Innovating Leadership:
Co-Creating Our Future

Resources:

Our host, Maureen Metcalf, posts a newsletter every week on LinkedIn. You can subscribe here.

Maureen’s latest book is Innovative Leadership & Followership in the Age of AI. You’ll find details about it at https://bit.ly/LeaderInAI. Her other 10 books are available on Amazon here.

Books we’re reading for fun or personal development right now include:

• Everyday Ubuntu: Living Better Together, the African Way by Mungi Ngomane. Hardback (https://amzn.to/48Doh6j) and audiobook (https://amzn.to/48YCRF4)
• Nerve: Lessons on Leadership from Two Women Who Went First by Martha Piper & Indira Samarasekera. Paperback (https://amzn.to/3tOtzg4) and audiobook (https://amzn.to/41OYdT5)
• Jilly Truit murder mysteries by Beverley McLachlin:
  • Full Disclosure – https://amzn.to/46TxW6Q (paperback) https://amzn.to/46VDL3Q (audiobook)
  • Denial – https://amzn.to/46YCbhs (paperback) https://amzn.to/3GJc0AA (audiobook)
• Women and Leadership: Journey Toward Equity by Sherylle J. Tan & Lisa DeFrank-Cole

NOTE: As an Amazon partner, we may make a small commission from books you buy through these links.

Other episodes you’ll enjoy:

– Africa’s EU Ambassador Redefines Leadership: How You Have Global Impact with Cynthia Cherrey
– Cooperation, Leadership & Empathy: George Papandreou’s Path for Meeting Challenges with George Papandreou
– Former Prime Minister Papandreou’s Path to a Just World with George Papandreou

Guest(s):

Guest(s) Bio:

Michael Morrow-Fox, MBA, EdS, is a consultant with the Innovative Leadership Institute experienced in health care, education, banking, government, and non-profit management.

Michael has over 20 years of experience in leading technology and human resources operations, as well as several years of full-time university teaching. Michael uses this background to blend his real-world understanding with current theoretical models helping his clients reach goals beyond their current thinking.

Michael has experience managing a 50 million dollar technology budget, helping a technology startup company get off the ground, overseeing an international nonprofit organization achieve ‘best place to work’ status, and leading organizational education for a city government. Michael’s strengths are not in what area he works, but in how he helps others work. Michael’s project management, process excellence, problem-solving, and human performance management skills help companies form truly innovative strategies.

Michael has served as a full-time university faculty at Capital University winning a Department of Education FIPSE Grant and George Mason Program Excellence Award, as the Director of Technology Strategy for the OhioHealth Hospitals, as the Vice President of Operations for a technology start-up serving American Express, as the Vice President of Talent Management Training and Development for the American Heart Association, and the Manager of Organizational Education for the City of Greensboro, North Carolina. Michael has held Project Management Professional (PMP) Certification since 2002, he has worked on Six Sigma Black Belt initiatives since 1999 and has been a Six Sigma Green Belt since 2006. His Bachelor’s degree focused on Industrial Psychology and Employee Counseling, his MBA focus was on Organizational Leadership, his Educational Specialist Degree is in Educational Leadership, and Michael holds a Doctorate in Educational Leadership.

Michael is a contributing author of Innovative Leadership for Health Care, Innovative Leadership Workbook for Emerging Leaders and Managers, and the Innovative Leader Guide to Transforming Organizations.

Transcript
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Maureen: [00:00:00] Welcome to Innovating Leadership: Co-Creating Our Future. I’m Maureen Metcalf, founder and CEO of the Innovative Leadership Institute. We help leaders become future ready. Today we’ll be discussing conversational receptiveness with Michael Morrow-Fox. Michael, thank you so much for joining us.

Mike: It is my pleasure. This is a topic that I love and it’s a workshop that I love. So I’m really looking forward to discussing it.

Maureen: Thank you. And I also love that you have shared this with us and our clients. So I’m excited to be able to share it on the podcast. So let’s jump in. Tell us about conversational receptiveness, please.

