In this episode, we talk about communication. Your ability to communicate serves you across all aspects of your life. This first part of a two-part series covers how you can plan out a difficult conversation.

3 Stages of Conversation Planner

The three stages are: before, during and after a conversation. Each stage has three elements to it.

Before

• Clarity: First, have clarity about the issues and challenges. Whoever it may be that you are communicating to, you need to become clear on the real issues and remove any judgment or bias before you know the facts.
• Objective: You need a direction or a defined outcome of a conversation. Have an objective so you are not swayed away from your ultimate goal.
• Environment: Choose the best environment to have a dialogue that is meaningful and you can take it towards an objective where everyone wins.

During

• Openness: The spirit of openness is required in a conversation. For others to be open, we have to be open. Therefore, have that intent to create transparency while communicating.
• Safe: The participants need to actually feel safe—emotionally, spiritually and energetically. You have to ensure safety to have a frank conversation.
• Empathy: Step in their shoes, enter their world and maintain a position where you see what they see. When you understand where they are coming from, you can really shift the dynamics and get the desired results.

After

• Follow up: Come up with the next steps to further the discussions. You need to be definitive on that follow up to make sure it happens.
• Consistency: If you are seen treating people inconsistently, it will create an environment of distrust. Be consistent with everyone and people will feel safe and open up to you.
• Relationship: This concept is all about furthering and nurturing a relationship that you are trying to create with others so they can move on to the next planned phase.

— Begin Transcript —

Hey there, I’m Mel Abraham, the author of the #1 best-selling book, The Entrepreneur’s Solution and the founder of Business Breakthrough Academy, where we teach you how to design a business and create a life: A life of financial freedom and peace of mind.

And welcome back to this episode of The Entrepreneur’s Solution show. And in this episode, we’re going to examine something that I think will serve you across all aspects of your life. We’re going to talk a bit about business, but it’s going to help you, it will help you dealing with relationships, friendships, business negotiations, mediations, and it’s all about Communication.

How do we have that difficult conversation?

And I’m going to do this in two parts because that’s the way that when it comes down to

• High stakes conversations,
• High stakes negotiation,
• High stakes mediation

> We typically want to plan it out first.

So, I’m going to take you through the planning framework where we think about the focal points first. And then, in the second part of this, I’m going to take you through the actual conversation. How to have the conversation in that.

And each episode has its own framework and has its own tool, and in this episode I have the three stages of conversation planner that you can download at MelAbraham.com/session040. And if you’re not at your computer or you happen to be out and about listening to this, then go ahead and just text. Text MYLEGACY one-word no-spaces to 38470. We’ll make sure that we get that tool to you and get you the link so you can download it.

Now, when we come back after this brief introduction, let’s hit the 3 Stages of Conversation and I will see you back here soon. Cheers.

Hey there, welcome back. I’m Mel Abraham, the author of the #1 best-selling book, The Entrepreneur’s Solution and welcome back to this episode of The Entrepreneur’s Solution show. And as I said, in this episode, we’re going to start on this journey—this journey about communication.

How do we deal with that difficult conversation?
How do we deal with high-stakes conversations, high stakes negotiations, may be mediations?

And one of the first things that I look at is that: We don’t just flippantly go into it. We actually plan it out. We do some things upfront. We do some legwork upfront to understand and how to set up the conversation for success and when we talk about success, my success, I like to look at negotiations and conversations, not from a zero-sum game. In other words, someone doesn’t have to lose for me to win.

But to look at it and say,

How do we create an outcome as best we can where both seem to get something out of?
Where both feel like they got something out of it.

And I think, one of the things to do is to do it, do some planning up front first and what I use is a tool that’s called the 3 Stages of Conversation Planner and I use that. I’m going to take you through that framework to kind of give you an idea as to what it is we need to be doing before we ever start the conversation.

So, let’s start into that and what we’re really doing is saying, “Alright, what are the focal points? What are the things that we should be focusing in on at the 3 stages of a conversation?”

And those three stages, I know this is going to be original to you. Like the three stages are:

1. Before,
2. During, and
3.  

That’s the reality of it. I could have tried to be a little more clever, but it’s before, during and after. What are the things that we need to focus on before:

• To set the conversation,
• To set the negotiation,
• To set the mediation up for success?

