If you’ve been reading Professionelle’s postings for a while, you’ll have come across the term ‘Courageous Conversation’ more than once. We’ve advocated the use of these ‘conversations-that-you-don’t-want-to-have-but-need-to-have’ in our ‘expert’ advice on a number of occasions. In a recent workshop I delivered, a participant challenged me to explain why I believe these are so effective in resolving difficult situations.
I came across the concept in a leadership paper many years ago and have used ‘courageous conversations’ in my work and personal life ever since. I have coached others to use them as well. On the whole, when done well, they seem to result in consistently positive outcomes. But what IS the ‘science’ behind them? Does any serious research or academic study show that they are indeed effective?
Once these questions occurred to me, I had to find the answers!
Answer
I found the answers I was looking for in a great book about Emotional Intelligence in the workplace. It is called ‘The Emotionally Intelligent Workplace’ by Cary Cherniss and Daniel Goleman (Editors) . This 2001 book is a collection of articles written mainly by serious academics on the topic of Emotional Intelligence at work. It is pretty hard going and written in a very ‘academic’ style of writing so tackle it when you have some time and are in the right frame of mind!
Most of you will be familiar with the concept of Emotional Intelligence. I am not going to go into detail about it here (but stay tuned as I will in the very near future!). However, Emotional Intelligence is the core concept behind what makes courageous conversations effective.
The key thing to understand about Emotional Intelligence is that people who have high levels of it are very self-aware and integrate emotional information (how they FEEL about something) into their decision-making processes. Put simply, if they hear a suggestion that makes them feel ‘uncomfortable’, rather than ignoring that feeling because it is ‘just’ a feeling, they tune in to find out what is it that is bothering them, and then use that information in their final decision-making.
The Role of Emotions in Groups
Most of the questions we’ve received on ‘managing people’ have involved resolving difficult situations, be it dealing with a bully boss, unreasonable expectations or someone who is not dressing appropriately. These situations are unlikely to be resolved unless confronted in a way that is constructive and that will influence behaviour in a positive manner. Unfortunately, that is probably one of the hardest things to achieve when working in groups. Think about it, we’re thrown in together to work closely over extended periods of time with complete strangers with whom we might have very little in common!
Any of us who’ve spent five minutes inside organisations knows that emotions play a huge role in the dynamics of groups. When difficult emotions are badly managed, groups can become hostile, unproductive, and at worst, dysfunctional.
You can think of this process as a simple ‘cause and effect’ scenario. When something like conflict happens in a group, it triggers strong negative emotions. Any response by the group as a whole, or by individuals within it, will have an effect on the relationship of the group. When handled well, i.e. with respect and with care, these responses can create a positive spiral of emotions among group members. However, when handled badly, where things are said without thought given to the consequences, and people are treated without care and respect, these responses will instead create a negative spiral.
Over time, these interactions will create a culture of collective beliefs among the group about how much they can trust one another, how safe they are, how much people are treated with honesty and integrity and how well the group operates as a cohesive unit.
Real Life Example
I remember working in a high performance group early on in my career. One of the group members would just walk out at 5.30pm every night. We didn’t know about ‘emotionally intelligent groups’ and ‘courageous conversations’ as we were all young and the manager was not around. Rather than confronting the person who was clearly out of step with the rest of us, we just bitched about her. Predictably, this spiralled out of control to the point of ostracising the team member. This badly undermined the team’s cohesion and trust and we all ended up suffering.
In hindsight, this was a classic case where a courageous conversation by one of us could have simply stopped the situation and provided us with an opportunity to re-negotiate what was acceptable in terms of hours worked. We could all have benefited from it and prevented the negative chain of events which ensued.
Of course, when the leader of a group is emotionally intelligent, the leader can influence the response to the difficult situation and create a positive cycle, which enhances the functioning of the group. But, as we all know too well, a leader is not always available to manage this situation. Emotionally intelligent groups have a culture where there are agreed norms on how to behave in such situations. These norms result in the group as a whole being able to deal with difficult emotions in a way that creates positive outcomes and committed team members.