Mike: Yeah, this is great because I know that you and I’ve had this discussion and I’ve had this discussion with other leaders. It, you know, we live in very difficult times where we have very strong, differing opinions. And it’s very hard to keep them out of, uh, areas where we want to care about each other. Uh, the workplace, [00:01:00] even Thanksgiving dinners and the conversational receptiveness is a way that as leaders or as.

Just a family members and individuals, we can be able to have good conversations with each other. When we have very differing views, this originated in an article by Michael Yeomans of the Harvard business school, where he is his colleagues published an article in the journal of organizational behavior and human decision making processes in 2020.

And it was called conversational receptiveness, improving engagement with opposing views. And I’ll give you a quick definition here that I put together from that article, and that is conversational receptiveness is a recipe, I love that term, to communicate a willingness to thoughtfully engage with opposing views, which resulted in conversation.

A reduction in conflict escalation, an increase in message persuasiveness, and being [00:02:00] considered by editors as better teammates, advisors, and workplace representatives. So I can think of very few things that I can use as a recipe and allow me to be as a leader more persuasive, better in conflict escalation reduction, and a better teammate and advisor.

Maureen: You know, that’s so resonates with me, even in my own skills that occasionally when someone has an opposing point of view, I just kind of don’t have the recipe to follow. So I’m making it up as I go, as I’m sitting in front of someone who has any range of opinions that are. Either off putting or highly offensive, and in some cases, just annoying.

And, and yet in each of these cases, if I’m having the conversation, I must value that person and that engagement. And I have to navigate through my own [00:03:00] frustration and also create the linkage that will allow us to stay engaged.

Mike: You know, having worked with you, I know what a good job you do at communicating your respect to folks, regardless of opinions, but you’re not different than many people in that when I run into a situation where people have a differing opinion that is, uh, maybe, uh, upsetting for me, uh, I have no skillset to figure out, okay, how do we get past this?

And if we don’t get past this, if someone makes an offensive remark, Uh, am I actually kind of, uh, colluding with that remark if I don’t do something? Most people just ignore it. That’s what the research says. So I, I agree with you a hundred percent. This is really a neat set of opportunities, a neat way to figure out how do I deal with those things that, uh, come at me and, uh, and I just don’t agree with, but I do want to help the [00:04:00] person I’m dealing with feel respected.

Maureen: So I had in a situation this weekend, um, it’s been unfolding for a number of months and it

Mike: I

Maureen: to be in my personal life, a very good friend. And the issue is community dynamics and that person. Who I care deeply for is feeling hurt because I didn’t step in to address a dynamic. And to me, this is the, the outcome of if we don’t do it effectively, then people we care about feel unsupported.

And so it’s not as simple as, yeah, I let that comment go cause it’s annoying, but I don’t want to deal with it. But now the people that count on me. To stand in integrity and, and ensure their, um, safety and [00:05:00] respect in, in a situation. I just gloss over things, uh, not with any ill intent, then the people in my circle could feel very unsupported.

Mike: my circle could feel very unsupported.

So

Maureen: So let’s jump into it, because it is so much easier to not respond.

Mike: Yeah. So they came up with four simple steps that I can use to practice this recipe. And what I did here for the purposes of our discussion is I’m going to use COVID as an example because we ran into so many conflicts around the COVID virus and how we dealt with it.

So the first thing that they said was, uh, the research showed that actively acknowledging the other person’s viewpoint [00:06:00] helped tremendously. Actively acknowledging someone else’s viewpoint didn’t mean that I agreed with them. It acknowledged that viewpoint. So it showed that what I’ve said or, or that I’ve heard what the other person has said.

Um, so as a covid example, we’d say someone is, uh, says that. Using masks to reduce illness transmission is a myth and takes away individual freedoms. Some people can agree with that strongly, some people can disagree with it. To actively acknowledge the other person’s viewpoint without necessarily saying it’s right or wrong, I might say, So you believe masking is an issue of free will and should be an individual decision.

And by using that active listening technique, I keep the discussion going and help people Feel heard without necessarily agreeing with them. Eventually, we’re going to bring this to, uh, a, a resolution that we all agree with, but in the interim, using active listening is a [00:07:00] really important piece. And I’m going to say active listening is so important to so much that we do, you know, a lot of people know of active listening and it’s called active listening because I actively repeat the important part of what somebody has just said. Uh, sometimes we, we say, so I’m hearing you say, uh, you believe X and that would be an active listening thing. But what I want leaders to know is active listening is so powerful because it does two really amazing things. And I actually teach this and we teach it with. Uh, uh, by videotaping folks and having them see how well they can do it.