And as many of you know, I’ve done a lot of litigation, expert witness, negotiations, transactions, buying/selling businesses, property, deals around and this is the process I go through to try and at least increase the odds of success, increase the probability of having an effective communication.

And so, when it is something that I think that is high-stakes, it’s best to do this pre-work first before we ever get into the conversation, and that’s why I want to take you through this. So, before we ever get into the conversation, there’s three things that I want to focus on.

First, is to gain Clarity.

• Clarity about what the issues are.
• Clarity about what the challenges are.
• Clarity that strips away; maybe it’s a difficult conversation revolving around something that happens.

So, clarity around the issues. I’m going to have a conversation

• With a staff member
• A team member
• A vendor
• A customer

Whoever it might be. It might be:

• A spouse
• A significant other
• It might be a friend

But I need to have clarity around the issues that happen and strip and do it my best to strip away the bias, to strip away the politicizing that my, the taking sides that might come about in an organization. To get clarity on what the real issues are, try to remove judgment until I have all other facts.

So, the first step is to really make sure that I have clarity of the issues and I have stripped away some of the things that might sway me, one way or the other because they are a bias or bent that isn’t going to serve me in this process.

And one of the things that I’ll do is, I’ll ask, “What else could this be?” because it’s really easy to evaluate a situation or a set of issues from the perspective of what I saw. And I’ll give you an idea. It’s kind of a crazy idea but let’s assume that you happen to be in an office building and they’re in this conference room and it is all glass in the conference room and you see some guy, picks up a chair and throws it through the glass.

And you look at that and you go, “Wow, that’s not really a good thing.” But it’s because you’re focused on what actually happened. Without having the proper context, you’ve skewed, you’ve skewed your judgment based on how you interpreted that narrow set of facts.

But then when you get the full set of facts, let’s assume that heat, there was a fire that had started and he was breaking the glass to allow people to get out. A different set of facts, different perspective because we’ve widened that.

And this is what I mean about getting clarity is to make sure that we strip away that bent, that bias, that may give us tunnel vision where we don’t see everything else and ask ourselves the question, “What else could this be? What else could this mean?”

Then the second thing is what’s our Objective?

• Is our objective to make the deal happen?
• Is our objective to support the team?
• Is our objective to enroll the team and engage them to move in a vision, in a mission, in a way?

So, get clarity not only on the issues but what is the objective because we can go into a negotiation, we can go into a conversation and if we don’t have an objective, we’re just going to be willy-nilly going around the conversation with no direction and when we get the outcome that we didn’t want, it’s because we didn’t define what it was we wanted in the first place.

And then this last piece that before we ever get to the conversation is I think, one of the most important things to consider is that, it’s the Environment.

• What is the best environment to have this type of conversation in?
• Is it, is the environment that we’re going to have it in?
• Whether it’s an office, in a board room, in a Starbucks, in a restaurant?
• What is most conducive to getting the objective that you want?

To providing the clarity, to providing an environment that’s going to be conducive to having meaningful dialogue that can shift and change the direction or the conversation towards the objective where everyone feels like they’re winning?

And I think, we need to be really careful about establishing the environment at the best level. For instance, this is just in a personal relationship, my wife, she works like; she works long days sometimes, she will come home. The last thing that I should be doing when she comes home is start firing things at her.

And I think we may have all done that with our significant other, is they just come home and they’re just getting barraged with things. But wait a second.

• Is that the proper time?
• Is that the proper environment to do that?

Or maybe, we ought to allow them the time to unwind, the time to create an environment that’s more conducive to having something/discussion that that’s meaningful; that is meaningful.

So, that’s the three things before we ever have the conversation. Clarity, objective, environment and then during the conversation as we’re having the discussion, I think we need to think about three other focal points.

And that is Openness.

• If we come to a discussion,
• If we come to a conversation,
• If we come to a negotiation,
• If we come to a mediation,

> Without the spirit of openness with a very distrusting, jaded view the other side is going to feel it. And they’re going to pull back just the same. If we want them to be open, we need to be open. Now, I’m not saying to bear everything right away but I am saying that

• The intent is to be open,
• The intent is to create transparency, and
• The intent is to communicate.

