Although I am known by many in my personal and professional life, as someone that speaks her mind and is courageous in expressing her view, it doesn’t always feel that way to me. In fact, I have been particularly mindful in recent months of those people and situations where I find it incredibly difficult to say how I feel, or what it is I need, or to express how something that somebody has done, has hurt or upset me. The realisation of this surprised even me! Being direct and open in my honesty, seems such a part of my identity. And yet, here I was avoiding conversations I could not bring myself to have.
And as I reflected on that, my mind turned to the work I do and the situations I am so often brought into help with, which really are about helping individuals and teams to have the “big conversations” they are struggling to have: senior leaders struggling to establish a creative dialogue with their Union representatives; teams who can’t bring themselves to say what they need to say to their colleagues in order to move to a different level of connection and trust; executives who simply don’t have the capacity to talk about what they find difficult on a personal and collective level; elephants in the room and taboo topics that are avoided but which so clearly need attention.
Behind the great branding success of BT in the 1990s, from which those four words of the title of this post were born, is the story of how a company realised that the exchange of ‘confidences’ between human beings leads to better communications and, in turn, deeper relationships. BT was not in the business of telephony or technology. They were in the business of “reciprocating confidences”. Genius! It was a campaign that brought in an incremental £5 billion over the 5 years it ran, and I for one, still remember it well.
What is clear to me is that the ability to have those ‘big conversations’, is a key characteristic of healthy teams and organisations. It is a key part of what creates social capital, increases trust, deepens connection and strengthens the spirit and capability of a group of people working together. And creating the climate where people feel able to have those conversations, at the right time, in the right way, is a key asset of an effective leader.
In my experience you can tell as much about a culture from the conversations that are NOT had, as you can from the conversations that are had. And let’s face it, there is so much that gets in the way of people really thinking and exploring through conversation. Nancy Klein talks about Time to Think. I am interested in Time to Talk in a bold, honest, creative, generous way, that opens the doors for something new and different to emerge.
At the end of a one-day session I ran a couple of weeks ago, after the team had checked out with a deep level of satisfaction with their experience of the day, the HR Director commented “To think we have spent the entire day just having a conversation and look how valuable it has been”. Who knew that conversation could be a tool for transformation? So often it is the simple stuff that brings the most value.
So, I ask you: which are the conversations you or your team don’t have? And what is needed for you to be able to change that and to take that step?