It’s interesting how difficult it is. The first thing that active listening does is it affirms the other person was listening and understanding what I said. So when somebody actively listens, what we find is that the other person feels heard, they feel respected. They can nod their head and say, yes, that’s what I meant.

And that’s very, very [00:08:00] powerful for the person who is being listened to for the person who is listening, active listening changes the way that I listen. It forces me to listen well enough to repeat the important essence of their message. You know, when we think of listening, we think of listening, being like a tennis match.

And so somebody hits a point over the net and I’m evaluating that point and figuring out how fast it’s coming and what it means and where I want to hit it back. Active listening changes that paradigm. Instead of thinking about how am I going to hit it back and how is it coming? I’m having to concentrate on what are you really saying so that I can say it back effectively and it changes the way I learn about what you’ve said.

Maureen: Changes the way I learn about what you’ve said. So I’m taking it in, processing it, and not repeating word for word, right? This isn’t saying, Hmm. The thing we do in arguments sometimes, so you just said, and [00:09:00] I spit it back and I’ve heard nothing or, or when someone says you weren’t listening and we repeat back what they said.

And in fact, we weren’t listening.

Mike: It is a little bit different than that. Uh, but even if I was just listening and repeating back the same thing, it changes the nature of the conversation in that the person who was speaking feels heard. And it means that instead of formulating my response, I was actually recording in my head what they were saying well enough to say it back.

So in a worst case scenario, I’m just parroting in a best case scenario, I’m listening and in very few words, I can say something resonant and say something back to them that helps them feel not only heard, but also adds to it in such a way so that they say, yes, that’s exactly what I meant. Begin

Maureen: so does that begin the deescalation [00:10:00] process?

Mike: one of

Maureen: Okay.

Mike: the essential steps on the road to getting to a place where we can agree to disagree and still respect each other.

Maureen: Okay. So I heard what you said. We can agree to disagree. And so crucial to me is maintaining that level of respect, not just glossing over because too many glossing overs also caused me to lose respect. And I’ve done it to myself.

Mike: And, and you care so much about how people are perceived.

Maureen: Well, and if I’m in relationship with someone, it’s because I value them. I don’t want to let those small annoyances degrade the,

Mike: the,

Maureen: the feeling and the care I have for someone. And I think as we look at long term relationships, it’s so easy to see [00:11:00] people picking at each other, long business relationships, long personal relationships.

Okay. And this Feels like an antidote to things are going to slowly decay. I think probably entropy, right? But the relationship does not have to do that. Like aging does to human bodies.

Mike: Yeah, it this is the active listening is the first step to really showing respect especially when we have differing opinions You know, the next step is interesting because what I’ve got to do is really work hard to find and emphasize areas of agreement so If somebody says that about masking, I’ve got to figure out, well, what do we agree on with masking, even if I disagree that masking is unhealthy or, uh, a takeaway of individual freedoms.

So no matter how small or obvious highlight the areas where we both [00:12:00] agree. And so I might say in the COVID example, I think we can agree we both want everyone on the team to feel safe at work. And that’s the area that we can work on. When I say that, first I’m actively listening, saying, I understand your point.

And here I’m going to say it back to show that, that you feel that this is an individual liberty issue. And then I say, I think we want, both want everybody to feel safe at work. And now we have something to work on, which brings us to the next step. And that is that I’ve got to be careful in my communication.

And when I say I, I really mean in this one, me, um, I’ve got to hedge and soften my claims when I make. Claims about something. It’s really normal for people to state their views in strong terms. And unfortunately I do in very strong terms using language that hedges allows for the possibility that the other viewpoint has merit and is appreciated.

And that’s really [00:13:00] important. So we may get to a point where we say, say, instead of saying wearing masks saves lives. That becomes wearing masks can reduce illness risk and exposure is a hedged way to say it. Or wearing masks can allow people who both approve of masks and don’t approve of masks to feel as if they’re safe at work.

