up. It can and certainly should mean that you’re interested in how the task went, what worked, and what got in the way. If the task is risky enough, the follow-up should be scheduled along the way to make sure that all is going well and that you are available to provide help or coach.

Use a checkback when the task is routine and has been assigned to someone who is experienced and reliable. Now that person is in charge. That person checks back. He or she offers suggestions: “How about we follow up at our next scheduled meeting?” or “The deadline is two weeks from today. Could we meet next Thursday 15 minutes before our staff meeting to touch base?”

To achieve the results you want as well as maintain healthy relationships, both checkups and checkbacks can be useful forms of follow-up.

Take Time to Summarize

A planning discussion can be fairly complex and fast-paced, causing us to forget things. Take the time to summarize what’s supposed to go down. It could sound something like this:

“Let me see if I got this right. Bill, you’ll get the nine copies of the report, stapled with a standard company cover sheet, for the meeting Tuesday at 2 p.m. And you’ll check back with me before noon that day if you see any problem. Is that right?”

“Right.”

“Can you see anything else that we haven’t talked about that might cause a problem?”

When you ask for the other person’s input, it can help bring to light issues that might otherwise cause problems. However, the real power of this question goes far beyond clarifying understanding. You’re checking for commitment. When the other person eventually says, “I’ll do it,” that person is much more likely to live up to the agreement. Never walk away from a conversation satisfied with a vague nod. If you care about gaining genuine commitment, give the other person the opportunity to say yes to a very specific plan.

First you set a follow-up time:

• Should it be formal? Should it be casual?

• Should it be a checkup or a checkback?

• Should it be based on the calendar or on a critical event?

That’s the thinking you do up front. Next comes the actual act of following up. Guess what: The biggest problem with following up is not that we do it too often despite the fact that many of us have felt micromanaged from time to time. The biggest problem is that we don’t follow up at all. We set plans, create follow-up dates, and then sort of let them drop. How could that happen?

People Forget

Our first problem is that we tend to forget. Life is so fast-paced, full, and busy, we can’t keep all the balls in the air at the same time. How are we ever going to remember to follow up on all the promises that other people make? Or that we make? The answer is that we can’t, at least not without help. To keep your promises in front of you, do the following:

• Put follow-up dates and times on your calendar.

• Use sticky notes or computer cues to remind yourself.

• Put follow-up times on your agendas.

Reminding yourself to do what is effective is essential in busy environments and times. Families tend to be particularly bad at this. How many people use computers and other electronic devices when giving assignments to children or loved ones? To most of us that would seem cold and too businesslike: “Dad, I’m your daughter, not an employee.” Nevertheless, the times are changing. Find methods, electronic or other.

People Worry

Another reason people frequently fail to follow up on commitments is that they want to be seen as nice. As one interviews people in organizations all over the world, it’s interesting how frequently the word nice comes up. Question: How would you describe your organization’s culture? Response: Nice. In this case, the word has switched meanings from “pleasant” to “diseaselike.”

Nice

adj. A pleasant, nonconfrontational attitude that eventually kills you.

People want to feel at ease, not stressed. Holding others accountable, particularly if you have to be honest, is stressful. So individuals rationalize and choose niceness over following up. It’s not a sellout; backing off is the right thing to do.

Of course, you can believe this semitortured logic only if you believe that being honest and holding people to their promises are inherently stressful and bad. Throughout this book we’ve tried to make the point that people who are good at accountability are both candid and courteous. They are honest but not “brutally honest.” You can follow up with people and be a decent human being. In fact, the converse is also true: if you don’t follow up, you’re being unkind to everyone. Allowing failure eventually destroys results and relationships.

The tools taught in the preceding chapters are designed to help us be candid and nice, get results and be nice, and follow up and be nice. The scripts you can use for following up are both easy and safe. When you follow up, you ask, “How’s the Southland project going?” or “We scheduled a follow-up on budget improvements. How’s it going?” The purpose of the follow-up is to see what the current status is, how things went, what worked, and what didn’t. The intention is to be helpful and supportive.

Agree on a Plan

We’ve come to the final element of our skill set. We’ve done all we can to create safety, and now it’s time to Move to Action. First we agree on a plan and follow-up method. Then we actually follow up.

• If we don’t end an accountability discussion well, we’ll have wasted our time and, worse still, are very likely to disappoint people and create unnecessary anxiety. Assignments will drop through the cracks.

• To end well, become an expert at creating a specific plan that includes who will do what by when. Make sure each person is clearly identified with a responsibility. Make sure the what is clearly understood. Call for questions and use Contrasting where necessary.

• Ensure that your plan contains the right and agreed-upon method of following up. The less skilled the person, the spottier his or her history; and the higher the risk, the more frequently you’ll follow up. Candidly talk about your follow-up methods.

• Finally, follow up. If things don’t go well, step up to the new accountability discussion.

8 Put It All Together How to Solve Big, Sticky, Complicated Problems

Welcome those big, sticky, complicated problems. In them are your most powerful opportunities.

— RALPH MARSTON

Now that we’ve built our entire skill set, let’s quickly review each step we covered and then see what the skills look like when applied to a rather big, sticky, complicated problem. This will help us see how a real person during a real conversation might pick and choose from the toolbox of skills we’ve been building so carefully. Not all the skills will be needed all the time, and so we must have a way of thinking about which skills apply and when and where.

Choose What and If

• What. Ask yourself what you really want. You can talk about the content, the pattern, or the relationship. To stay focused, ask what you really want.

• If. Are you talking yourself out of an accountability discussion? Don’t let fear substitute for reason. Think carefully not just about the risks of having the conversation but also about the risks of not having it.

Master My Stories

Instead of assuming the worst and then acting in ways that confirm your story, stop and tell the rest of the story. Ask: “Why would a reasonable person not do what he or she promised?” “What role might I have played?” When you see the other person as a human being rather than a villain, you’re ready to begin.

Describe the Gap

Make it safe by starting with the facts and describing the gap between what was expected and what was observed. Tentatively share your story only after you’ve shared your facts. End with a question to help diagnose.

Make It Motivating and Easy

After you’ve paused to diagnose, listen for motivation and ability. Remember, you rarely need power. In fact, power puts you at risk. Instead, make it motivating and make it easy. To do that, explore the six sources of influence. Remember to consider social and structural sources of influence.

Agree on a Plan and Follow Up

Remember who does what by when and then follow up. This idea is simple and serves as its own reminder. Then ask to make sure you’re not leaving out any details or missing any possible barriers.

Stay Focused and Flexible

As other issues come up, don’t meander; consciously choose whether to change the conversation to the new issue. Weigh the new infraction. If it’s more serious or time sensitive, deal with it. If it is not, don’t get sidetracked.

Let’s see how all these steps apply to an extended example.

For the last six months, Ricky has avoided discussing a potential problem with his wife, Elena, because he’s worried that he may be at fault. His first wife had cheated on him for a full year before he figured out what was going on. That had rocked him to the core. Not only was he devastated by her infidelity; he reeled at his own inability to spot the early-warning signs of something as serious as adultery.

Ricky was slow to enter another long-term relationship: once bitten, twice shy. That explains why he dated Elena, a friend from church, for four years before convincing himself that his first marriage was a fluke and that Elena was unlike his first wife. Then he took the plunge. After three years of marriage to Elena, Ricky fell into a running debate, constantly bickering — with himself. He began to see signs that maybe something bad, even hideous, was going on behind his back, but he wasn’t sure if Elena was acting inappropriately or if he was being unnecessarily suspicious. Thus, Ricky remained silent.

Clearly, Elena had changed. She appeared to be more secretive about her e-mail, quickly exiting from it when he entered their home office. She took more phone calls out of the room than ever before. As Elena successfully explained those behaviors (it was job related and thus uninteresting), a third issue drove Ricky’s internal debate to new heights. Elena had begun working a great deal more overtime. This had happened off and on throughout their relationship. But what made extended hours more troubling lately was that her new supervisor was an ex-boyfriend, and some of the late-night work was with him.

Let’s walk through this delicate conversation with Ricky. Read the following sections carefully. Two times he’ll have to step out of the conversation and restore safety.

Should He Confront the Gap?

Ricky became crystal clear about the need to have a conversation with Elena when he realized how he and Elena were acting out rather than talking out their problems. His concerns were showing up in a subtle cooling toward Elena. Sensing his withdrawal, she punished him by withdrawing into work. As Ricky considered the clear effect of the absence of conversation on their relationship, he was suddenly certain that he needed to say something. Silence wasn’t helping.

What Does He Really Want?

