Difficult Conversations
The value of uncomfortable experiences in the search for
professional competency
Dr P. Culbertson
Difficult conversations
a productive approach
How to discuss what matters most
Based on research by Carol Cardno
Practice leading to change
Comfort
Disequilibrium
Threat
Critical dialogue = a conversation that is simultaneously critical and collaborative
“Every man takes the limits of his own field of
vision for the limits of the world”
Arthur Schopenhauer (1851)
What are the characteristics of a difficult conversation
• Defensiveness
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Covering up
Bypassing threat
Being indirect
Giving mixed messages
Withholding information
Avoidance and control are the two major strategies of defensiveness
Reasoning
Productive or defensive
“Productive reasoning is based on what we call mutuality.
Principles of shared control, shared thinking, shared evidence,
shared planning for improvement and joint responsibility for
monitoring” (Piggot Irvine & Cardno, 2006 )
“Defensive reasoning is the tendency to protect oneself from
potential threat or embarrassment. Defensive routines are those
behaviors which allow us to cover up or bypass threats” (Ibid)
Productive Reasoning
Productive reasoning involves a balancing act between the two predominant
features of advocacy and inquiry.
Advocacy: supporting that position that in such a way that is both hypothetical and invites
evaluation and challenge.
Inquiry: checking our own and others perceptions in ways which reveal implicit and explicit
assumptions
Bilaterality (two sidedness): Informed mutual checking of meaning, understanding, perspective,
and agreement, is central to the success of the approach.
Defensive reasoning
Productive reasoning
Guiding values:
Guiding values:
•Seek and give valid information
•Share control and solution
•Monitor solutions jointly
•Win - don’t lose
•Avoid unpleasantness'
•Maintain control
Strategies:
•Not checking assumptions
•Giving indirect or mixed messages
•Not explaining reasoning
•Using questioning to control
Strategies:
•Checking assumptions
•being forthright
•Disclosing reasoning
•asking questions as genuine
inquiry
The triple I approach
Ie
3
Information - focus on giving and getting quality information
Disclose your position
Illustration -
Inquiry
explain the basis for making judgment, give examples
- ask relevant questions to seek information
- ask questions that check your assumptions
• Overcoming defensiveness first involves looking at
the way that we personally are implicated in the
problem
Eileen Piggot-Irvine 1995
Expressives
Amiable
Motivated by
recognition
Achievement
Driver
acceptance
security
Analytical
Un-learning
“To un-learn defensive approaches you have to become a reflective
learner.”
“You have to learn how to slow down or stop when you become aware that
your normal approach is not producing a desired result.”
Cardno
Reflective practice
Donald Schon
Reflective practice is about focusing on action
Knowing-in-action
Be able to understand and
describe what we know we do
in a given situation
Reflection-on-action
Ability to stop, stand back, and
think about what has happened
Reflection-in-action
Ability to think about what we
are doing while we are doing it
and are capable of changing
our actions mid-performance
How style impacts on climate
Effective leaders develop the capacity to make judgments based on
their knowledge of:
• Themselves
• The situation and the people involved
• Each style and its capacity, demands and effects
The quality of these judgments is strongly linked to Emotional
Intelligence and its three pillars:
• Self awareness
• Empathy
• Understanding of communication and relationship dynamics
Learning conversations
“In learning conversations people recognise the importance of
treating different accounts of a problem as a resource for
learning better ways of thinking about or resolving a problem”
Its about being open to learning from others and surfacing values,
beliefs and assumptions. The drive in a learning conversation is
for better quality thinking and reasoning” (Robinson & Lai, 2006)
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Conversation
Self/peer critique
Well I need to have a little bit of a
conversation with you Anne
No evidence
Ok,Ok, that’s fine
Not checking
assumptions
Yes, I'm afraid that I have to address
something with you
OK
Its just that, well its probably not that
big a deal really, but someone has
noticed that you are coming really late
into school sometimes
Oh really?
I’m afraid so. I've had a few
comments about it from a few people
Oh, Ok who?
Giving false
reassurance to fudge
essential message
etc……………
Collaboration
Difficult
conversation
Your response
Self/peer critique
Co construction