Conversation is THE Tool for learning Kākou

Up to now we have continued to focus on teaming, dipping back into last month’s discussion at times to revisit Lōkahi, the value of unity and harmony. This is a natural with learning Kākou, for we first define it as the value of inclusiveness. Before you can seek to improve the ways you communicate, fostering the language of we, it’s good to give some thought to just who you want to communicate to, and who you need to be including in your efforts. As the adage goes, “no man is an island” and in a life of ‘Imi ola (purpose-driven living), no man or woman wants to be!

[see Beat 1 Coaching for Kākou: Who is your We?]

So now that we have a consciousness of the important people we include in our “we,” let’s think about how we communicate to them, starting with the art of conversation. I love how Nick Smith of Life 2.0 coaches us to consider conversation a “first class citizen;”

Make conversation a first class citizen.
Conversation is the way we have got things done since Adam and Eve decided to walk out of the Garden of Eden.  The process flow is always the same:

Ideas ----> Conversation ---- > Agreement ----> Action.

And this is true on a personal level too - the 'conversation'  being the one that goes on inside our heads to resolve any conflicting ideas/beliefs.  The second step in the sequence, conversation, is the organising principle - where we explore and resolve competing ideas until we reach agreement, which then determines what gets done and how.

But when we look a little closer at the mechanics of this organising principle we see, apart from just sharing information, that there's an interplay of three other basic 'intentions' expressed within our conversations:  issues  we raise, requests  we make and  suggestions  we propose.  If we can make conversation a first class citizen again, and capture this flow of issues, requests and proposals.. then we can self-manage the most complex of tasks and create the most wonderful things without the need for cumbersome, ham-fisted organisational tools.

Look what happens whenever there's a major crisis and tools fails us.  We use conversation locally to co-create the most fantastic workarounds.  Conversation alone, when we understand and trust the principles, works brilliantly.

~ Nick Smith, author of Life 2.0, at How to set a team on fire? 

 

 

 

Entire books have been written about having great conversations, and rightfully so, for better conversation is something we can all use to enhance every single relationship we have.

Conversation is THE Kākou tool in Managing with Aloha. When I engage a new client I will always preview the Daily Five Minutes® with them as a nonnegotiable part of the process we will use in bringing MWA to their organizational culture. Quite simply, the D5M is the way I assure that everyone in that organization begins to talk to each other in a way they have not done before.

Speech is a skill we were all born with, yet it quickly becomes the skill we take for granted instead of truly learning to strengthen it. Talking to each other opens doors to powerful possibilities; most of us call it “networking.” I think of it as “relationship-working,” and when you think of it that way, Kākou happens.

For today, and into the weekend, think about the conversations you now routinely have. Are they satisfying to you? How do you think you might improve them? Where and when have you taken your own skill with conversation for granted? What would you like to learn in strengthening your skill? (For many, a good place to start isn’t with speaking at all, but with listening.)

Here is a very simple Kākou-learning process you can adopt for October, which will make the rest of what we speak of here at MWAC this month more meaningful to you. It is a journaling process that only requires 5 to 10 minutes. At the end of each day, reflect back on the conversations you had, and capture that “hindsight [which] is 20-20.” Having these fresh examples, run through those questions I asked earlier in a more focused way:

• Were your conversations satisfying to you?
• How do you think you might have done better, improving them?
• What part of them simply suffered from attention-deficit (you were not “fully present”) and when did it feel like a different skill was lacking?
• What would you like to learn in strengthening your skill?

Yes, entire books have been written about conversations, but in this simple way, we can learn from ourselves first, and get quicker results!

After you have done this a few times, if you find you consistently come up with the same answers for yourself, resolve to make the fixes you desire. You may get some help by going back to the richness in the excerpt I shared above from Nick Smith: Remember his process flow, and three “basic intentions?”

• Was there complete process flow including your conversation, and so you do move toward best-possible Action?
• Did you raise an issue, make a request, or propose a suggestion? What was the intent of the other person within these three intentions, and were you both satisfied? Every conversation CAN be a win-win!

Comments

[Nick Smith]

Hi Rosa, this is great. . and yes, it's using this interplay of making requests, raising issues, sharing ideas, and making proposals in conversation that enables meaning to emerge between us, and new possibilities to come about.

What I'd also add is that the quality of our conversation (and therefore the outcomes) is very much a function of our intention, don't you think? Do we talk to come together or to differentiate ourselves from others? Do we communicate to discover what is we share or what makes us 'special'. Do we reach out the greatness in another, even when they cannot see it themselves, or do we talk to their self-image by pointing out the errors of their ways?

No matter what the words we use isn't it this intent that is always felt first and really gets communicated? I guess this is what I was referring to by 'know where you are coming from' in the first bullet point of the article you refer to.

Thanks for your lovely insights Rosa. You're a star*.

[Rosa Say]

Thank you for stopping by Nick, and for adding what in a single word - intention - my personal mantra of Ho‘ohana is all about :) Yes, I absolutely agree with you that “the quality of our conversation (and therefore the outcomes) is very much a function of our intention” and the questions you ask are terrific ones to add to our journaling exercise: They help us be honest about our deeper motivations, or the instinctual ones we may want to keep a lid on.

Thoughtful intention truly helps us with clarity as well, in that it helps us choose the right words to say. We have all run into those situations where we are dismayed that someone has reacted to our words unexpectedly (and perhaps disastrously), and we exclaim, “but that is not what I meant to say!” yet as the saying goes, their perception has now become our reality. It is very likely that thoughtful intention could have prevented our misstep.