As Ricky thinks about it, he determines that what he really wants is a loving, warm, and enduring relationship with Elena. He doesn’t want to accuse her of infidelity and drive a bigger wedge into a struggling relationship. What he should do is discuss what is absolutely true: he is worried about their relationship, both about her loyalty and about his paranoia. This is the topic he chooses to address. Asking what he really wants helps him clarify the issue and avoid spiraling into defensive emotions.

Tell the Rest of the Story

Ricky’s first challenge is his own mental state. He strongly suspects that Elena is cheating on him. He’s almost certain of it. Furthermore, he is certain that if she is being unfaithful, she will lie to cover it up. That’s what happened in his first marriage. It’s what guilty people do. Because Ricky is so certain that Elena will lie, his natural tendency is to charge in with an accusation, hoping to startle her into revealing something. He’ll be able to tell what’s really going on by her reaction.

To take control of his emotions, Ricky examines his story. He vigorously attempts to generate alternative explanations for Elena’s current behavior. He tells the rest of the story. He does his best to determine why a reasonable, rational, and decent person might do what she’s doing. What influences could explain those behaviors beyond the fact that she’s a lying cheat? Here are a few of the other factors Ricky considers as he contemplates all six sources of influence:

• Ricky knows that Elena has a strong desire to succeed. She is climbing the ladder at work and is willing to pay the price.

• She may be avoiding talking to him because she worries about having an ugly confrontation.

• He clearly is contributing. He has taken to making sarcastic comments about the time she spends with her boss. He has been much less affectionate lately. Of course she finds less joy in being around him.

• Elena has seemed especially anxious about their expenses. That could be showing up in her acceptance of more overtime.

• Their work schedules are keeping them from spending much time together. That can’t be helping.

As Ricky explores alternative explanations, something profound happens to him: he calms down. Of course, he’s careful to not let this line of reasoning talk him into blaming himself or withdrawing from the conversation. His goal is simply to balance the “lying, cheating” story with other possibilities. He wants to be able to enter the conversation without adrenaline coursing through his veins, turning him into a slavering moron. The effect of this is significant. The new story creates a sense of curiosity and compassion. He begins to hold his suspicions more tentatively. He still wants to talk but is less inclined to become emotional and leap in with an accusation.

Ricky worries that anything he says about a possible affair is likely to make Elena nervous, and so he decides to start by making it safe. He does that by using his two safety tools: he establishes Mutual Purpose by talking about common ground, and he uses Contrasting to clarify any possible misunderstandings.

Establish Mutual Purpose and Use Contrasting

Here’s how Ricky begins the conversation:

RICKY: I have some concerns I’d like to discuss. My worry in raising them is that it’ll sound like an accusation, and I don’t want that. I notice these concerns are affecting our relationship, and I don’t want us to feel distant from each other. I think if we could work this out, it would help us get back to how things were until a few months ago. Would that be all right?

ELENA: Works for me. What’s been bugging you?

Once Ricky has done his best to create a safe climate, he tries to describe the gap by starting with the facts and ending with a question. This is how he proceeds:

RICKY: Well, stay with me for a minute here; this’ll take a little telling. (He continues by describing some of the behaviors he saw in his ex-wife and some he is seeing in Elena. As he starts to ask Elena for her point of view, she cuts him off.)

ELENA: I can’t believe what I’m hearing. Are you accusing me of cheating on you? You’re so paranoid; this just can’t work. (She starts to leave.)

Obviously, Elena is acting as if she’s still feeling unsafe. Ricky will have to continue using his safety skills: reestablishing Mutual Purpose and using Contrasting. Here is how the conversation proceeds.

RICKY: Elena, I know it might sound paranoid. To be truthful, I don’t know what’s going on. As I’ve thought about it, I don’t think you’re cheating, and I’m sorry to make it sound that way. But I’m seeing enough similarities that I can’t not worry. I need to talk this through both to find out what’s really going on and to find a way to keep my concerns from getting in the way of our relationship. I don’t mean to be offensive, but not talking about it won’t work for me. Can we please talk?

ELENA: I’ll try. This is pretty hard to listen to.

Once Ricky has done his best to create a safe climate, he finishes the opening lines by asking a question to help diagnose the root causes of the problem.

RICKY: Can you see how the behaviors I described would lead someone to worry?

ELENA: I suppose. But you don’t need to. (Elena obviously has calmed down and appears ready to discuss the issues honestly.)

RICKY: Well, I’d like to hear how you view what’s been going on.

EASY Explore the Six Sources of Influence

Ricky tries to understand why Elena is spending less time with him and more time at work with her ex-boyfriend. Here’s what he learns:

• Elena has never owed as much money as they currently owe. Her father spent a great deal of time unemployed, and she’s anxious about getting behind on their mortgage.

• She didn’t want to bring up the money issue with Ricky because she was afraid that she didn’t know how to have the conversation without offending him.

• Elena is having a very difficult time working for her boss (her ex-boyfriend) because he seems to be punishing her for breaking up with him by being hypercritical of her work. Plus he’s not giving her all the resources she needs.

• Most late nights Elena isn’t working with him; she works with her team. She’s hoping to feel more secure in her job by overperforming.

• She’s been less affectionate with Ricky because she’s stressed and tired and because she’s noticed his withdrawal.

Ricky and Elena jointly brainstorm solutions that might work. For example, perhaps her financial anxiety would lessen if they dropped their club membership and returned an expensive leased car so that they could start putting away money for a rainy day. She could also look more aggressively at transferring into a less stressful boss-subordinate situation.

As the conversation continues, Elena makes the following sarcastic comment and then goes quiet:

ELENA: I guess I can do all the sacrificing again.

Don’t Meander; Choose

Ricky recognizes the new issue and decides to discuss it. It would appear that Elena feels she’s being asked to do more than he is doing, and he wants to explore this point.

RICKY: You’re the one who had to make all the accommodations when we first moved here. I didn’t realize that was an issue for you. How about if we talk about that and then return to the other topic?

ELENA: I expected you to give up some of your ambitions too. It’s been disappointing that you could just let me do all the giving while you do all the taking.

Decide Who Does What by When and Follow Up

After talking for quite some time, working through some issues, and jointly exploring solutions, they agree on some changes they’ll make, clarifying exactly what each person will do and by when. Then Ricky suggests that they talk about it again at the end of the next week and see how things are working both with his worries and with her feelings of not being supported.

And so there you have it — all the skills applied to a single problem. And here’s the good news: it reflects how you and other accountability experts behave on your best days.

A rocket scientist contemplates talking to her boss about a potential safety problem with a new propellant but chooses not to say a word because she figures that it’ll just get her into trouble. For months on end she walks around in a funk, wondering if something horrible will happen. A nurse wonders about making a suggestion to a doctor that could affect a patient’s health but holds his tongue rather than incur the physician’s wrath. As this unspoken interaction continues, he too lives in a cocoon of worry and doubt. A husband chooses not to question his wife about her suspicious behavior and then lives with the haunting possibility that she may be having an affair.

And so we’re back where we started — living the tortured life of the silent majority. We routinely refuse to step up to bad behaviors — despite the fact that they’re causing us horrific pain — because we figure that it’s better to suffer in the current circumstances than run the risk of saying something dangerous or stupid. It’s the same old mental math problem. Here’s the formula: if we speak up, we could fail. We also might do nothing to solve the problem. In fact, we could create even worse problems for ourselves. We do the calculations, and the answer that pops into our head is “H-O-L-D Y-O-U-R T-O-N-G-U-E.”

But not forever. We suppress our gripes until one day our dark side shows itself. Our ugly stories create a brew that eventually fuels us with enough energy to take scary actions and dumbs us down enough so that we think that what we’re about to do is okay, even the right thing to do.

And so we alternate between silence and violence. First we think, “I can’t believe I just said that,” and so we shut down. Then we think, “I’m not taking this abuse any longer,” and so we fire up. This unhealthy cycle might be best described as the social version of quantum mechanics. We jump all the way from silence to violence without ever passing through the intervening space separating the two. We don’t pause in the land of crucial accountability, where we converse about violated expectations in a way that eventually solves the problem and improves on the relationship. To us, the lovely place where ideas flow freely and honesty rules doesn’t exist. Here’s the interesting part: neither silence nor violence serves us, our relationships, or our purposes, and yet we still toggle.

The solution to this reaction to violated promises lies in our ability to step up to high-stakes accountability discussions and handle them well. We see a problem and speak honestly and respectfully. But far more frequently than most of us are willing to admit (like the rocket scientist, the nurse, and the husband), we don’t say a word because we don’t know how to handle the conversation, or we fear that we don’t know how. We’re not bad people. We’re just frightened. And we’re not frightened because we are inherently skittish; we’re frightened because we believe failure looms on the horizon. Or so we think.