And you’re only going to communicate effectively if you’re willing to be open about it at some level. And in order to be open about it, and for them to be open about it, it takes us to this next piece which is that they need to feel Safe.

This goes back to the environment; is that there needs to be a safe place to have this conversation and I’m not talking about safe in the sense of physical safety although that matters—it matters greatly. But I’m talking about

• Emotional safety,
• Spiritual safety,
• Energetic safety.

That they feel safe exposing and being vulnerable and having frank conversations with you. So, I want to create an environment of safety during the conversation and then I want to do it with empathy.

I want to be able to step in their shoes. I want to be able to say, “Let me visit their world and see what they might be seeing, and see where I can take it from there. If all I want to do is look at it from my world, I can’t seem to; I’m not going to have the ability to understand where they’re coming from.

To come from a resolution standpoint and that’s really what this is about—it’s about a conversation and this whole episode came about because I saw a posting about someone that was doing some things that upset family members and the family members decided that they might want to sue him.

And I responded to him saying, and he wanted to know about attorneys, I said, “This isn’t about litigation. It’s actually about conversation. Have a meaningful conversation with your family members. Don’t go to litigation.” And the only way to have that is to be empathetic, to walk in their shoes, to see what they see, to feel what they feel and then we can have a conversation.

It doesn’t mean that your desired result may shift, but at least you can say, “I get it. I understand. I understand how you feel. Here’s what I am thinking” and having meaningful dialogue that comes from a place of their world empathetically; in a way that maybe can move it along and shift the dynamics.

And then after the conversations. So, you’ve planned before it. You have an idea what your focal points are during the conversation. And then we need to focus after the conversation because it is not done. When they, when you part ways and have the conversation—it’s not done.

• If we really want it to stick.
• If we really want it to be meaningful.
• If we really want it to move forward.

> We need to do three other things or we need to focus on three other things.

And the first is: What’s our follow up?

What are the next steps that I should do to create and further the discussions that we have. And this will be in the process of having the conversation. You’ll come up with what these things are. And come up with the next steps and who’s going to do this and who’s going to do what, and be really definitive on that follow-up and make sure it happens.

Our word is everything, I believe. And do what you say you’re going to do and mean it when you say it. Your word is everything and so, follow up as you say you would.

The second is Consistency.

If someone, especially when you’re dealing with teams. Especially, when you’re dealing with employees and focus, is if they see you treating people inconsistently that’s going to create an environment of distrust, an environment that doesn’t feel safe, they’re not going to feel open, they’re going to pull back and then you’re going to see everyone jockeying for position or looking at things from their own perspective in, “What can I get from that?”

Because they don’t know how you’re going to treat them. They just know that you’re not going to treat everyone equally or fairly. And so, I think that we need to look at it and say,

Am I being consistent with the conversations I’m having?
Am I being consistent with the processes that I’m putting in place?
Am I being consistent with the standards that I am setting?
Am I being consistent with the way I’m showing up?

And I’m not just talking about how you communicate to everyone else.

• But how do you show up?
• How do you do things?

If you are expecting your team to act at a certain level, to be at a certain, to have a certain standard, then you certainly need to show up that way too. And I know I’m preacher of the choir but let’s call a spade a spade. There is no one that should look at things and say, “I’m too good for this, but those rules apply to you.”

And I know my wife’s going to argue with me because she jokes around with me saying that I don’t think rules apply to me, but they do, they do. And we need to operate from a consistent basis.

And then the last piece is this concept of Relationships.

That’s what this is all about. The reason we’re having a conversation. The reason we’re going through this type of conversation is:

• To further the relationship.
• To create the relationship.
• To develop the relationship.
• To nurture the relationship.

And so, we need to come at it from what does it take to build the relationship? Now I’m not saying that the relationship is going to grow where you become closer. In fact, this conversation may be a conversation of how the relationship shifts and changes and transitions to a different type of relationship.

Whether it’s, may be the team member, the employees realizing this isn’t the right position for them or the right place for them. So, the conversation is how do I shift that relationship where this employee feels supported as they move on to the next phase of their career or their life?