The Emotional Intelligence of Groups
An emotionally intelligent group can be defined as one that has shared expectations and norms when it comes to managing emotional situations. An emotionally intelligent group manages these situations in a way that builds trust, group identity and enhances group effectiveness.
Key to Emotional Intelligence in groups is the ability of the members to:
1. Take multiple perspectives.
2. Have interpersonal understanding.
Perspective taking
Basically, this is about the willingness of group members to take on others’ point of view when considering a situation. Perspective-taking involves the ability of the listener to take into consideration the speaker’s role, the speaker’s understanding of a situation, his agenda and his knowledge base. Group members who routinely do this in interactions are more likely to truly listen to one another and so create trust and willingness to work together. Remember, when you truly listen to another person, it is important to focus as much on the person as on the content of the message. As we know too well, it’s easy to be highly content-oriented, and to disregard where and why the message is coming out.
Interpersonal understanding
Interpersonal understanding in a group context is the ability of members to understand the spoken and unspoken feelings, interests, strengths, weaknesses, values and principles of their fellows. When group members understand these aspects of one another, they are better able to deal with others’ behaviour. Research in this area has found that members of high performing, self-managing work teams demonstrated significantly higher levels of interpersonal understanding than did members of low performing teams.
The Emotional Intelligence of Groups and Courageous Conversations
That’s all fine and well you say, but what’s that got to do with courageous conversations?
Well, think about it, the kind of people who choose to work in high pressure environments such as law firms, consultancies, corporates and accounting firms to name a few, have high expectations. One of these is that they should be able to be ‘themselves’ at work. However, for the group to function well, they also need to ‘fit in’. Research demonstrates that the more group members are allowed to ‘be themselves’ they are, paradoxically, more willing to put their individualism aside to fit in with the group’s needs. Put simply, if someone in a high performing group is a fitness freak, she is more likely to put aside a valued personal training session to help out in a pressured situation when she feels can be herself and that she is trusted and valued by the group.
But here’s the thing, individuals in those high performing groups have been found to be more likely than individuals in low performing teams to confront members who break norms (i.e. to have courageous conversations with the mavericks). Thus, when someone behaves in an unacceptable way, such as taking off to that personal training session when a deadline is looming, other group members, and not just the leader, speak out. However, in these emotionally intelligent groups, group members speak out in a respectful way. They are able to do so because they have the ability to take perspective and have interpersonal understanding of one another.
The researchers call this a ‘caring orientation’ which means that members communicate in a positive way, appreciate one another and, most importantly, are respectful.
According to the literature on the Emotional Intelligence of groups, it is when these types of ‘courageous conversations’ take place in a respectful manner that groups are able to re-negotiate their values. Through this ongoing negotiation, the values and norms are agreed on and become a true part of the group’s functioning. The key aspect of this approach is that new members to the group will be confronted in a caring way when they ‘step out’. When the confrontation - or courageous conversation - is done in a caring and respectful way, the individual is likely to feel supported, accepted and respected.
A Successful Courageous Conversation
Reflecting back on my own career, I think the first time I used a courageous conversation successfully (before I knew that was what it was called) was when I was working on another time-pressured high-stakes project. My manager had a habit of constantly introducing new tasks for me to do, each time ignoring what I was already working on (many people needed me to assist them in this project). At first I managed, but after a while I found myself growing increasingly stressed.
I asked the manager for a meeting and prepared for it with examples of how the times she’d handed me extra tasks without thinking about other priorities. We had a great working relationship and she was very open-minded. I suggested that we meet twice a week to discuss what needed to get done. We agreed that she would bring to those meetings a list of all the things she urgently needed and that we’d agree priorities together. If there was something truly urgent she could always ask me to do it and I would give it the highest priority. This worked beautifully, and our relationship and the project functioning benefited.
I hope you’ve found this piece helpful. I look forward to hearing from you about your thoughts and experiences in working in groups and using courageous conversations.
© Professionelle Ltd 2007