If only one message emerges from this book, it should be the following: you can step up to a broken promise and handle the conversation well. You already do that on your best days. And when you can take it no longer, you try to do it on your worst days. Now that you have a systematic way to think about accountability discussions and are armed with skills that really work, more days can be your best days.

Equally important, when it comes to holding big, sticky, complicated conversations, you don’t have to leap out of a plane without a parachute. Nobody’s asking you to take a terrible and irreversible risk. Here’s why. The first two skills, “choose if and what” and “master my stories,” take place in the confines (and safety) of your own head. By stepping up to problems that should be handled and picking the right one, you’re ensuring that your effort is worthwhile. By doing your best to keep your emotions under control, you’re taking an important step toward acting rationally and reducing resistance and defensiveness. Once again, this is all done before you say a single word. No risk there. Also, these actions alone keep you from charging in and ruining the conversation with your first sentence. This alone doubles your chances of success.

You then move from thinking to talking by discreetly and calmly describing the gap. This is the first time you’re exposing yourself to any risk whatsoever. But you’re doing your best to describe behaviors, not share ugly conclusions. You’re a scientist, not a critic or judge. This humanistic approach helps keep the conversation professional and objective.

Now, after sharing one sentence or possibly two, you end with a question, not an accusation. You’re not three sentences into the conversation, and you’ve paused to listen to the other person. This too minimizes the risk. You’ve observed some things, and you’re wondering what’s really going on. What’s the other person’s view?

What if the other person takes offense or maybe even becomes angry and abusive? You can stop and deal with the new problem, or if you’re feeling befuddled, you can always take a strategic delay. Back off and take time to rethink your approach. This is a conversation, not a gauntlet. It has exit points.

Let’s say the other person responds favorably. He or she doesn’t explode or become offended, but merely explains what’s happening. He or she is either unable or unmotivated to keep the broken commitment. Or maybe both. That’s it.

Consider motivation. This isn’t particularly dangerous either. You’re not trying to motivate others. You’re not trying to figure out how to generate enough power to force others to comply. Best of all, you’re not trying to change underlying, immutable personalities. Your job is simply to make it motivating.

To do this, you jointly explore the forces that cause the task to be motivating or not motivating. This requires you to do nothing more than share natural consequences and listen for the other person to share any additional consequences you may not be aware of. You don’t have to pummel people into submission. You may even choose to back off from your original request if it becomes clear that continuing on the original course doesn’t make sense. You too can be influenced. When it comes to motivation, you’re relying on dialogue, not diatribe.

What if the person isn’t able? Once again, your job isn’t to force others to do the impossible. By definition, that can’t be done. Your job isn’t even to force others to do the difficult, not over the long run at least. Your job is to make it easy. How risky is that? Jointly examine forces that are serving as barriers. Jointly come up with resolutions.

It’s little wonder that our friend Melissa at the manufacturing plant and the thousands of other positive deviants we studied step up so willingly to accountability discussions. They do this not because they are more courageous than the rest of us but because they are more skilled. They carry different math into the interaction — math that propels them into a virtuous cycle. Their skills lead to success, their success to confidence, and their confidence into trying even more skills, and the cycle continues.

How about you? Are you ready not to rumble? Are you ready to hold an accountability discussion that has been keeping you from something you really care about? To give your skill set a final boost, turn to the next chapter, where we look at the ins and outs of several interactions that are both common and challenging. They are the high-stakes conversations that people tend to worry about the most.

9 The 12 “Yeah-Buts” How to Deal with the Truly Tough

There are no exceptions to the rule that everybody likes to be an exception to the rule.

— CHARLES OSGOOD

As we’ve trained this material over the last two decades, we’ve grown accustomed to people saying, “Yeah, but my situation is really tough. These skills will never work for me.” At first we thought those people were being belligerent (particularly when they threw in words like bonehead and hayseed), but in most cases the concerned participants were only trying to imagine how the skills applied to their world — their toughest world. If the skills could help with their worst-case scenarios, they stood to gain a lot. All they really wanted to do was dive deeper into areas that deserved careful attention. They raised the “yeah-buts” because they were being thoughtful and reflective, in some cases highly reflective.

And so with apologies to the late Stephen R. Covey, a renowned scholar and dear friend, we bring you the seven “yeah-buts” of highly reflective people. And then we add five more, just for good measure.

“YEAH, BUT…

I’M STILL NERVOUS ABOUT stepping up to my boss and openly disagreeing or perhaps even confronting her for not following procedure or causing me problems. I could pay dearly and for the rest of my life.”

When it comes to talking about poor performance — and the stakes are high — people tend to err on the side of caution: better to live with your existing circumstances than try to take corrective action, fail, and end up losing twice. You’re left with the same bad circumstances because nothing has changed, and now the person who holds all the marbles is really upset with you and soon will exact revenge. This isn’t merely a problem involving the hierarchy. It could happen with a close confidant or a loved one as well. Loved ones won’t fire you from your job, but they can fire you from the relationship, and that can be even more painful.

Before we offer some advice, let’s be clear about something. Over the years we have seen bosses who appeared to be narcissistic or authoritarian to the core. Their very purpose appeared to be to stay in absolute control, and anything that threatened that purpose was a threat to them.

In these cases all bets are off. Anything short of groveling will be insufficient. In these cases you have a tough choice to make. You need to choose between coping and cutting out (more on this later).

With that said, we need to be clear about a second point. There are far fewer of these kinds of bosses around than you’d guess from people’s complaints. Ninety percent of your boss’s defensiveness is largely avoidable. We know because we’ve seen highly skilled individuals approach people who others thought were clinically controlling and succeed.

Here’s the bottom line. The people we watched get through to the toughest bosses differed in soul as much as they differed in skill. They were masters at helping their bosses feel safe because they were masters at seeing problems from their bosses’ point of view. It was easy for them to create Mutual Purpose because they spent as much time contemplating how the problem behavior they were about to discuss was creating problems for the boss as they did fretting about the problems it was creating for them. They were incredibly effective at making it motivating for the boss because they had thought deeply about the natural consequences of the boss’s behavior — on the boss. It’s little wonder that the boss welcomed their empowering insight.

Although we don’t want to excuse self-centered bosses for their impatience and defensiveness, we do want to suggest that if in reaction to their selfishness we become similarly self-absorbed, we’ll never have the insight and compassion we need to succeed. We’ll never be able to create enough safety to dissolve the boss’s defenses. Our well-intended conversations will be crushed by the weight of selfishness.

This is not a “blame-the-victim” speech. It is about empowering the weak. If you want greater influence with a powerful and defensive person, what you typically need is not more power but more empathy. What you need is not a bigger hammer but a bigger heart. If you can step away from yourself and consider how the problem behavior is affecting the other person as well as how it’s affecting you, you’ll have a greater capacity to produce better outcomes for both of you. Besides, people never hammer their bosses without hammering themselves as well.

Let’s get back to choosing between coping and cutting out. When another person is acting in ways that bother you, you have four options. You can carp, converse, cope, or cut out. Carping is the one bad option in this list. You don’t really resolve the problem, you hang around and complain, and nothing gets better. Unfortunately, if you complain and moan enough, you harm your own health, not to mention what you’re doing to everyone else.

Conversing is your best choice for resolving the issue while building on the relationship. That’s what this book has been saying. Coping requires a bit of an explanation. You’ve done your best to converse respectfully and resolve the problem, but you’ve been unsuccessful. In fact, you’ve given up any hope of being successful. Now you can either cope or cut out. Cutting out is obvious. Half of all couples choose this option, and millions of people quit their jobs every year. Coping, in contrast, means that you’ve decided that the issue isn’t big enough to justify ending the relationship. You’re not going to divorce your spouse or quit your job, nor are you going to sit around and carp.

To cope properly, you must tell yourself the rest of the story. Most people are reasonable, rational, and decent. You haven’t been able to work through your differences because rational people have come to different and reasonable conclusions. Your boss isn’t an authoritarian moron; she’s just trying to make sure that her point of view is taken into consideration. Your husband isn’t a selfish idiot; he just forgets to put down the toilet seat in the middle of the night. Forgetting makes him human, not insensitive and uncaring. To cope, you tell the rest of the story and believe it.

Healthy people don’t fake coping. They don’t hang around and moan, and groan, and complain, and nag, and play “ain’t it awful,” and wallow in self-pity, and bad-mouth everyone in the known universe, and talk endlessly about being the “big person” who has found a way to show tolerance — and then have the nerve to say that they’re coping. No, that is carping, not coping, and carping is the bad option.

“YEAH, BUT…

THE PEOPLE I WORK with are perfectly comfortable violating standards and turning a blind eye to rules. I usually don’t say anything because I don’t want to be the odd person out. It’s not like you can take on the world all by yourself.”