This is a way that when we hedge and soften claims and emphasize those areas of agreements that we’re really working together to find a solution. So you’ve

Maureen: So you’ve moved from

Mike: The

Maureen: the issue of personal freedom to finding a place of agreement to hedging and softening. Uh, and as you’ve hedged and softened, you’ve dropped the issue thus far of personal freedom. You’ve moved now to safety.

Mike: I, I [00:14:00] have, uh, I have not dropped the issue of, of personal freedom. Personal freedom. But what I have done is I’ve allowed for within that Venn diagram, I’ve allowed for the overlap where we can both work and that overlap is personal safety. The part of, um, it, it, it being an individual freedom that we both agree on is, is that we can both agree that even though there’s an individual freedom component, the part that’s really important for all of us is everybody needs to feel safe at work.

Maureen: I love the idea of a Venn diagram. We hadn’t actually talked about that or I didn’t hear it as well. So imagining your view, my view, there has to be some overlap. And then feels like building the bridge then to either agree to disagree or to actually find shared meaning together.

Mike: Absolutely. I think that’s a great way to put it that it is a way to [00:15:00] find shared meaning together. It’s looking in that Venn diagram to find that shared meaning. And interestingly enough, once I feel respected because someone is using softer claims and someone is actively listening, then we can emphasize those areas of agreement and I’m more open to seeing that part of the Venn diagram than I was before somebody actively listened and softened their claims.

Maureen: And I, as the active listener have to be the one who’s mapping the Venn diagram as I’m speaking.

Mike: I think that, yes, if, if I’m skilled in that, then I would definitely be doing that. Hopefully the other person might be skilled too, and we would both be doing it. But if I’m the only one who’s skilled in it, then I am kind of mapping it and it will, uh, it will end up presenting itself.

And we can both agree on that epha, that area of agreement. So, uh. What will happen after I actively listen and soften [00:16:00] claims is something should pop up in there that makes sense that is natural, and we both should be able to, to acknowledge that fairly quickly. So in

Maureen: So in this example, then can you give us what then naturally emerges? Cause I probably both of us were in plenty of those conversations during COVID. And sometimes there was not a natural emergence.

Mike: Yeah, I think what happens in this case, in this example, what naturally emerges is we both give up our defendedness in terms of you have to wear masks or you can’t, you shouldn’t make people wear masks to start having a discussion of, well, what can we really do to help people feel safe?

And come up with some sort of agreement that allows those people on the farthest end of the scale to possibly not wear masks or figure out some other way that they can keep people who feel like there needs [00:17:00] to be masks safe. And, uh, uh, and then at the other end of the scale, allowing for masks when people feel like it helps their safety, but it acknowledges the fact that some people feel like masks didn’t enhance safety and they caused their own set of problems and we reduce the heat, the, the emotion in both sides of the argument and started to look at how can we create a workplace that Where the majority of people feel cared for and are actually cared for, uh, with, uh, with the, the masking behavior. It’s about opening up the dialogue, uh, taking a look at all points of view, and allowing everybody to feel cared for. To be heard and feel heard because in truth, well, we’re masking, uh, helps significantly. At least that, that would be my point of view that, that the research shows that it does. Uh, the other [00:18:00] point of view is, is that, that for some people, masking may not be a really good answer actually may help them feel really unsafe.

And as a result of that, we start to talk about how do we care for those people as well. Love

Maureen: I love that final view. There were people who don’t feel safe with masks.

Mike: They

Maureen: may have trouble breathing. They may feel claustrophobic

Mike: They feel that I heard a number of folks talk about, um, people feeling as if they’re reinfecting themselves. Can’t get over that feeling. Some people feeling as if the person wearing the mask might want to do them some sort of harm. There’s a variety of things we run into in the workplace. We just have to think them through and be respectful.

But wouldn’t it be terrible if I lost my CFO’s faith and trust if that CFO had this viewpoint? Right. And yet myself and, uh, and another some person in my C suite group felt that we really need to do masking to take care of that. It [00:19:00] would have been a terrible thing if I would have caused an argument and not helped that CFO feel cared for.

