How to Tell Anyone Anything: Breakthrough Techniques for Handling Difficult Conversations at Work

By Richard Gallagher

No one likes to be criticized, but this book teaches the communication skills needed to successfully get the message across while keeping feelings and relationships intact.

Drawing from the latest in psychology on how best to connect with others, How to Tell Anyone Anything steers you away from the common mistake of providing feedback by focusing on what’s wrong and shows you instead how to provide clear, constructive positive messages that create real behavior and performance change.

You’ll learn how to:

• be more candid,
• prioritize relationships,
• ask important questions,
• reframe difficult messages,
• control your emotions,
• and be graceful when you’re on the receiving end of difficult feedback.

Complete with illuminating examples and a unique step-by-step process, How to Tell Anyone Anything gives you powerful insight into how we all react naturally to criticism--and how to transform interactions that might become verbal tugs-of-war into collaborative problem-solving sessions.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Thomas Nelson
• Release date: Jun 15, 2009
• ISBN: 9780814410165

Richard Gallagher

RICHARD S. GALLAGHER is a former customer support executive, practicing psychotherapist, and author of several books on customer service and communications skills.

Book preview

Acknowledgments

To all of the great employees on teams I have managed, all the managers who have inspired and taught me, the friends and colleagues who have shared their energy and ideas, and the thousands of people who have attended my communications skills programs over the years—this book is as much yours as it is mine, and it reflects the many things I have learned from you.

To Martha Hubbard, Susan Greener, and their team at my local business extension TC3.biz in upstate New York—you served as a valuable test kitchen for teaching the concepts in this book to a number of very engaged and appreciative audiences. Thanks also to Susan’s predecessor Beth Van Dine for planting the seed years ago of looking at strength-based versus deficit-based models of communication.

To Ginny Cutler, Larry Hanville, and everyone at EMQ Children and Family Services in Campbell, CA—your groundbreaking use of a strength-based approach with the families you serve, and the experiences we had implementing a strength-based communications model for your own team members, were both a tremendous inspiration to this book.

To Executive Editor Ellen Kadin and the entire team of professionals at AMACOM Books, and to my literary agent Diana Finch—thank you for a great working relationship that now spans four years and three books. It is a true pleasure working with all of you.

Finally, to my wife Colleen—we have always had a model of a strength-based relationship, but I still refer to it as being madly in love. Thank you for being a great editor, but more important, thank you for just being you.

INTRODUCTION

A New Way of

Looking at Dialogue

"I can’t deal with him anymore!"

This pained outburst, spoken sharply into a cell phone, rose above the din of a crowded Wednesday afternoon at Chicago’s O’Hare Airport, as a well-dressed man wheeled his luggage behind me. Later that same afternoon, settling into my seat at the United Airlines Red Carpet Club, I overheard more cell phone conversations from more successful-looking people with business suits and briefcases—things like:

She may be the boss, but she doesn’t know how to get along with anyone,

Everyone knows that he just isn’t working out, but no one has the guts to tell him,

I got so fed up with that man that I walked out of a project with him and got fired!

These people all have one thing in common: they don’t know how to positively influence the behavior of other people. They struggle with how to talk with their employees, their bosses, and their peers about difficult subjects—or perhaps they have tried airing their grievances and gotten nowhere—so instead, they gripe to others and feel powerless. They don’t realize that the right kind of honest and authentic communication, delivered in a nonthreatening way, could actually change many of these situations for the better. And if this group of elite frequent flyers among America’s best and brightest feel stuck in situations like these, where does that leave the rest of us?

Situations like these lie at the heart and soul of our ability to engage in dialogue, a term the dictionary defines broadly as an exchange of ideas and opinions and more specifically as a discussion between representatives of parties to a conflict that is aimed at resolution. In the ideal, dialogue serves as a mechanism to make things right. But in our own experience, it too often has the opposite effect. When we ask people to improve their performance, treat others differently, or even shower more often, the result is frequently anger and resentment—and far too often, nothing changing. So does this mean we are forever doomed to choose between getting people riled up, or swallowing our pride and accepting the status quo?

In a word: No!

