Causative Communication
Ingrid Gudenas
The secret to melting resistance...

Gisele showed up for her coaching session with me and said, “I’m presenting really well now, I only have one stumbling block. Martin is blocking my proposal and I can’t go forward without him.  He’s really stubborn.  Won’t listen and he keeps repeating the same thing over and over again.”

Why do people do that?

Causative Communication
Ingrid Gudenas
One change and people started to buy-in

10 years ago, a man came in trying to sell me something. I felt sorry for him and decided to listen to what he had to say. I hadn’t listened for three minutes before I stopped him and said, “I’m not going to buy anything. But I’m going to coach you on your communication skills. Right now you’re not going to sell anything to anyone.” He smiled ruefully and said, “How did you know? I’m not making any sales, no one’s buying from me.”

Beyond Persuasion, Causative Communication
Ingrid Gudenas
Doing tomorrow what you can't today

There’s talking. Then there’s communicating. The difference between these two may not be visible to the average person, but is very visible in the effect you create on the other person and in the deep satisfaction of your outcome, including the relationship you develop.

Beyond Persuasion
Ingrid Gudenas
One word gave him a powerful presence

That’s what dignity looks like.

People often try to change the outward thing:  the posture, the voice, the eye contact, the gesture.

But what makes a man stand tall? An instruction to straighten his back? A reminder to lift his head? A lesson in how to carry himself?

Beyond Persuasion
Ingrid Gudenas
The answer to so many things

What passes for listening in this world, oh it’s so sad. Especially when people disagree or their realities are quite different. The kind of listening that I see Beyond Persuasion graduates do is enough to turn your head. It’s enough to make a room go quiet because they know they’re witnessing something extraordinary.

Causative Communication

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A "thank you" to these rock stars of corporate America

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Executive:

“Regarding that conference in Miami next week, I changed my mind and decided to go after all.  I want to stay in that fabulous hotel everyone talks about.  I know I’m booking that hotel at the last minute and I know the hotel is completely sold out and has been for weeks, but I need you to get me a suite there with a king-sized bed, with an ocean view and make sure it’s far from the elevators and above the seventh floor.”

Executive Assistant (60 minutes later):

“You’re all booked.  Room 1050.  Refrigerator will be stocked with all your favorites. And I let them know you’ll be checking in late and to hold the room no matter what.”

My article today is a tribute to my heroes in the corporate world: Administrative Professionals, also known as Administrative Assistants and, at the higher levels, Executive Assistants.  It’s especially appropriate today, because today is Administrative Professionals Day.

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How to create transformation without having to speak

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“I just wanted you to know how much I appreciate our conversations. It’s an honor to work for you.”

This is what Ann told Patrick after their third conversation. It might seem like a natural thing to say to a very good manager. But let me fill you in on the actual context.

Patrick is a Vice President. Ann was a Senior Director reporting to him and she wasn’t cutting it.  Ann had been promoted prematurely, wasn’t qualified and was falling short on key projects.

Patrick would never have put Ann in her role, would never have promoted her to a senior level. Patrick had inherited Ann from previous VPs and others who continuously promoted Ann, despite the fact that her results were always sketchy at best.  She had never been held accountable.  Now it was Patrick’s problem as he took over as her new VP.

After his initial assessment, Patrick’s three conversations with Ann were intense. The first was when he told her he was demoting her from Senior Director to “Individual Contributor”.

“Individual Contributor” is a nice term that is used to mean no one reports to you.

Patrick told me, “I walked in to our first conversation prepared. I knew it was going to be a tough conversation and I walked in ready for it.”

It would have been very different even one month ago.  Patrick would have confronted Ann with the blunt facts of the situation, very directly, a very “no nonsense” approach, a very “deal with it and let’s move on” kind of attitude.  And Patrick would have gotten a very different reaction and a very different employee.

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The magic of trading in small problems for big problems

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Susan was sent to me by her boss. She is a very competent Senior Director and they want to prepare her to become a Vice President.

The Senior Vice President told me that what is holding Susan back is that, “She doesn’t have enough executive presence and she doesn’t come across like a leader. She is very confident in what she does, but she doesn’t have that leadership quality and that executive presence needed at the senior level.”

It turns out Susan was terrified of communication. Especially with her peers, the other Senior Directors, who intimidated her. Even worse with people higher up. When she faced an upcoming meeting, Susan was stressed solid the whole week leading up to it and did not sleep at all the night before.

