[Editors note: The following is a journal entry addressing the CPM course taught by Wendy Holden and John Swannack for module 3.4.]
Reflections from Module 4.1
Looking over my notes, the amount to be remembered from this class was significantly less compared to the other classes.
However, four separate incidents struck me about how much information I have gained in knowledge and application over the past year.
Showing posts with label Crucial Conversations. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Crucial Conversations. Show all posts
Friday, October 31, 2014
Monday, April 28, 2014
Personal Development Project - Report #6 - Silence or Violence
Part of the Certified Public Manager program involves the completion of a personal development project. My selected project is to prepare a series of lectures to my fellow managers about basic managerial concepts. These series of posts are intended to document my progress in that endeavor. This report pertains to a presentation made on 4/28/14.
Silence & Violence
For this week's lecture on key management concepts I began what I hope will be a series of lectures covering some of the important concepts I have learned from my listening to Crucial Conversations.
I started with the exercise of having the participants list behaviors of 4 year olds who don't get their way. I then made the connection that adult patterns are not much different in their purposes.
Grouping these responses, we tend to have either silence or violence. We either withdraw from the conversation into forms of silence, or we attack others in forms of violence. Where what we need to be aiming for is dialogue and discussion.
So the two main takeaways from this discussion are to first realize when we see these responses in ourselves and realize that we are avoiding dialogue because of safety issues. The second main takeaway is when we see others employing these responses we need to realize that they do not feel safe.
There was some very good discussion at the end of this session I will describe below.
Silence & Violence
For this week's lecture on key management concepts I began what I hope will be a series of lectures covering some of the important concepts I have learned from my listening to Crucial Conversations.
I started with the exercise of having the participants list behaviors of 4 year olds who don't get their way. I then made the connection that adult patterns are not much different in their purposes.
Grouping these responses, we tend to have either silence or violence. We either withdraw from the conversation into forms of silence, or we attack others in forms of violence. Where what we need to be aiming for is dialogue and discussion.
So the two main takeaways from this discussion are to first realize when we see these responses in ourselves and realize that we are avoiding dialogue because of safety issues. The second main takeaway is when we see others employing these responses we need to realize that they do not feel safe.
There was some very good discussion at the end of this session I will describe below.
Thursday, April 24, 2014
Learning Goal #1 Improving Comunications, Report #2 - The Septic Tank Service Log Status
This series is intended to document my efforts towards one of my learning goals within the UWT CPM program. Specifically my goal of positively and proactively addressing conflict by using crucial conversation skills.
When I received an email from my boss about the status of a service log of the septic systems maintained by our public works department, I felt myself going to silence or violence. The email also raised the question as to whether the lack of this service log lead to a recent issue from one of our residents who had a septic system issue last week. I unwittingly started with my story telling.
My initial thought was "I had asked C (not his real initial) to do this last summer and he never got it done. And now look what happened, somebody's septic tank backed up, my boss is upset, and I'm going to be in trouble for not hounding him to get it done." Boy, am I good at this victim/villain story thing!
So rethinking through the issue, I thought I should get some more facts to base my story on. Armed with my crucial conversation skills, I set about to have one. I tentatively shared my facts and story and then asked for C's story.
Turns out the septic system inspections were occurring regularly. Annually for most units and roughly quarterly for high use systems. The system that had failed was checked just last summer.
When C responded to the work request this last week, it was apparent that the occupancy of the home had increased significantly beyond what the system would be capable of handling and this had likely caused the problem.
By having this conversation in a calm and straightforward manner, it helped to build trust and safety while bringing out the real issues.
We discussed things we could do to move forward and one action that we agreed to was having C provide notes about the septic tanks as he inspects. I can then update our inventory list with this information and it will allow us to document more completely the work that is being done.
At one point in the conversation, the topic shifted off of this particular subject. It may have been an attempt to avoid issues by shifting to silence. I made a point of building safety and then re-entering the conversation. At that point we made the agreement of who will do what to bring the issue to resolution and were able to conclude the conversation in a positive manner.
When I received an email from my boss about the status of a service log of the septic systems maintained by our public works department, I felt myself going to silence or violence. The email also raised the question as to whether the lack of this service log lead to a recent issue from one of our residents who had a septic system issue last week. I unwittingly started with my story telling.
My initial thought was "I had asked C (not his real initial) to do this last summer and he never got it done. And now look what happened, somebody's septic tank backed up, my boss is upset, and I'm going to be in trouble for not hounding him to get it done." Boy, am I good at this victim/villain story thing!
So rethinking through the issue, I thought I should get some more facts to base my story on. Armed with my crucial conversation skills, I set about to have one. I tentatively shared my facts and story and then asked for C's story.
Turns out the septic system inspections were occurring regularly. Annually for most units and roughly quarterly for high use systems. The system that had failed was checked just last summer.
When C responded to the work request this last week, it was apparent that the occupancy of the home had increased significantly beyond what the system would be capable of handling and this had likely caused the problem.
By having this conversation in a calm and straightforward manner, it helped to build trust and safety while bringing out the real issues.
We discussed things we could do to move forward and one action that we agreed to was having C provide notes about the septic tanks as he inspects. I can then update our inventory list with this information and it will allow us to document more completely the work that is being done.
At one point in the conversation, the topic shifted off of this particular subject. It may have been an attempt to avoid issues by shifting to silence. I made a point of building safety and then re-entering the conversation. At that point we made the agreement of who will do what to bring the issue to resolution and were able to conclude the conversation in a positive manner.
Friday, February 21, 2014
Learning Goal #1 Improving Comunications, Report #1
This series is intended to document my efforts towards one of my learning goals within the UWT CPM program. Specifically my goal of positively and proactively addressing conflict by using crucial conversation skills.
This conversation may have been a stretch to qualify as "crucial" and in fact was conducted via email, which could marginally be classified as "conversation". However, the key point was that I was intentionally implementing the key skills described in the Crucial Conversation methodology that I am attempting to learn.
The conversation centered around whether some recently completed work was related to the scope of a larger project with a dwindling budget, or whether it should be considered general services work and billed as its own discrete task.
The particular skills in view are the S.T.A.T.E. skills designed to facilitate dialogue and explore others view points.
Share your facts
Tell your story
Ask for other points of view
Tentatively present
Encourage Testing.
In an effort to get all the relevant information into the pool of meaning, I shared my facts, tentatively told my point of view, and asked for another point of view.
The result was an amicable continuation of the conversation. The other party agreed to research further their facts and report back next week.
This conversation may have been a stretch to qualify as "crucial" and in fact was conducted via email, which could marginally be classified as "conversation". However, the key point was that I was intentionally implementing the key skills described in the Crucial Conversation methodology that I am attempting to learn.
The conversation centered around whether some recently completed work was related to the scope of a larger project with a dwindling budget, or whether it should be considered general services work and billed as its own discrete task.
The particular skills in view are the S.T.A.T.E. skills designed to facilitate dialogue and explore others view points.
Share your facts
Tell your story
Ask for other points of view
Tentatively present
Encourage Testing.
In an effort to get all the relevant information into the pool of meaning, I shared my facts, tentatively told my point of view, and asked for another point of view.
The result was an amicable continuation of the conversation. The other party agreed to research further their facts and report back next week.
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