This book presents what, for most people, is a very new and different approach to having difficult conversations in the workplace—one that is remarkably effective in actually getting people to listen to you, negotiate with you, and ultimately make positive changes in their behavior. This approach is easy to learn and put into practice, and is grounded in broader trends that are now changing the way we apply psychology to human situations. Above all, it is designed seemingly to achieve the impossible: to make these conversations painless on both sides of the discussion.

So, is there a catch to this win-win situation? Yes, just one. It will require you to change the way you view and respond to people—and at times, say things that are precisely the opposite of what you might have said in the past. But once you experience the results of this new approach to communicating with people, I’m betting that you’ll never go back to the old way again. This new, painless approach to dialogue will not only help give you power in situations where most people feel powerless, it will fundamentally change the way you relate to other people in all areas of your life—because the techniques will work just as well with personal as with business contacts.

To give you a taste of where we are heading, let’s jump right in with a real-world example that is all too common in many workplaces:

Service with a Slam!

You are the manager of a telephone customer service center, and once in a while you like to walk the floor and hear what people on your team are saying to customers. Today, as you approach Marcia’s cubicle, you can hear what she is saying from 20 feet away:

This is the fourth time I’ve tried to explain this to you, and all you do is keep asking more stupid questions! I’ve already spent way to much time trying to help you with this problem. You need to go find someone who knows what they are talking about. Goodbye! As you walk by, you can hear her slam the receiver down and sigh deeply.

Now, what would you say to your employee Marcia after hearing this? Let me guess. If you are like most people, I suspect it would fall into one of three categories:

1. You would have some choice words for Marcia that you probably wouldn’t say in church.

2. You would gravely intone about your company’s service standards, how Marcia’s behavior doesn’t meet these standards, and how she needs to improve.

3. You would try to avoid a confrontation by dodging the subject entirely, but make a mental note of it for her next performance review.

Next question: how do you think Marcia will react to any of these approaches? Will she express joy and thankfulness at being shown how to do her job better? Will she enthusiastically commit to meeting standards of excellent customer service in the future? In fact, is she likely to make any positive long-term changes at all, particularly the next time you’re out of earshot?

I didn’t think so—and that’s where this book comes in. Whenever I’ve been in situations like these (and as someone who spent much of his career managing call center operations, trust me, I have), here is how I have handled them, using the approach that forms the basis of this book:

• I would come to Marcia with a smile on my face, observe that this customer was getting under her skin, and ask her to tell me about it.

• As she responds to me, I would acknowledge and validate everything that she says. (You’re right. Customers who don’t read the manual and take up your time are really frustrating. I hate being in situations like that too.)

• Next, I would offer to help make this situation better in a way that benefits her. (Would you like to learn how I handle situations like these?)

• Finally, I would role-play better ways to handle the situation with her, and have fun with it. ("Marcia, here is a way to tell someone they are stupid without ever using the word ‘stupid’ in the sentence: talk about what happened when you made the same mistakes.")

What you are seeing here are the mechanics of a totally new way of having a difficult conversation—a positive, criticism-free process that never puts the listener on the defensive, even in difficult or sensitive situations. The results of this approach? Consistently, over and over, I’ve watched people with so-called bad attitudes blossom into top-rated employees, some of whom even garnered awards and leadership roles.

But for some of you reading this, I believe that I can read your mind right now. Oh, come on, you’re just being nice to a rude employee. You aren’t holding her accountable. She isn’t experiencing any consequences for her behavior! If you work with people in the real world, these all sound like legitimate concerns—so let’s look critically at each of them:

You’re just being nice to a rude employee. Actually, what you are seeing here is a very formal, scripted process that has nothing to do with my attitude. It is, in fact, a thoughtfully planned and composed performance. More important, this isn’t something that I or anyone else just made up off the top of our heads, but rather a process based on very specific principles of human behavior. As you read through this book, you will learn exactly what I said at each step of this process, and why I am saying it.

You aren’t holding her accountable. Actually, if you read this carefully, I am holding her very much accountable: I am coaching her. And I will keep coaching her, again and again if needed, until her performance meets my expectations. What I think you really mean to say is that I am not criticizing her, and on that point you are precisely correct.