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How to defuse arguments before they even begin

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It was a pleasant afternoon and I had a pleasant book….

I was sitting with an exquisite cup of white tea in a beautiful local tea shop. They serve delicious teas made from leaves growing on ancient trees, picked by hand in the Spring and then lovingly hand-processed on very small family farms in very remote regions of China. 

My environment was perfect.

At the table next to me sat a couple.

The man was in quite a pleasant mood. He was telling the woman about something that had happened that morning. He was enjoying talking with her and enjoying the telling. He finished and smiled at her.

The woman spoke: “Why didn’t you ask her? I would have thought that would have been the first thing you would have asked her.”

The woman’s question seemed polite, but her tone of voice had a slight edge, an unspoken quality of “I’m trying hard to be very polite, but I really don’t get how you could have done something so wrong.”

 I’m sure she was completely unaware of her tone. Most people are.

I picked up my book and pretended to read because I knew where this conversation was going. I didn’t even know what they were talking about, but I knew they were headed for a fight.

Can you see how the question itself makes him wrong?  I knew he was going to defend what he did.  In other words, he was going to get “defensive”.

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Living the magical life of an expert communicator

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Jesse is used to doing the impossible. He just applied for a position that everyone told him he couldn’t get.  He’s been told many times that “usually” people need to “prove” themselves for several years before they’re considered for these higher levels. 

 Jesse long ago decided that “usually” was not for him.

 He applied for the position … and got it.  Right away too, I might add.

 Jesse has gotten every position he’s applied for in the last 5 years, and there have been a good number.  Many more than “usual”.  His career is on the fast track.

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The solution to thinking under pressure

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I have a client in my life who makes unreasonable requests. I know, you’re thinking, “You’re lucky it’s just one unreasonable person in your life!”  Well, there are more, but this is about a particularly prickly one. 

The requests are always over the top, and sometimes they're impossible.  At a minimum, they're "make-your-team-bend-over-backwards-to-make-this-happen".

I was always caught off guard by his demanding and harsh attitude. I used to try to reason with him, but was always a little off balance.  I never came out of the meeting feeling good. Afterward I was always thinking, "Oh, I should have said ....."

I think it was uncomfortable for him too.

I decided one day, "No more of that!" (I hate feeling like an idiot.) I realized I wasn't giving myself time to think through what he was asking. My immediate reaction was always, "You have got to be kidding!" and I never had time for a second thought before he was demanding an immediate answer.

So, I changed my operating basis.

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The look in your eyes

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The look in your eyes tells me everything I need to know.  Way in advance of it happening, I can tell by the look in your eyes if you are going to win, barely maintain, or lose.

What is it I see?  I see the strength of your intention.  It tells me everything about how it’s going to turn out for you.

Intention is something I teach, so I know a lot about it.  It’s the secret ingredient of all success.

But, intention is not generally well understood.

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Breaking free from what's holding you back... made easy

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Causative [kaw’-zuh-tiv], adjective: Making what you want HAPPEN. Being able to cause your intended effect or outcome at will.

When did we first stop being causative? Well, if it didn't happen sooner, it probably happened for most of us when we started school and were told to sit down and be quiet … for hours and hours at a time.

They told us exactly where to sit. We weren’t allowed to leave that seat.

They made us ask permission for everything, including leaving the room.

If we did something without permission, we were bad. It didn’t matter if it was right. It was automatically bad if it was done before asking for and receiving permission first. Even if it was just standing up to stretch.

If we wanted to talk, we had to raise our hand and wait to be called on. Raising your hand was dangerous because the teacher was asking a question that had one “right” and many “wrong” answers and when we were wrong, it was very public. Where I went to school, not many hands went up (usually the same ones over and over). We became skilled at avoiding eye contact with the person in the front of the room (something I still see today in my corporate workshops).

We weren’t allowed to talk to each other, only the one person in front of the room.

Everything we did was graded and compared to what everyone else did. Smarter than him but not as pretty as her.

We were graded based on one person's opinion of us, a person who often didn’t understand or like us. A person we thought was paid to be critical of us. To find every flaw.

Most of us did not get straight A’s. We were always falling short on something. Grades could easily make us feel that we were mediocre. Few were happy the day they got their “report card” and some hid them from their parents.

We were severely restrained from being causative. For years.

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