When you choose to violate a standard practice, depending on the severity of the violation, you’re exposing yourself and others to a whole range of risks. For instance, say you’re a healthcare specialist watching a doctor go into a sterile area with very sick babies, and he begins to examine them without gloves or a mask. This violation of protocol can lead to infections. Or you’re an accountant watching colleagues willfully disobey standard practices to satisfy a customer. This could misinform investors and land you in jail. Or you’re an employee watching everyone violate a safety procedure, and nobody says anything because everyone is in a hurry to meet an important deadline.

In each of these cases, you feel as if you’re in one of Solomon Asch’s conformity studies in which everyone before you says that two obviously different lines are identical and now it’s your turn to speak up. Do you do what you think is right and take on your entire work group, or do you go with the flow?

The reason you’re unwilling to say anything is probably that what you’re about to say isn’t very pretty. In your view, people are doing what is easy rather than what is right, and in fact they may be doing exactly that. Nevertheless, if you lead with this unsubstantiated accusation, it’s not going to go down well:

“Hey, are we going to follow the regulations on this, or are we just going to sell out and run the risk of killing some people?”

As satisfying as this patronizing attack may feel, it’s not going to be well received. People may comply, but you’ve just driven a huge wedge into the relationship. Tell yourself a different story. Maybe others know something you don’t know. Maybe they’re feeling pressured just as you are. Maybe you just don’t know all the facts. Who knows what they’re thinking?

One thing is for certain: Seeing yourself as the only one with a conscience or a backbone and then acting on that story is sure to make you come across as self-righteous. It’s surely going to provoke other people’s resentment and resistance. How could it not? Change your story, and your behavior will change along with it. Ask yourself why reasonable, rational, and decent people are doing what they’re doing.

Open the conversation by acknowledging the competing motivations, and do it in a way that humanizes those who might be leaning in the wrong direction:

“I know it’s inconvenient to suit up for quick and unobtrusive exams.”

Then use a Contrasting statement to eliminate a possible misunderstanding:

“I don’t want this to come off as an accusation; it’s an honest question. Aren’t we supposed to[fill in the blank], or are there circumstances I’m unaware of?”

These simple sentences take the pressure off you. You don’t have to be the police. You don’t have to be moral or ethical or stronger willed. You don’t even have to be right. You just have to be curious, and that’s a good thing.

If people could find a way to use these simple techniques every time they feel peer pressure to do what they know is wrong, they could save millions of dollars, thousands of lives, and countless other forms of suffering.

“YEAH, BUT…

MY SPOUSE NEVER wants to talk about anything. I experience a problem with him, and he tells me not to worry or not now or I’ve got it all wrong, or he just turns back to the TV and says he’ll get back to me later. But he never does.”

When relationship researchers asked newlywed couples to talk about a topic that typically leads to an argument, they notice a common pattern among the couples who later ended up divorcing. Not only do those couples use poor techniques when trying to discuss a controversial topic, more often than not one of them tries to work through the issue to its resolution while the other tries to escape.

The fact that one of the pair wants to talk while the other prefers not to is the common pattern in strained relationships. Not only can’t people talk well, but one cuts off any avenue of resolution, and matters only get worse. This is a big deal.

If ever there was a pattern that needs to be confronted, this is it. Any single instance may not seem like that big of a deal, but over time the pattern is killing the relationship. So talk about the pattern.

First, ask if it would be okay to talk about an issue because you think that doing that would strengthen your relationship. You want to be able to talk more openly and freely about problems; your spouse seems to prefer to remain quiet. This is the problem. Fight your natural proclivity to focus on the other person. Instead, acknowledge any complaints the other person may have about what you may be doing to drive him or her to silence. Hint: When people move to silence, it’s typically because they feel verbally outgunned. If that’s the case with you, acknowledge that sometimes you guilt-trip or dominate or hound the other person until he or she succumbs. You want to change this.

When you frame the conversation as an opportunity to solve problems that the other person cares about and acknowledge some of the things you’ve done that might be contributing to the problem, you’re creating safety. This, of course, is always the best place to start.

With that done, don’t demand that the conversation happen now. Set aside a time to talk. The other person gets to pick when. One of the reasons high-stakes conversations often get sidelined is that the other person isn’t emotionally up to it. He or she arrives home from a trip, you’ve been musing for days, and bang, before he or she can catch a breath, a huge issue needs to be resolved. Choose your time carefully. You’re going to be talking about a longtime pattern. This topic isn’t time sensitive.

When you do converse, share your concerns along with your tentative conclusion that he or she may be purposely avoiding key problem-solving discussions. Don’t make this an accusation. Share two or three quick examples and then suggest that this is what is going on. Then prime. Is it because the conversations often don’t go well? Is there a way to make sure that they don’t end up as arguments? Is there something you can do to make sure that they run more smoothly? Make it safe for the other person to explain why he or she thinks it isn’t safe.

Jointly brainstorm things you can do to make sure that you’re both comfortable holding relationship conversations. Is your timing wrong? Are you waiting too long and then getting angry? Stick with the brainstorming until you’ve brought barriers to the surface and found ways to remove most of them. Make this conversational. Lovingly try to resolve the issue. Don’t try to “fix” the other person.

“YEAH, BUT…

WHAT DO YOU DO when you don’t actually see the problem? Coworkers complain endlessly, saying things like ‘He’s impossible to work with,’ ‘He can’t be trusted,’ and ‘He never listens to feedback.’ How do you handle hearsay?”

When people consistently complain to you about a specific employee, you face an interesting challenge. How do you share hearsay? If others are not willing to talk to the person themselves or own up to the negative feedback, you have no right to talk with that person on the basis of secondhand information. That would be both unfair and unhelpful. You’re not close enough to the problem to share detailed feedback, and so you end up making general complaints that leave the person upset and confused.

Naturally, if employees complain about something that is dangerous or illegal, you need to consult with human resources immediately.

Master your own story. Refuse to accept other people’s gossip as fact until you gather firsthand information. When you adopt other people’s stories about someone as your own, you surrender control. Observe the bad behavior on your own. Then you can describe it in detail. More important, you can own the story as well. Rather than coming off as a messenger or having to apologize for what others think, you can address the problem head on. People deserve to face their accusers. They also deserve specific, detailed feedback. Anything short of this is unhelpful and unfair. And who knows? As you gather your own data, you may end up with a story different from the one that others attempted to induce you to believe.

The family version of this problem revolves around the ever-present “tattletale.” The same principles apply. Unless safety is at risk, gather data on your own. Carry your own message.

“YEAH, BUT…

WHAT IF THE FEEDBACK you want to give could crush the other person? I’ve got an employee who thinks she’s the world’s best writer. She’s always begging to compose letters. The truth is that her writing stinks. I don’t have the heart to say anything.”

Most people would rather take a blow to the head than say something that could devastate another person. Telling people that they are incompetent at something they take pride in certainly falls into this category. Bosses often go for years letting people think they’re doing a good job when they’re not. Then they either make up for the poor job themselves (doing a work-around) or learn to live with substandard work. Both alternatives are unacceptable.

If you’ve allowed a person to operate under the illusion of competency for quite some time, you really aren’t in a position to judge whether that person is truly incompetent. You’ve never held him or her accountable. Begin having accountability discussions about single areas that could use some improvement. Express your appreciation for the person’s willingness. This is something you can praise. Then explain that there is one thing you’d like to see improve. You want to see him or her take the quality in the area you’ve selected to the next level. Provide clear, direct, and detailed feedback about that area alone. Don’t talk about problems per se; talk about setting new standards.

Once the person has improved in that area, pick another problem and work on it. Over time, if the person hasn’t been able to improve, and since you’ve consistently and respectfully held the content conversations and worked to test your assumption about whether he or she is truly incapable of mastering the skill, you will have earned the right to have the larger relationship conversation.

“YEAH, BUT…

WHAT IF A PERSON is totally out of line most of the time but threatens to file a grievance if you confront him? And the worst of it is that because of his special circumstances, he’d probably win. Then what?”

It’s shocking to learn how many companies are stuck with one or more really unproductive employees who hold leaders hostage. Those employees have no interest in doing their jobs, fight legitimate work at every turn, make life miserable for everyone, and have cowed the supervisor. They rattle the saber of litigation, or they imply that they’ll take it all the way to the top or that they have dirt on someone. Outsiders routinely ask, “Why is that person still working here?”

Resolve to hold the employee accountable. Meet with human resources and jointly develop a plan. Select a behavior that is out of line and indefensible. If necessary, clarify your standards regarding insubordination, resistance, and poor performance. Inform the employee that the action you’ve selected isn’t acceptable and will no longer be tolerated. Simultaneously assure the employee that your goal is for him or her to succeed.