Listen carefully. I have never accepted people giving less than their very best at their jobs, and I have the management track record to prove it, including creating near-perfect customer satisfaction ratings, near-zero external turnover, and high growth. Anyone who has worked for me for more than ten minutes knows that I have extremely high expectations for how people treat our customers, our organization, and each other. And at the end of the day, I use a painless approach to communications skills for a very selfish reason: it gets me much more of the behavior that I want in situations like these.

She isn’t experiencing any consequences for her behavior. What you are really saying is that she isn’t experiencing any punishment for her behavior. Again, you are correct. I am 100% focused on changing how she responds to customers in the future, rather than making her feel bad about how she responded to them in the past.

One of the things you will learn as you work your way through this book is that while our natural reaction is often to lash out at people who disappoint us, criticism and punishment are almost always the least effective way to change performance. If you want things like sullen compliance, resentment, turnover, and sabotage, negative feedback will certainly get you there. But I want something much better for you: I want you to be able to help people grow and change.

THE THEORY BEHIND PAINLESS CONVERSATIONS

Picture an important peer in your life: perhaps your spouse or partner, a good friend, or one of your co-workers. Now, I have a question for you: have you ever tried to change his or her behavior? When I ask this question to audiences at my training programs, nearly every hand goes up (including mine). But then when I ask another equally simple question—did it work?—suddenly no one’s hand is raised.

The reason for this is that most of us naturally practice deficit-based communications, where we point out another person’s faults and try to correct them. Deficit-based feedback is simple and logical—and almost never works. Why? Because human beings are inherently programmed to fight back against criticism, no matter how right it is.

But there is a new approach in psychology—it’s called a strength-based approach—that will dramatically change your ability to influence people in any situation. It isn’t a gimmick, nor is it a random assortment of verbal techniques that you will need to memorize and pull out on command. Instead, it is a proven approach that is based on one simple but powerful idea:

Always speak to the other person’s strengths and interests—even in difficult situations.

It is the key to effective, painless communication on any subject. Sounds simple enough, right? So why isn’t everyone practicing strength-based communication already? The problem is, when we go into the real world and run head-on into challenging situations, strength-based feedback is the last thing on earth we want to do. Here is why:

• When an employee is late again, the last thing you want to do is understand it.

• When you feel someone is dead wrong, the last thing you want to do is explore the benefits of her approach.

• When someone is rude and abrasive, the last thing we want to ask is what frustrates him.

But that last thing you want to do is exactly what will keep another person in dialogue, and more often than not, change their behavior. Here is why:

• When you acknowledge the feelings and frustrations of the late employee, you can much more effectively coach him—or even discipline him.

• When another person feels you understand the benefits of her approach, it becomes much easier for them to listen to your concerns.

• When you connect with another person’s frustrations, it opens the door to showing him more productive ways to handle them.

Using numerous real-life examples, this book will show you how to fundamentally change your ability to influence other people’s behavior, using a simple process that creates honest, authentic dialogue that benefits everyone concerned. As I mentioned before, these powerful new communication skills have their roots in psychology; if you are interested in learning more about the psychological underpinnings of these techniques, read Appendix B. Meanwhile, let’s start by looking in detail at why difficult conversations are so hard for most of us.

Section I

The Basics

CHAPTER 1

Why We Stink at

Difficult Conversations—

And How We Can Change

I keep talking to him about his behavior, but he never changes.

Does this line sound familiar? I would say that it is nearly universal. We all go around with the best of intentions trying to get other people to listen to us, and usually fall flat on our faces.

Of course, we understand perfectly why other people don’t succeed in getting people to change. Like the woman who feels she is a perfect mother but in reality is always criticizing her children. Or the toxic boss who rules by fear and intimidation. Or the coach who claims to have high standards for people when he is really just screaming at them and demoralizing them. These people clearly do not communicate well. But ourselves? Never. We are all nice people with only the best of intentions. So why doesn’t anyone ever seem to listen to us?

In this chapter, we’ll learn the answer to this question. First, we’ll take a look at the mechanics of how we approach sensitive conversations and why we say what we usually say, and more important, why it doesn’t work. Then, using a case study, I’ll show you how anyone can dramatically change this and connect with anyone. In the process, you are going to start learning an approach that will help you bring dialogue much closer to its historical reason for existence—namely, to improve the lives of both you and the people around you.