So, all I’m saying is that, that I’m not giving you a specific type of relationship to create but to be very definitive about, “Here’s the relationship that I’m trying to create with this person” and “What are you doing after the conversation, during the conversation and before the conversation that develops that relationship?”

Now,

• That may be bringing your closer,
• That may be shifting perspectives in positions, or
• That may be moving you apart.

But what it is, is an intentional navigation and creation of a relationship that is going to be done openly and empathetically through the process. So, if we’re going into a situation, again, this whole process is before we ever have the conversation is to get our mind focused on the right aspects of the conversation.

And we’ll use this as a planning device before I go into any kind of high-stakes negotiation

• Whether it’s for a deal,
• Whether it’s for a litigation,
• Whether it’s for a purchase or sale

I’ll use it if I’m going into any kind of mediation, if I’m going into any kind of trial, going into any kind of difficult conversation where I can sit back and say, “In order to put my best foot forward. In order to increase the possibility and the probability of success, let me take myself through these 9 elements of clarity, objective, environment, openness, safety and empathy, and follow-up, consistency, and relationship, and let me pre-define them before I go into this game.

So, I can have them set, and I’m not just going off into a conversation without preparation. I think that, that also serves the conversation and it respects the other party in the sense that you felt that it was important enough to have a conversation with them and that, that conversation was important enough to take the time to plan it to be:

• Most effective,
• Most meaningful, and
• Most impactful in the process.

I think our greatest skill that we could nurture and teach and develop is our ability to communicate.

And we don’t give it enough credence, we don’t give it enough weight, we don’t give it enough time from an education standpoint. And I think because to me our ability to communicate allows you

• To motivate people,
• To shift and change societies,
• To shift and change missions,
• To create visions, and
• To create dreams coming true.

And if we look just around us in society today—communication can solve all of the things that we’re dealing with in society today.

If we just understood how to communicate more effectively and to not constantly butt heads.

• To how to have that difficult conversation?
• How to have that meaningful conversation?
• How to create a conversation that’s impactful?

And I hope that this will serve you. I hope that this will move you forward in those conversations. And here’s what I invite you to do before we leave this episode, is I invite you to look at it and say, “Is there a conversation coming up in your future, in the near future that is high-stakes important?” and I’d suggest you that every conversation is important because we’re impacting lives.

But is one coming up in the future that you can take this and download the 3 stages planner and go through it and plan the conversation and see how it helps. And maybe, you don’t have something coming up in the near future. Maybe, you had something that you just went through.

Well, you can use the same tool to say, (in a sense it’s kind of an autopsy of the conversation), say,

Did I have the proper clarity?
Did I properly establish the objectives?
If I had done that and go through all of the same steps, could that conversation have gone differently?

And so, I invite you to do that. Use the tools that I have for you. I’ve got so many resources for you that I’m giving you access to because I want to see you grow, I want to see you develop, I want to see your dreams come to life through this entrepreneurial journey that we are all on.

So, I hope you found this of value to you. Like I said, in the next episode, I’m going to dig into the actual conversation and give you my framework for having that difficult conversation. And in the meantime, what I would love for you to do is, if you haven’t done so already, please subscribe. Subscribe so I can stay with you on this journey, so I can be your entrepreneurial mentor on this journey.

And do me a favor: share it with a friend. I’d love to get the word out for people that know about the fact that there’s a lot of good business resources that are real proven resources that have been used out on the street, that have allowed people to build businesses, build meaningful lives; that they have access to at their fingertips, so they can go out and build their business and build their life by their own design.

And then, at the same time, if you have questions for me, you can ask them and I’ll make sure that I get to them on one of the upcoming episodes of The Entrepreneur’s Solution show. Just go to AskMelNow.com, leave me your question, I’ll make sure that I can get to them.

So, last couple of things. Again if you want to download the three stages planner, make sure that you go to MelAbraham.com/session040. And if you’re not at your computer, go ahead and text to 38470 MYLEGACY one-word no-spaces 38470.

We’ll make sure we get you that download and I look forward to serving you on the next episode of The Entrepreneur’s Solution show. And until then,

May your vision be grand, your journey epic, and your legacy significant!

See you soon. Cheers. Bye!!

— End Transcript —

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Like this? Please share it and help a few more people bring their dreams out of the darkness and give life to them again. Cheers, Mel

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