Describe some of the more poignant and relevant natural consequences of the employee’s current behavior, such as being stuck in boring assignments and being rebuffed by colleagues. Take care to tell the person what will happen if he or she steps over the line. Once again, make sure that the employee knows that this is not what you want to have happen but is a step you will have to take to protect the interests of colleagues and the organization. Document the discussion. Watch the employee closely. Confront the first infraction immediately but respectfully and then start down the path of discipline. Don’t be held hostage.

“YEAH, BUT…

WE’RE MAKING A BREAK with the past. It used to be that people looked the other way when you violated policy, but now we’re supposed to hold people accountable. How do you change the rules in the middle of the game?”

Many organizations are just beginning to ask their employees to step up to a new level of initiative, teamwork, customer service, and so on. Unfortunately, despite leaders’ efforts to bring about change, slogans, buttons, and banners aren’t enough to transform a culture. Calling a group a team doesn’t make it a team.

Telling your children they can no longer walk all over you may not reverse the results of a decade of weak parenting.

You can’t solve longstanding problems if you haven’t let others know exactly what you want. With unclear expectations, you don’t have the right to hold others accountable to violations they may not even be aware of. Confront the past. Without singling anyone out, outline for people the natural consequences of how things have been. For example, you may describe how saying yes to every urgent demand has caused you to have chronically poor quality and terribly costly operations. As you help people connect consequences with past behavior, you build moral authority for resetting expectations.

Illuminate your general vision of how things are going to be in the future with specific, identifiable, and replicable actions. Clarify dos and don’ts. Study best practices. Contrast what people used to do with what they need to do now. Then teach and focus on those specific actions. If you don’t know precisely what you’re looking for, you have no right to expect it. Only after you’ve clarified your new expectation do you have the right to begin having accountability discussions with those who violate the new standards. More than a right, it will then be a responsibility.

“YEAH, BUT…

A WOMAN WHO WORKS for me is always messing up the details. She’s not bad enough to be called incompetent, but she’s so borderline that you always worry about her work.”

When someone is always doing marginal work, it can test your ability to have a clear and specific accountability discussion:

“Okay, it’s not that you didn’t respond to the client; it’s that you didn’t do it in what I would call a prompt fashion and you had a bad attitude when you did respond.”

Taking a vague and stilted position like this can be hard to defend and makes you vulnerable to arguments such as “You’re never satisfied no matter how hard I try.” Now it’s your problem, not the other person’s.

Three factors set those who are adept at dealing with subtle, borderline behavior apart from the rest of the pack: research, homework, and connections.

First, you need to gather data. Have a conversation with the marginal performer about what she likes and doesn’t like about her current work situation. What are her frustrations, aspirations, and concerns? Approach your “research” conversation with a genuine desire to discover underlying barriers and then see if you can find ways to resolve them.

Next, scrupulously gather facts — from memory and observation — that will allow you to describe in illuminating detail the difference between mediocrity and excellence. This is crucial. Most people are so vague about that difference that they end up using the feel-good, mean-nothing terms that typically pepper pregame speeches, such as “Your attitude determines your altitude” and “We need you to give 110 percent.” This advice may make sense to those giving it but only confuses and insults the people who are supposed to change.

Ask yourself, “What actual behaviors can I describe to make this distinction clear?” Here is an example:

“I notice that after finishing a letter, you skim it once and then hit ‘send.’ When it’s going to an external recipient, I’ve found that it helps to take three extra steps: read it aloud to see if you’ve captured what you really want to say, reread it a couple of hours later, and then ask a reliable partner to read it thoroughly.”

You will not succeed at helping other people understand the gap between where they are and the vague objective of excellence unless you do the homework required to make your descriptions crystal clear. Carefully gathering useful facts is the homework required for all accountability discussions.

Finally, connect your homework with your research. Explain how your recommendations will not only resolve others’ concerns but also help them achieve their aspirations. When you can make this link, your influence will increase enormously. If you can show the other person how the changes you’re recommending link to his or her own goals, there’s a good chance that the person will be motivated to learn and grow. If you can’t do that, don’t expect the person to improve.

“YEAH, BUT…

WHERE I WORK OUR biggest problem can’t be discussed in public. We’re constantly given more work than we can manage, and then we have to pretend that we’re going to do everything. If you express your concern aloud, you’re treated like you’re not a team player.”

Here’s a trick for getting people to do things you could never ask them to do without getting in trouble. The various branches of the military have been using this technique for years: they encourage recruits who are a few weeks ahead of the brand-new initiates to abuse their peers in ways that people in official positions of authority could never get away with. People will do things to their coworkers that would land their bosses in the slammer if they did the same things.

This is exactly what organizations do when nobody in authority ever says a word, writes a policy, or publishes a document that calls for an unhealthy workload. Who could do such a thing? Instead, bosses make unrealistic demands and then count on the fact that everybody will sit there and take it. Although it’s true that leaders may use their influence to push people to work insane hours or take on insane workloads, if employees put up with the abuse or watch others put up with it, everyone becomes a party to the problem. It’s a conspiracy of silence.

If new employees speak their minds about issues of work-life balance, they’re acutely aware of the fact that if they say something in public, they aren’t merely questioning the boss; they’re going toe-to-toe with the entire “culture.” And if they take on the culture, they won’t be seen as “team players.”

This is a conversation that has to start with Mutual Purpose. Go straight for the issue of being a team player:

“I’d like to talk about a subject that most people don’t seem comfortable discussing in public. My goal is to make sure that we’re all able to contribute to the company and meet our objectives. I want to be a team player, and I want to understand what that takes.”

Next, blend facts and your tentative conclusions:

“There are times when I feel like we’re taking on assignments with deadlines we know we can’t keep. I know I do. We look around the room, and nobody is saying anything, and so we all smile politely and agree. I get the sense that we’re hoping that others won’t be able to meet their obligations, and then, if they speak up first, we won’t get in trouble for missing our deadlines. It’s like playing chicken. Who will be the first to turn away from the head-on collision of a massive assignment soon to meet an impossible deadline? Could we talk about this subject, or am I the only one who sees it this way?”

At this point you’ll have to explore all the underlying sources that are leading to a culture of impossibility. Don’t point fingers; look for causes. Remember, the world around you has been perfectly organized to create a culture in which smart people are doing stupid things. What are you doing to each other? How many of the issues are structural? What’s going on in the environment that’s forcing people into such unfavorable circumstances?

This is a huge issue. It’s causing more stress with more people than most of us might imagine. As international competition increases and resources continue to be cut, hours increase. The workload goes from doable, to nearly impossible, to a joke. We’re now overworked, stressed, and dishonest.

This is probably a conversation you want to have with several people in private before bringing it up in public. Unlike just about everything we’ve talked about until now, this is not a problem that is solved one-to-one because it’s part of the whole culture. But it is a problem that is best prepared one-to-one. Meet with several colleagues. See if others share your concerns. If they do, ask them to share their honest opinions when you do bring up the issue. Then go public.

“YEAH, BUT…

I KEEP BRINGING UP THE SAME problems over and over, and my spouse and children continue in their old ways. It makes me feel like a nag, and I don’t want to be a nag.”

Nagging is the home version of Groundhog Day. People repeatedly break a commitment. We talk about the original infraction, but we don’t address the bigger issue: they’re continually making commitments and not keeping them.

The second time a person fails to pick up her clothes off the bedroom floor or doesn’t put his dishes in the dishwasher or continues to squeeze the toothpaste in the middle of the tube, you have a new problem: That person has failed to live up to a promise. You are at a crossroads. You can converse about the pattern. You can nag. You can cope.

Toothpaste tubes and dishes in the sink are the stuff nagging is made of: minor infractions, often repeated and often reprimanded. Nobody ever says, “My wife is such a nag. Every time I have an affair with a woman half my age, she makes a big deal about it.” Big issues, often repeated, are ongoing disasters. Little issues, often repeated — that’s nagging. Choose your battles.

If the original issue continues to bother you, talk about the pattern, but only if the original issue is worth it. Sometimes the infraction is just not worth the aggravation. This is a toothpaste tube we’re talking about. Maybe you should expand your zone of acceptance. If you choose to cope, explain to the other person that you’ve decided that it’s not worth arguing about the issue. You would prefer that he or she not squeeze the toothpaste tube in the middle, but you’re not going to bring it up again. Then let it go.

“YEAH, BUT…

I WORK WITH A PERSON who is constantly making mistakes. Every conversation we have is about a problem. I get the feeling that he no longer listens to me. I walk in the room and the guy bristles. How do I problem-solve with a person with whom I have such a one-sided relationship?”