I could lose that relationship and lose that CFO over this issue as opposed to us talking it through and coming up with some sort of idea, how do we take care of those people that are on the far end? And at the same time, respect some of the literature that says masking can really help reduce transmission of the virus.

Maureen: I love the, the recipe. And I’m just thinking of the range of topics in which it applies. And so I was in a conversation with a board group talking about the conflict. Um, between Israel and Hamas and for global organizations, if there were people on both ends of the spectrum here,

Mike: how do

Maureen: do we ensure that they [00:20:00] can engage at work?

This is

Mike: This is absolutely

Maureen: core and foundational to belief systems and identities and certainly a sense of safety.

Mike: and

Maureen: The inability to do this really well can have significant implications on our workforce.

Mike: Yeah, I, I think you summed it up nicely. It does have significant implications and can transmit to a variety of different circumstances that are very emotional and very important.

I want to pull back for a second too, and say, you may find that your as a listener. You don’t like this discussion on masks or on Hamas and Israel, and that you have an emotional response to it. And it is that emotional response, if you do, to say, I don’t think I want to really listen to what people have to say about not wearing masks or wearing masks.

Uh, uh, [00:21:00] It is that response that I really have to question, well, if I’ve got that strong kind of emotional response, as many of us do, how am I going to work with a really good CFO that has a differing viewpoint? And that’s really, really important. I can’t allow myself to lose a good CFO over a, uh, a disagreement on something where the CFO felt as if I wasn’t somebody who was a good teammate and could listen to their opinions.

We

Maureen: And if we are in professional relationships long enough, there is going to be something that hits us at our core. That’s a difference.

Mike: Absolutely. And there are so many that are so out in front of us right now, and there, a lot of them are very personal and emotional as opposed to academic issues. So when I’m having a business debate, that’s one thing, and I can use this well in a business debate where I’m just trying to figure out what’s the The best way to spend money [00:22:00] on a project.

But if I’m having a discussion and we start to get into issues of, uh, sexuality and some of the things that are going on there, and it has to deal with my son or daughter, and I’m having a discussion with someone, I can get really hurt and it can really interrupt a business relationship, whereas when.

Somebody uses conversational receptiveness. They not only learn from the other person, they not only come up with better solutions, but they allow the other person to feel respected and also hear a different point of view. And that’s really what we’re trying to do. Bring

Maureen: I think when you bring in the volume and range of conflicts, it, we can’t avoid something. And in some cases, not even Explicit disrupting a relationship. There’s some interesting data about people not wanting to work with folks of different political parties, not wanting to [00:23:00] work with some ethnicities. And when you overlay all that data, you can’t build a diverse and effective workforce if you continue to remove people.

And I think that that’s one of the things that’s striking any one conflict. I could say, I don’t want to work with people who have a different view about COVID. But then I add politics in, and then I add view on how we treat gender diversity at this point in history. And then I add in something else and.

Suddenly I can’t scale my company and I end up with a workplace where people are more engaged in their factions than they are in, in the productive work of the business.

Mike: how do I have a team that has diversity of skill set and abilities and not diversity of opinions? Doesn’t work.

Maureen: [00:24:00] Well, and

Mike: to

Maureen: add to that, we now work in a world where we expect people to be authentic at work. This worked. Years ago, when it was come to work, do your work. We didn’t think that having a best friend at work mattered. We, you were paid to do a job. Now we

Mike: expect

Maureen: some level of resonance and authenticity. And then we bump into all these differences. So without this kind of skill, end up significantly disrupting the thing we want, which is a harmonious workplace where we can have differences and find a path through those differences to still build respect and deliver results.

Mike: Absolutely.

Maureen: So can we walk through one more example, because I think this is so powerful. [00:25:00]

Mike: Yeah. And let me go into the fourth step too. And that is that, that, uh, or.

Uh, uh, the fourth area in the recipe. So the two things that I’m really doing, or I’m training my team to do if I’m training a leadership team, which is, I think a great idea, you’re bringing out the point that if I had an entire leadership team that was really well versed in conversational receptiveness, how well my overall team would perform and be engaged.

So the two things I’m going to do are actively listen. And emphasize areas of agreement, areas where we both agree this is a core issue and we both agree to have discussion around that. And then the ways that I do it are to hedge and soften claims so that I don’t make really broad, strong statements that cause defensiveness.

