7 Secrets to a Great Conversation…

Interesting article sharing some points to produce a great conversation, not the easy convos, but the more difficult ones that, “must work to resolve differences, explore hard issues, and be aimed toward a positive outcome”.

This article offers some tips on preventing conversations from turning into mine-filled battlefields or devolving into accusatory critique, negating the whole intention and purpose of conversation in the first place.

The conversations that matter, the ones we want to center on, are a substantive and intentional form of engagement. They typically have three things in common.

First, there is difference. For many of our hardest conversations to make change, there needs to be difference in the room. The people there can’t be all alike or in agreement.

Second, it feels difficult. If it feels like it’s simple and easy, then it’s probably not the conversation that needs to be designed. Conversations that matter are about grappling with hard issues. These conversations will often be about strategy, political issues, or emotionally charged topics.

Third, something is made, besides conversation. A creative conversation must move us forward. It must help us shift from thinking and talking into the act of doing. Agreement cannot be enough; action is required.

So the purposeful burden that I place on the term conversation is that it must work to resolve differences, explore hard issues, and be aimed toward a positive outcome.

There are seven essential components, what I think of as the Seven Cs, of a creative conversation: Commitment, Creative Listening, Clarity, Context, Constraints, Change, and, ultimately, Creation.

When a conversation seems hard, when it makes you nervous, when you feel at risk or on edge, remember this core lesson: Conversation is always an act of creativity. We don’t have to just be participants in, or victims of, conversations. We can be the makers of the conversations that matter most.

Fred Dust, The 7 secrets to a great conversation

Source: The 7 secrets to a great conversation [Fast Company]