It’s hard to make it safe to talk about performance gaps when you have no relationship with the other person save for the occasional accountability discussion. Like it or not, every relationship has a tipping point. When the majority of your conversations turn into holding an accounting, the other person starts to wait for the other shoe to drop, no matter the topic, no matter your intent. You cease to be a force other than a nag.

Get to know people under less strained circumstances; it matters a great deal. In fact, three separate studies conducted by the authors revealed that the single best predictor of satisfaction with supervision is frequency of interaction. And if your interactions are infrequent and only about problems, you’re really doomed. Every accountability discussion starts off on the wrong foot. Others only hear your position; they never see you as a person.

So go out of your way to create a wider range of interactions. And when you do interact, feel free to let down your business persona and connect at a personal level. The very first leadership study the authors conducted revealed something rather astonishing. When those who were viewed by senior managers as top performers showed outsiders around their work area, they introduced their employees. They bragged about them. They shared interesting tidbits about their children. “Kelvin’s son is at the Naval Academy.” They had obviously talked about a whole host of topics and developed a personal relationship. Bottom performers, in contrast, showed outsiders the equipment and products. They walked right by their people as if they weren’t even there.

So develop more full relationships. Take people to lunch. Don’t have an agenda — just talk. Walk around and casually chat about topics that interest the other person. And when you see “things gone right,” recognize people for doing a good job. Become a whole person, and not just a purveyor of problems. Create a healthier context for solving problems when they do come up.

As far as your family is concerned, if you don’t take a break from your busy schedule and take your teenagers to lunch, with no purpose other than hanging out together, you’ll eventually pass the family tipping point. No matter how wrong they may be or how often they may cause problems — no matter how called-for the conversation — at some point you’ll be seen as little more than an uncaring nag. Your motive will always be suspect. Your ability to have a broader influence by holding meaningful conversations becomes severely limited. So don’t pass the tipping point. The more often others let you down, the harder you’ll have to work to create a well-balanced relationship.

“YEAH, BUT…

THESE ARE LIFELONG PATTERNS we’re talking about. I’m not sure that I or any of the people around me can actually change. Reading is a lot easier than actually acting differently.”

It’s easy to get discouraged when staring into the face of habit. When it comes to human interaction, much of what we do, we do almost without thinking. We follow lifelong scripts: well worn, familiar, and nearly automatic. We lay into our kids with the same ease and lack of thought typical of ordering fast food. We know what we’re going to say, we know what others are going to say, and we don’t even have to think about it. We could play either part.

How do you break away from lifelong habits?

It’s also easy to get discouraged when we know that we tried to make improvements in the past and failed. Ninety percent of those of us who have attempted to lose a few pounds have dropped and then regained the same weight so many times that we no longer believe our own stories: “This time I’m going to keep it off for sure. This time it’s different.” Or maybe it’s been an exercise program that has yielded a different mechanical contraption every year until the garage is bursting with nearly new aerobic ab machines, and yet we still break into a sweat trying to open a jar of pickles. Or perhaps we made a commitment to eating healthier foods but sort of lost steam when we found ourselves stopping at a Fat Burger for a pick-me-up on the way to the health food store.

Accustomed to talking ourselves into short-term action that can’t be sustained, we become cynical self-doubters who are reluctant to start down one more trail we’ll never follow to the end.

So how do we stick to a plan?

The good news is that nothing in this book is new or the least bit alien. The skills we teach weren’t discovered on the planet Krilnack. On your best day you do much of what every interpersonally smart person does. You step up to accountability discussions, work hard to ensure that you don’t fly off the handle or otherwise act stupid, and do a pretty good job. On your best day you are the kind of person the authors were studying when they isolated the best practices for dealing with failed promises.

You don’t have to change everything — just a few things — and maybe be a bit more consistent. Better still, you don’t have to change your underlying, immutable, “I-can’t-help-it-if-I-was-born-this-way” personality. To improve your results, you need to reshape a few of your thoughts and alter a few of your actions. That’s it. There is no need for a full-fledged genetic intervention, and frontal lobotomies are out of the question (save for recreational purposes).

To make this “tweaking of thoughts and words” easier, we have a few suggestions. First, studying this book is best done in pairs. Find one or more other people and share ideas. Develop goals, practice together, and support each other as you step up to new and untested accountability discussions.

Whether you’re working in pairs or alone, pick one skill and work on it. Then do the same thing with another skill. Devote one hour a week for 10 weeks. That’s all it takes to bring about important changes. Set aside a time at home and at work when you will talk about infractions that normally you would leave untouched. Finally, check out the support materials available at http://www.vitalsmarts.com/bookresources. Download the free material. Watch the videos. Sign up for ongoing assistance and reminders. Pick one skill and work on it for a week.

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Was your most pressing question left unanswered? Subscribe to our free weekly e-newsletter and ask your own tough “yeah-but” questions. The authors answer reader’s questions with powerful insights into tough, real-world accountability discussions. Sign up today at http://www.vitalsmarts.com/bookresources.

10 What’s a Crucial Conversation? And Who Cares?

If you enjoyed this book, discover your next great read with the following excerpt.

The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place.

— GEORGE BERNARD SHAW

When people first hear the term “crucial conversation,” many conjure up images of presidents, emperors, and prime ministers seated around a massive table while they debate the future. Although it’s true that such discussions have a wide-sweeping impact, they’re not the kind we have in mind. The crucial conversations we’re referring to are interactions that happen to everyone. They’re the day-to-day conversations that affect your life.

Now, what makes one of your conversations crucial as opposed to plain vanilla? First, opinions vary. For example, you’re talking with your boss about a possible promotion. She thinks you’re not ready; you think you are. Second, stakes are high. You’re in a meeting with four coworkers and you’re trying to pick a new marketing strategy. You’ve got to do something different or your company isn’t going to hit its annual goals. Third, emotions run strong. You’re in the middle of a casual discussion with your spouse and he or she brings up an “ugly incident” that took place at yesterday’s neighborhood block party. Apparently not only did you flirt with someone at the party, but according to your spouse, “You were practically making out.” You don’t remember flirting. You simply remember being polite and friendly. Your spouse walks off in a huff.

And speaking of the block party, at one point you’re making small talk with your somewhat crotchety and always colorful neighbor about his shrinking kidneys when he says, “Speaking of the new fence you’re building. ” From that moment on you end up in a heated debate over placing the new fence — three inches one way or the other. Three inches! He finishes by threatening you with a lawsuit, and you punctuate your points by mentioning that he’s not completely aware of the difference between his hind part and his elbow. Emotions run really strong.

What makes each of these conversations crucial — and not simply challenging, frustrating, frightening, or annoying — is that the results could have a huge impact on the quality of your life. In each case, some element of your daily routine could be forever altered for better or worse. Clearly a promotion could make a big difference. Your company’s success affects you and everyone you work with. Your relationship with your spouse influences every aspect of your life. Even something as trivial as a debate over a property line affects how you get along with your neighbor.

Despite the importance of crucial conversations, we often back away from them because we fear we’ll make matters worse. We’ve become masters at avoiding tough conversations. Coworkers send e-mail to each other when they should walk down the hall and talk turkey. Bosses leave voice mail in lieu of meeting with their direct reports. Family members change the subject when an issue gets too risky. We (the authors) have a friend who learned through a voice-mail message that his wife was divorcing him. We use all kinds of tactics to dodge touchy issues.

Jurassic Sales Call

Author Joseph Grenny takes you inside the VitalSmarts Video Vault and introduces you to Rick, who is training a new sales associate. Watch as the new associate, Michael, causes a scene in front of a client. How would you handle this crucial conversation?

To watch this video, visit www.CrucialConversations.com/exclusive.

But it doesn’t have to be this way. If you know how to handle crucial conversations, you can effectively hold tough conversations about virtually any topic.

Crucial Conversation kr shel kän´ vr sa´ shen) n A discussion between two or more people where (1) stakes are high, (2) opinions vary, and (3) emotions run strong.

Just because we’re in the middle of a crucial conversation (or maybe thinking about stepping up to one) doesn’t mean that we’re in trouble or that we won’t fare well. In truth, when we face crucial conversations, we can do one of three things:

• We can avoid them.

• We can face them and handle them poorly.

• We can face them and handle them well.

That seems simple enough. Walk away from crucial conversations and suffer the consequences. Handle them poorly and suffer the consequences. Or handle them well.

“I don’t know,” you think to yourself. “Given the three choices, I’ll go with handling them well.”