But also I’m going to try and state things in the positive. So I’ll state things as to what we [00:26:00] are going to do rather than what we’re not going to do. Instead of saying nobody should be unmasked in the office or they should have consequences, I might say we’ll try to have a hundred percent masking rates and other best practices when people are in the office.

So stating things in the positive also has a profound effect. And when I pull those four things together, actively listening, finding areas agreement, doing it, but while hedging claims and stating actions in the positive, that’s where I get this wonderful respect and this ability to have a real discussion.

Maureen: Mike, we’re going to walk through another example then, and I’m going to use one that you used with us in a class.

Mike: a

Maureen: So I’m going to be Angela, um, and the topic is political correctness. I see human resources has added pronouns to people’s names in the directory.

Mike: Tell me about that. What were your, [00:27:00] why are you bringing that up?

Maureen: HR doesn’t have enough work to do. They’re always inventing something to try and keep themselves relevant. This political correctness may never end. My pronouns are worker and working.

Mike: So for you, the big issue for work is, you know, what kind of work are we doing, not what kind of person I am.

Maureen: Yeah, just saying it’s never gonna end. I show up, I do my work, I think people should keep their personal differences at home.

Mike: You know, I know what a hard worker you are and what a strong work ethic you have. So I can see where work ethic and worker, what am I doing is really some of the most important stuff. What about those folks that, Feel as if on a daily basis, they can’t be heard, they can’t be seen because they’re [00:28:00] not able to authentically be themselves.

How do you think that impacts their productivity and their enjoyment at coming for work?

Maureen: I think we come to work to get our jobs done and I don’t understand why we need to be seen as unique or different. I think we should focus on the work.

Mike: I

Maureen: So I don’t think it matters that they feel seen and heard.

Mike: And I know how hard you work so I can see where that comes from. You’re somebody who, who is very productive and very heads down. And I also know how hard you work at leaving whatever your personal stuff is outside the door.

I believe though, uh, correct me if I’m wrong, but I believe that you get a lot of purpose from work and that you feel pretty good about your contribution.

Maureen: I feel really good about my contribution because I, because I [00:29:00] come to work and, and deliver results.

Mike: And I think that’s where we agree that what we want everybody in the organization to have is a sense of purpose, a sense of accomplishments, a feeling like they contribute. And I think for me, what came through with that HR post is that some people feel so discounted that it’s hard for them to feel that sense of accomplishment like they can contribute.

And the question is for those people that really have trouble feeling like they can contribute because they’re wearing a mask every day. How is it that we can work with those folks? Does that make sense?

Maureen: It makes sense. And I still wish they would just focus on the work.

Mike: work. So in your case, it’s a large focus on the work.

What I think maybe we can talk about at some point in time and take a look at is how difficult it is for people to get the work done when they don’t feel engaged. And engagement [00:30:00] has partly to do because I know for you, you know, one of the wonderful things that you bring is your ability to feel whole as yourself while you’re doing the work.

And because you have that. You may find that it a little bit difficult to understand how is it that somebody doesn’t have that and so it may, we may take a look at and maybe have some further discussions on what would it be like for me to work as hard as you to get results as much as you, but to not be able to fulfill the fulfillment.

Because I don’t feel like I’m me. So that’s kind of how the, the conversational receptiveness would go. And what I want to point out with that is, is that you stuck to your guns to be fairly, uh, um, myopic in your viewpoint. And at the same time, I’m hoping that you felt heard. That you felt respected. And I learned how strong your viewpoint was in one way.

As I [00:31:00] reflected to you, your strengths, I understood why you might have that viewpoint even a little bit better. And we now have an open road for a dialogue that may end up at some point of time down the road in you starting to understand what it feels like. To do your job with one hand behind your back because you can’t be your authentic self and at the same time, feel really respected that I understood that you’re a very bright person anyway.

Maureen: That two things really landed for me. I felt like you appreciated my contribution to the organization. So I did feel not only heard, but respected

Mike: respected that

Maureen: that what I do matters. And at the end, when you asked, what would it take? feel like to contribute as much as I did, but feel not engaged. That really for, for me landed as boy, that would feel terrible to work really hard [00:32:00] and feel like people didn’t appreciate me. Whatever appreciate means for me.