CONTEXT IS EVERYTHING

So what is it that makes difficult messages so hard to give, and so much harder for people to accept? And why, given that we are all reasonably smart people, do most of us have such a low rate of success with it?

Many of you may be thinking that people just naturally resist being told what to do, especially when the message is not a good one. That is a simple and seemingly logical explanation. Surprisingly, it is also not a correct one. The reality is that some people can tell some people almost anything, and this fact drives how we learn to communicate with people in general. Let’s look at some examples of very blunt conversations that do not fall on deaf ears.

• It is a hot summer night, and the players from a top major league baseball team are making their way into the clubhouse after a close win. As the starting pitcher comes through the door, the left fielder yells out, Hey, Jones, you stunk in that last inning! Jones smiles and winks as he heads to his locker.

• Your wife is the light of your life, even when she is standing in front of you on a Saturday morning with a paint brush in hand, saying, Alright, honey, no more goofing off with your pet projects. You’re going to paint the garage this weekend or else!

• Two talented musicians are listening to the tracks they laid down at this afternoon’s recording session. Doesn’t work, says one of them. Needs more ‘oomph’ in the bass. And those chords don’t really do it for me. This isn’t your best stuff, Carol. Carol nods in agreement.

OK, let’s recap. Telling a competitive professional athlete that he performed terribly. Confronting one’s husband and asking him to give up his Saturday to do chores. Letting a musician know that her hard work was all for naught. These are all really bad examples of feedback, right?

No, these are actually really good examples of relationships. These people are all so close, personally and professionally, that they feel they can be totally honest and authentic with each other. Because the relationship between each of these people is so strong, there is little or no concern about how the other person will react; in fact, they will usually appreciate the other person’s honesty. You could say that these people have a high level of relationship strength. As a result, their normal approach to dialogue works very well for them.

Now, let’s shift gears to the workplace, and try these same conversations in a different context:

• Steve and his co-workers file back into the office after finishing a big client presentation. Melinda, the sales manager, furrows her brow as they pass by and yells out, Steve, you really stunk up there!

• A team leader walks up to one of her employees with a thick file in her hand and a scowl on her face. As she plops it down with a loud thump in the middle of his desk, she declares, Alright, Davis, no more goofing around with your pet projects. You’re going to get these accounts finished this week or else!

• Carol and her manager, who only meet every month or so, are reviewing her latest project. He looks over her work and gravely intones, This doesn’t work for me. It needs more ‘oomph’ in the design. This isn’t your best work, Carol.

What do you notice about these exchanges? The only real difference here is that these people lack the same closeness and camaraderie as the people we mentioned earlier. As a result, these same messages are now delivered with seriousness and distance.

Now, how do you think the receivers will feel after receiving this second round of comments? You could probably describe it with a collective Ewwww. . . . And if you jump ahead and try to predict their responses, you are probably on pretty safe ground expecting a lot of anger, excuses, and defensiveness.

But this is how most people communicate in the workplace. We hold people accountable. We expect high performance. We point out problems. We tell people to shape up or else. And then we expect them to react the same way that the ballplayers did in the clubhouse. We don’t just have a communications problem; we have a perceptional problem because we think that these blunt comments will work for us like they do in our closest relationships. Now, let’s look at how we got to this point, and more important, how we get out.

WHY INEFFECTIVE DIALOGUES ARE IN YOUR GENES

The reason most of us talk to people the way we do—and the reason it usually fails—is deceptively simple. Most of us grow up in a cocoon surrounded by family and close friends. Our level of relationship strength is usually very high in those early years, and it is here where we learn to interact with others.

Within that relatively safe cocoon, we are more or less free to speak our minds at will, and this is in fact how we learn to survive. When we are helpless babies, we cry when we are hungry, and we get fed. When we are toddlers and something scares us, we call out and people around us react. And when we get a bit older and tell our little brother to stop picking his nose, in all likelihood he will still hang around and continue to be your little brother afterwards. We learn very powerfully at a young age to give blunt and direct feedback because