But do we handle them well? When talking turns tough, do we pause, take a deep breath, announce to our innerselves, “Uh-oh, this discussion is crucial. I’d better pay close attention” and then trot out our best behavior? Or when we’re anticipating a potentially dangerous discussion, do we step up to it rather than scamper away? Sometimes. Sometimes we boldly step up to hot topics, monitor our behavior, and offer up our best work. We mind our Ps and Qs. Sometimes we’re just flat-out good.

And then we have the rest of our lives. These are the moments when, for whatever reason, we’re at our absolute worst — we yell; we withdraw; we say things we later regret. When conversations matter the most — that is, when conversations move from casual to crucial — we’re generally on our worst behavior.

Why is that?

We’re designed wrong. When conversations turn from routine to crucial, we’re often in trouble. That’s because emotions don’t exactly prepare us to converse effectively. Countless generations of genetic shaping drive humans to handle crucial conversations with flying fists and fleet feet, not intelligent persuasion and gentle attentiveness.

For instance, consider a typical crucial conversation. Someone says something you disagree with about a topic that matters a great deal to you and the hairs on the back of your neck stand up. The hairs you can handle. Unfortunately, your body does more. Two tiny organs seated neatly atop your kidneys pump adrenaline into your bloodstream. You don’t choose to do this. Your adrenal glands do it, and then you have to live with it.

And that’s not all. Your brain then diverts blood from activities it deems nonessential to high-priority tasks such as hitting and running. Unfortunately, as the large muscles of the arms and legs get more blood, the higher-level reasoning sections of your brain get less. As a result, you end up facing challenging conversations with the same intellectual equipment available to a rhesus monkey. Your body is preparing to deal with an attacking saber-toothed tiger, not your boss, neighbor, or loved ones.

We’re under pressure. Let’s add another factor. Crucial conversations are frequently spontaneous. More often than not, they come out of nowhere. And since you’re caught by surprise, you’re forced to conduct an extraordinarily complex human interaction in real time — no books, no coaches, and certainly no short breaks while a team of therapists runs to your aid and pumps you full of nifty ideas.

What do you have to work with? The issue at hand, the other person, and a brain that’s drunk on adrenaline and almost incapable of rational thought. It’s little wonder that we often say and do things that make perfect sense in the moment, but later on seem, well, stupid.

“What was I thinking?” you wonder — when what you should be asking is: “What part of my brain was I thinking with?”

The truth is, you were real-time multitasking with a brain that was working another job. You’re lucky you didn’t suffer a stroke.

We’re stumped. Now let’s throw in one more complication. You don’t know where to start. You’re making this up as you go along because you haven’t often seen real-life models of effective communication skills. Let’s say that you actually planned for a tough conversation — maybe you’ve even mentally rehearsed. You feel prepared, and you’re as cool as a cucumber. Will you succeed? Not necessarily. You can still screw up, because practice doesn’t make perfect; perfect practice makes perfect.

This means that first you have to know what to practice. Sometimes you don’t. After all, you may have never actually seen how a certain problem is best handled. You may have seen what not to do — as modeled by a host of friends, colleagues, and, yes, even your parents. In fact, you may have sworn time and again not to act the same way.

Left with no healthy models, you’re now more or less stumped. So what do you do? You do what most people do. You wing it. You piece together the words, create a certain mood, and otherwise make up what you think will work — all the while multiprocessing with a half-starved brain. It’s little wonder that when it matters the most, we’re often at our worst behavior.

We act in self-defeating ways. In our doped-up, dumbed-down state, the strategies we choose for dealing with our crucial conversations are perfectly designed to keep us from what we actually want. We’re our own worst enemies — and we don’t even realize it. Here’s how this works.

Let’s say that your significant other has been paying less and less attention to you. You realize he or she has a busy job, but you still would like more time together. You drop a few hints about the issue, but your loved one doesn’t handle it well. You decide not to put on added pressure, so you clam up. Of course, since you’re not all that happy with the arrangement, your displeasure now comes out through an occasional sarcastic remark.

“Another late night, huh? I’ve got Facebook friends I see more often.”

Unfortunately (and here’s where the problem becomes self-defeating), the more you snip and snap, the less your loved one wants to be around you. So your significant other spends even less time with you, you become even more upset, and the spiral continues. Your behavior is now actually creating the very thing you didn’t want in the first place. You’re caught in an unhealthy, self-defeating loop.

Or consider what’s happening with your roommate Terry — who wears your and your other two roommates’ clothes (without asking) — and he’s proud of it. In fact, one day while walking out the door, he glibly announced that he was wearing something from each of your closets. You could see Taylor’s pants, Scott’s shirt, and, yes, even Chris’s new matching shoes-and-socks ensemble. What of yours could he possibly be wearing? Eww!

Your response, quite naturally, has been to bad-mouth Terry behind his back. That is, until one day when he overheard you belittling him to a friend, and you’re now so embarrassed that you avoid being around him. Now when you’re out of the apartment, he wears your clothes, eats your food, and uses your computer out of spite.

Let’s try another example. You share a cubicle with a four-star slob and you’re a bit of a neat freak. Your coworker has left you notes written in grease pencil on your file cabinet, in catsup on the back of a french-fry bag, and in permanent marker on your desk blotter. You, in contrast, leave him printed Post-it notes. Printed.

At first you sort of tolerated each other. Then you began to get on each other’s nerves. You started nagging him about cleaning up. He started nagging you about your nagging. Now you’re beginning to react to each other. Every time you nag, he becomes upset, and, well, let’s say that he doesn’t exactly clean up. Every time he calls you an “anal-retentive nanny,” you vow not to give in to his vile and filthy ways.

What has come from all this bickering? Now you’re neater than ever, and your cubicle partner’s half of the work area is about to be condemned by the health department. You’re caught in a self-defeating loop. The more the two of you push each other, the more you create the very behaviors you both despise.

In each of these examples of unhealthy downward spirals, the stakes were moderate to high, opinions varied, and emotions ran strong. Actually, to be honest, in a couple of the examples the stakes were fairly low at first, but with time and growing emotions, the relationship eventually turned sour and quality of life suffered — making the risks high.

These examples, of course, are merely the tip of an enormous and ugly iceberg of problems stemming from crucial conversations that either have been avoided or have gone wrong. Other topics that could easily lead to disaster include

• Ending a relationship

• Talking to a coworker who behaves offensively or makes suggestive comments

• Asking a friend to repay a loan

• Giving the boss feedback about her behavior

• Approaching a boss who is breaking his own safety or quality policies

• Critiquing a colleague’s work

• Asking a roommate to move out

• Resolving custody or visitation issues with an ex-spouse

• Dealing with a rebellious teen

• Talking to a team member who isn’t keeping commitments

• Discussing problems with sexual intimacy

• Confronting a loved one about a substance abuse problem

• Talking to a colleague who is hoarding information or resources

• Giving an unfavorable performance review

• Asking in-laws to quit interfering

• Talking to a coworker about a personal hygiene problem

Let’s say that either you avoid tough issues, or when you do bring them up, you’re on your worst behavior. How high are the stakes? This is just talk, right? Do the consequences of a fouled-up conversation extend beyond the conversation itself? Should you worry?

Actually, the effects of conversations gone bad can be both devastating and far reaching. Our research has shown that strong relationships, careers, organizations, and communities all draw from the same source of power — the ability to talk openly about high-stakes, emotional, controversial topics.

So here’s the audacious claim:

At the heart of almost all chronic problems in our organizations, our teams, and our relationships lie crucial conversations — ones that we’re either not holding or not holding well. Twenty years of research involving more than 100,000 people reveals that the key skill of effective leaders, teammates, parents, and loved ones is the capacity to skillfully address emotionally and politically risky issues. Period. Here are just a few examples of these fascinating findings.

Could the ability to master crucial conversations help your career? Absolutely. Twenty-five years of research in seventeen different organizations has taught us that individuals who are the most influential — who can get things done and at the same time build on relationships — are those who master their crucial conversations.

For instance, high performers know how to stand up to the boss without committing career suicide. We’ve all seen people hurt their careers by ineffectively discussing tough issues. You may have done it yourself. Fed up with a lengthy and unhealthy pattern of behavior, you finally speak out — but a bit too abruptly. Oops. Or maybe an issue becomes so hot that as your peers twitch and fidget themselves into a quivering mass of potential stroke victims, you decide to say something. It’s not a pretty discussion — but somebody has to have the guts to keep the boss from doing something stupid. (Gulp.)

As it turns out, you don’t have to choose between being honest and being effective. You don’t have to choose between candor and your career. People who routinely hold crucial conversations and hold them well are able to express controversial and even risky opinions in a way that gets heard. Their bosses, peers, and direct reports listen without becoming defensive or angry.

What about your career? Are there crucial conversations that you’re not holding or not holding well? Is this undermining your influence? And more importantly, would your career take a step forward if you could improve how you’re dealing with these conversations?