Mike: Yeah. You know, my reflections to, um, some of it was active listening and someone was reflecting back some of the things that I know about you. One of the things that, that really helps is, is that in our discussion with that character or those two characters, that was, that was authentic.

I really did understand and feel like you definitely, you do care about your, your Your results, you do work hard. You do leave all your personal issues at the door. Um, you have the privilege to do that. And that’s what I didn’t say, but at some point in time, you might want to reflect on the fact that that is a privilege because for a lot of folks, uh, they’re carrying such baggage and it’s so hard to carry that they are just as productive as I am, and at the same time, it doesn’t [00:33:00] feel productive.

It doesn’t feel good. So, so that’s, that’s the point that I think. we’re making here is that, um, that you can really help people feel respected and, and get them to introspect as you had just talked about, and at the same time have very differing opinions. So

Maureen: I think that’s the piece that’s so crucial going back to the beginning of our conversation is the importance of being able to coexist with different points of view. And feel reflected. And through that conversation, you learned more about my character. I learned more about your character. Those were certainly roles that we were playing, not us, but, um, yeah, I would have walked away feeling more respected.

And for people who are introspective, you gave me something to think about.

Mike: [00:34:00] There were

Maureen: people that we had a conversation recently, and someone said, you often come back and say, I thought about something you said. And then their response was curious to me. This person said, I never do that. I never come back and think about what you’ve said. Like, huh. It’s a good thing. I’m not your coach. That would be a failure. So it is, it does seem that there’s the other invitation in the recipe is

Mike: It’s

Maureen: it’s helpful for people to, to consider what they’ve heard.

Mike: to, to consider what they’ve heard. Type conversation, a critical conversation in a way that is going to have a start and then have a second part [00:35:00] that takes the pressure off of everybody to finish an issue really quickly, but it gives everybody the opportunity to sit back and think about the.

things and talk with other people. And it’s a really good thing. And so as people come back or as you come back and say, you know, I thought about what you said, uh, you probably have gained a lot in the thinking process, especially for those people that have introverted thinking styles.

Maureen: That seems crucial on a couple of points. One, allowing people like me to process

Mike: me to process and

Maureen: It increases the intensity. If I have to resolve this in five minutes, we’re running between a meeting. I catch you that, that thing you said was mildly annoying or grossly offensive, but if it’s on the grossly offensive side. Or just highly personal to me that I have to resolve this rather than it’s the beginning of a conversation. I, I can go in not [00:36:00] super charged, just here’s Michael. He’s my friend and colleague. I’m really surprised that he said that. And I can go in with curiosity, not.

Mike: anger. Yeah, that’s a great point. Going in with curiosity is, is the way that you want to do it and allowing both parties to have the time to process it through so that it has a reasonable resolution is really important.

Maureen: So now we’re talking more about the context and the mindset in which I engage in the process

Mike: Yeah.

Maureen: and setting the, the stage of finding the right timing, finding the right place to have the conversation. And I think most importantly for me and for the other person is I’ve got to come in with a, you call it conversational receptiveness.

I’ve got to come in receptive.

Mike: Yes. [00:37:00] And that’s actually a great point because I struggle with this terribly, you know, interestingly, you would think, uh, since I can teach this in classes and do role plays and, and I’ve had much success with, uh, facilitating groups and all the other stuff that, that I do professionally.

This has been great. I love this research. I love these techniques. I think that they’re the essence of human. So it’s wonderful. And at the same time, I can do these so well, technically, and yet don’t use them in my life. It’s so frustrating, you know, in many situations. And I’ll give you two examples that I struggle with that your audience may struggle with as good as well.

One of the things I struggle with is I have a bad habits. I’ve learned over the years to be a very, uh, A powerful communicator. It allows me to get my way and to get my message across. And, uh, uh, and, uh, [00:38:00] and as a leader, a lot of us have gone through that evolution over time, but when we’re trying to get a room to come up with a decision or help people feel respected as we do, being a powerful communicator may not be the best thing.

