What Culture Are You Creating From Your Conversations?
Sometimes when I reflect on a meeting I’ve had with a team member, especially a young one, I recognize how inadequate my approach was to our discussion. While my words may have been accurate and honest, the tone I set was not hopeful. It wasn’t filled with belief, but suspicion that they might not be getting it. Has this happened to you lately?
Every one of us influences the culture in our organization in big or small ways. Often our impact is subtle and inconspicuous.
Evaluate your response to the following questions:When you see three young staff talking quietly alone, what do you question first?
When a young team member makes an unexplainable decision, what do you think first?
When something doesn’t go as planned, what do you find yourself concluding?
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Review your responses. Did you select more “As” than “Bs”? As we age, we tend to move from the first response to the second. We want to correct. We get suspicious of those Gen Zers. We can assume the worst. It can lead to instant judgments. After all, we’re older and wiser.
Our responses, however, often reveal where our heart is. Are we suspicious or caring first? Our questions may all be legitimate, but what comes to mind first shows what kids feel from us.
In 2019, our team partnered with Harris Poll Interactive, and surveyed more than 2,000 adults across the country. Our questions surrounded how they felt about young people today. The results were enlightening. 66 percent of respondents expressed a negative emotion rather than a positive one when thinking about teens. In other words, instead of hopeful or excited, they used words like concerned or fearful for them. Additionally, 65 percent (or almost two in three) said they do not believe teens will be ready when they enter adulthood. Consider how it feels to be a teen led by parents, teachers and coaches who convey such negative emotions? They can tell when they’re being led by someone who doesn’t believe they’re going to be ready for a challenge ahead. Regardless of what we say, they’re digesting our words (verbal language), our body language (non-verbal) and our tone (paraverbal) as well.
Three Kinds of Conversations
In Charles Duhigg’s latest book, Supercommunicators, he reminds us that we need to size up the kind of conversation the people in front of us need or want. He describes three types of interactions based on what the person needs most:
1️⃣ Practical
This conversation is about facts, sizing up what the topic is really about. In practical conversations, the person wants to be helped or advised by you. You must ask yourself: what’s this really about and what valuable information can I share with them?
2️⃣ Emotional
This conversation is about feelings, evaluating how they feel and want to feel. In these interactions the person may want to be verbally hugged by you. You must ask yourself: How do they feel and what kind of verbal “hug” or affirmation can I add to reassure them?
3️⃣ Social
This conversation answers the question: who are we? It’s not about informing the other person but about hearing the person. You must ask yourself what you can do to connect with them and make them feel heard and understood. No advice needed.
Bottom line?
Do they need to be helped, hugged, or heard? I have entered so many interactions from a factual standpoint and completely missed the need of the young teammate. They were in a social or emotional frame of mind, and I was in a cognitive frame of mind. And I didn't connect.
I’ve done this with staff, with my wife and with my own kids. If you’re not having the same conversation you’ll not connect and, perhaps, even create tension. When we learn to have the same conversation, you match each other, and it is absolutely powerful.
Don taught chemistry for decades and worked hard to express belief and positivity to students, especially when the subject didn’t come naturally. Deanna was such a student. She was kind, respectful and generous with her classmates—but just didn’t get chemistry.
Don tried to encourage her but knew he had to be honest about her poor test scores. Deanna failed her final exam. Toiling over what to write next to her “F,” he found a way to be both accurate and hopeful. He wrote: “We cannot all be chemists, but oh, how we would all love to be Deanna’s.”
I continue to believe the deepest way we can impact culture is to express belief in our team.