Is it possible that an organization’s performance could hang on something as soft and gushy as how individuals deal with crucial conversations?

Study after study suggests that the answer is yes.

We began our work twenty-five years ago looking for what we called crucial moments. We wondered, “Are there a handful of moments when someone’s actions disproportionately affect key performance indicators?” And if so, what are those moments and how should we act when they occur?

It was that search that led us to crucial conversations. We found that more often than not, the world changes when people have to deal with a very risky issue and either do it poorly or do it well. For example:

Silence kills. A doctor is getting ready to insert a central IV line into a patient but fails to put on the proper gloves, gown, and mask to ensure the procedure is done as safely as possible. After the nurse reminds the doctor of the proper protections, the doctor ignores her comment and begins the insertion. In a study of over 7,000 doctors and nurses, we’ve found caregivers face this crucial moment all the time. In fact, 84 percent of respondents said that they regularly see people taking shortcuts, exhibiting incompetence, or breaking rules.

And that’s not the problem!

The real problem is that those who observe deviations or infractions say nothing. Across the world we’ve found that the odds of a nurse speaking up in this crucial moment are less than one in twelve. The odds of doctors stepping up to similar crucial conversations aren’t much better.

And when they don’t speak up, when they don’t hold an effective crucial conversation, it impacts patient safety (some even die), nursing turnover, physician satisfaction, nursing productivity, and a host of other results.

Silence fails. When it comes to the corporate world, the most common complaint of executives and managers is that their people work in silos. They do great at tasks that are handled entirely within their team. Unfortunately, close to 80 percent of the projects that require cross-functional cooperation cost far more than expected, produce less than hoped for, and run significantly over budget. We wondered why.

So we studied over 2,200 projects and programs that had been rolled out at hundreds of organizations worldwide. The findings were stunning. You can predict with nearly 90 percent accuracy which projects will fail — months or years in advance. And now back to our premise. The predictor of success or failure was whether people could hold five specific crucial conversations. For example, could they speak up if they thought the scope and schedule were unrealistic? Or did they go silent when a cross-functional team member began sloughing off? Or even more tricky — what should they do when an executive failed to provide leadership for the effort?

In most organizations, employees fell silent when these crucial moments hit. Fortunately, in those organizations where people were able to candidly and effectively speak up about these concerns, the projects were less than half as likely to fail. Once again, the presenting problems showed up in key performance indicators such as spiraling costs, late delivery times, and low morale. Nevertheless, the underlying cause was the unwillingness or inability to speak up at crucial moments.

Other important studies we’ve conducted (read the complete studies at www.vitalsmarts.com/research) have shown that companies with employees who are skilled at crucial conversations:

• Respond five times faster to financial downturns — and make budget adjustments far more intelligently than less-skilled peers (Research Study: Financial Agility).

• Are two-thirds more likely to avoid injury and death due to unsafe conditions (Research Study: Silent Danger).

• Save over $1,500 and an eight-hour workday for every crucial conversation employees hold rather than avoid (Research Study: The Costs of Conflict Avoidance).

• Substantially increase trust and reduce transaction costs in virtual work teams. Those who can’t handle their crucial conversations suffer in thirteen different ways (backstabbing, gossip, undermining, passive aggression, etc.) as much as three times more often in virtual teams than in colocated teams (Research Study: Long-Distance Loathing).

• Influence change in colleagues who are bullying, conniving, dishonest, or incompetent. When nearly 1,000 respondents were asked, 93 percent of them said that, in their organization, people like this are almost “untouchable”—staying in their position four years or longer without being held accountable (Research Study: Corporate Untouchables).

Most leaders get it wrong. They think that organizational productivity and performance are simply about policies, processes, structures, or systems. So when their software product doesn’t ship on time, they benchmark others’ development processes. Or when productivity flags, they tweak their performance management system. When teams aren’t cooperating, they restructure.

Our research shows that these types of nonhuman changes fail more often than they succeed. That’s because the real problem never was in the process, system, or structure — it was in employee behavior. The key to real change lies not in implementing a new process, but in getting people to hold one another accountable to the process. And that requires Crucial Conversations skills.

In the worst companies, poor performers are first ignored and then transferred. In good companies, bosses eventually deal with problems. In the best companies, everyone holds everyone else accountable — regardless of level or position. The path to high productivity passes not through a static system, but through face-to-face conversations.

So what about you? Is your organization stuck in its progress toward some important goal? If so, are there conversations that you’re either avoiding or botching? And how about the people you work with? Are they stepping up to or walking away from crucial conversations? Could you take a big step forward by improving how you deal with these conversations?

See how Crucial Conversations skills helped a nuclear power plant in Texas become a national industry leader.

To watch this video, visit www.CrucialConversations.com/exclusive.

Consider the impact crucial conversations can have on your relationships. Could failed crucial conversations lead to failed relationships? As it turns out, when you ask the average person what causes couples to break up, he or she usually suggests that it’s due to differences of opinion. You know, people have different theories about how to manage their finances, spice up their love lives, or rear their children. In truth, everyone argues about important issues. But not everyone splits up. It’s how you argue that matters.

For example, when our colleague, Howard Markman, examined couples in the throes of heated discussions, he learned that people fall into three categories — those who digress into threats and name-calling, those who revert to silent fuming, and those who speak openly, honestly, and effectively.

After observing couples for hundreds of hours, the two scholars predicted relationship outcomes and tracked their research subjects’ relationships for the next decade. Remarkably, they were able to predict nearly 90 percent of the divorces that occurred. But more important, they found that helping couples learn to hold crucial conversations more effectively reduced the chance of unhappiness or breakup by more than half!

Now, what about you? Think of your own important relationships. Are there a few crucial conversations that you’re currently avoiding or handling poorly? Do you walk away from some issues only to come charging back into others? Do you hold in ugly opinions only to have them tumble out as sarcastic remarks or cheap shots? How about your significant other or family members? Are they constantly toggling from seething silence to subtle but costly attacks? When it matters the most (after all, these are your cherished loved ones), are you on your worst behavior? If so, you definitely have something to gain by learning more about how to handle crucial conversations.

If the evidence so far isn’t compelling enough to focus your attention on crucial conversations, what would you say if we told you that the ability to master high-stakes discussions is a key to a healthier and longer life?

Immune systems. Consider the groundbreaking research done by Dr. Janice Kiecolt-Glaser and Dr. Ronald Glaser. They studied the immune systems of couples who had been married an average of forty-two years by comparing those who argued constantly with those who resolved their differences effectively. It turns out that arguing for decades doesn’t lessen the destructive blow of constant conflict. Quite the contrary. Those who routinely failed their crucial conversations had far weaker immune systems than those who found a way to resolve them well. Of course, the weaker their immune system, the worse their health.

Life-threatening diseases. In perhaps the most revealing of all the health-related studies, a group of subjects who had contracted malignant melanoma received traditional treatment and then were divided into two groups. One group met weekly for only six weeks; the other did not. Facilitators taught the first group of recovering patients specific communication skills. (When it’s your life that’s at stake, could anything be more crucial?)

After meeting only six times and then dispersing for five years, the subjects who learned how to express themselves effectively had a higher survival rate — only 9 percent succumbed as opposed to almost 30 percent in the untrained group. Think about the implications of this study. Just a modest improvement in the ability to talk and connect with others corresponded to a two-thirds decrease in the death rate.

We could go on for pages about how the ability to hold crucial conversations has an impact on your personal health. The evidence is mounting every day. Nevertheless, most people find this claim a bit over the top. “Come on,” they chide. “You’re saying that the way you talk or don’t talk affects your body? It could kill you?”

The short answer is yes. The longer answer suggests that the negative feelings we hold in, the emotional pain we suffer, and the constant battering we endure as we stumble our way through unhealthy conversations slowly eat away at our health. In some cases the impact of failed conversations leads to minor problems. In others it results in disaster. In all cases, failed conversations never make us happier, healthier, or better off.

So how about you? What are the specific conversations that gnaw at you the most? Which conversations (if you held them or improved them) would strengthen your immune system, help ward off disease, and increase your quality of life and well-being?

When stakes are high, opinions vary, and emotions start to run strong, casual conversations transform into crucial ones. Ironically, the more crucial the conversation, the less likely we are to handle it well. The consequences of either avoiding or fouling up crucial conversations can be severe. When we fail a crucial conversation, every aspect of our lives can be affected — from our careers, to our communities, to our relationships, to our personal health.

And now for the good news. As we learn how to step up to crucial conversations — and handle them well — with one set of high-leverage skills we can influence virtually every domain of our lives.

What is this all-important skill set? What do people who sail through crucial conversations actually do? More important, can we do it too?