And if I use this, uh, conversational receptiveness, I can both get something done and help people respond. Feel respected at the same time, actually be respected at the same time and learn from them, which is so important. But I, I think of some examples, you know, um, I was recently at a, uh, a hotel and, uh, they give me a credit for breakfast.

And so I got a breakfast and I got the credit and, uh, I said, uh, thank you. Can you please, uh, I’ll pay on my credit card for the breakfast and don’t put the credit on my, My hotel bill, because I’m going to bill back for the hotel, but I’m not billing back for food. And they said, Oh, I’m so sorry. We can’t do that.

We have to put it on your hotel bill. And I said, well, it’s a real pain to, to, to do it that way. [00:39:00] Um, please just allow me to pay the, the additional. Five bucks and tip in cash and overcame a manager and the manager said, I’m sorry, it’s our policy that we have to put it on the bill. And so I said, well, as a, uh, as a preferred member with over a million points, when I contact the hotel chain and tell them that you were unwilling to allow me to pay off of the bill, what name would you like me to use?

which is conversational unreceptiveness. And not only didn’t I get the, the, the, stuff not put on the bill, but when I left everybody thought I was a jackass, and I knew I was a jackass. It’s just those sorts of things where afterwards I realized, and I just said, well, I know we all want to make sure that, that you give the best customer service.

I know you’re for that. And I’m for that. And we probably could have thought of three different ways that I could do this in such a way so that I wouldn’t have a bill that would have the [00:40:00] amount on it, but, uh, but I didn’t use any of them. I can also tell you that, uh, um, That, uh, there are times when I am too emotional to use this, where somebody has hit a hot button and I know conversational receptiveness would show respect for the other person, but I’m so angry that the other person has a different viewpoint, um, that I, I can’t help myself.

And so, uh, I, I, I had a situation where just a few weeks ago, um, we were discussing living in southern states and I had made a remark about, uh, the racist attitudes around me, which was not hedging my claims, which was not, uh, uh, paraphrasing where people were at, which was certainly not stating things in positive terms.

And as a result, everybody became defended. And we all defended our position hitting, you know, the tennis match, my point, your point, my point, your point back and forth. And everybody [00:41:00] felt upset as they left and dug into their positions more firmly. So this is really a good set of a recipe for how we do things.

But what people need to be aware of in your audience, and what I work on on a regular basis, sometimes successfully, sometimes not, is the mindset that accompanies it is equally as important. I have to start out feeling like everybody is worthy of respect, and everybody is trying their best with their opinions.

And as soon as I lapse there, which I do, and as soon as I fall into bad habits, which are manipulative at times, uh, that’s the real challenges for, for me and, and maybe for some of your audience as well, working through these. And, and the, the brilliance of conversational receptiveness is when I do it wrong, I think, what could I have done that would have been conversationally receptive and I can come up with a much better outcome.

Maureen: Did you reach out to the hotel chain?

Mike: [00:42:00] But

Maureen: But you also had to go through that trauma and it is habit. Especially as executives, that’s the, we go to really just

Mike: Just

Maureen: do the thing, not how do I spend five minutes trying to convince you to do the thing.

Mike: Yeah, it’s great. Out of one side of my mouth, I’ll say, I want you to take risks.

Now to the other side of my mouth, I’ll say, but if you do, I’m going to make you feel stupid. It just doesn’t make any sense.

Maureen: Michael, this has been an absolutely brilliant conversation and I, I appreciate. Both the conversational recipes and your discussion of when you don’t do it and the examples and the outcome, because I think it is so easy for all of us to fall into the skills that have been successful for us. And it’s harder to try these new skills, especially when we’re angry.

Mike: Absolutely, and it’s been a [00:43:00] pleasure talking through this with you, especially

Maureen: thank you, hopefully I’m not the one that makes you most angry.

Mike: Not at all

Maureen: So for our listeners, we strongly encourage you to practice these tools, practice them when you are not angry, when you are in a mindset of curiosity on the littler issues so that you have the capacity and, and that it becomes muscle memory when you need it on the big issues.

Mike: big issues.

Maureen: you for listening. Please like us and follow us and most of all, share this content and practice.

Mike: and practice.