Guide for Open, Honest Conversations

It is critical for 2i2c’s team to feel comfortable being honest with one another and engaging in potentially challenging or controversial conversations. Doing so productively requires thoughtfulness and skill. Here are some principles that can help.

Assume Positive Intent

Engaging in conversations that challenge our worldviews can be difficult. It often leads to defensive interactions because we feel attacked, preventing us from understanding or hearing what is truly being communicated.

Recommendation

Short-circuit the natural defensive posture and assume that the person we are communicating with is not “out to get us.” When we assume positive intent, it helps us remain neutral and curious.

Create Psychological Safety

Without psychological safety, teams and individuals cease to have productive conversations. Mistrust takes root, and crucial conversations become veiled in suspicion, bias, and blame.

Recommendation

Be mindful of what triggers you. Manage and maintain neutral body language. Use language that invites curiosity (e.g., “Can you tell me more about this perspective…”).

Seek to Understand, Not to Be Understood

When discussing important and controversial topics, it is easy for everyone to try to get their point across. This often leads to talking at each other, causing tensions to flare.

Recommendation

Make space to listen deeply to what the other person is communicating. Don’t listen just to respond and provide a rebuttal. Listen to understand. A great way to do this is to summarize back to the person what you have understood were their key points (e.g., “My understanding of what you are saying is that 1…, 2…, and 3…. Have I got it correctly?”).

Be Honest (Do Not Avoid Uncomfortable Topics)

When sharing honest feedback and critical information, don’t be a jerk. Just because you are speaking the truth doesn’t mean your language has to be caustic and hurtful. Be mindful that you are speaking with a human, even while maintaining the message during emotional duress.

Recommendation

Don’t sugarcoat the message. Don’t use nice/nasty/nice sandwiches. If you believe the recipient is starting to experience emotional duress, pause and ask them if they’d like a minute to compose themselves or continue the conversation in a few minutes. Do not apologize for your message.

Welcome Critical Feedback

Nobody likes receiving critical information that exposes their failures or shortcomings. However, this is the type of information that can help us grow, and we shouldn’t avoid it, even if it may cause some discomfort.

Recommendation

Here are a few ways to help:

• Ask peers for specific feedback in areas where you know you are weak.

• Ask peers for feedback in areas where they think you need to radically improve.

Focus on Shared Interests, Not Positions

Instead of disagreeing with or challenging the person, disagree with or challenge their position. Ultimately, we want to separate the person from their position so that it’s the position we are challenging.

Recommendation

Regard the position the person is articulating and challenge that (e.g., [challenging the person] “Harold, you are stupid; this will never work” vs. [challenging the position] “Harold, I disagree with your idea and feel it is ill-conceived because…”). The latter is not a personal attack, whereas the former is more likely to be perceived as such.