12 Essential Conversations For Project Success. A Conversation with Shawn Kent Hayashi

Transcription

1 12 Essential Conversations For Project Success A Conversation with Shawn Kent Hayashi

2 Shawn Kent Hayashi shares insights from her book on the 12 fundamental conversations every project leader should master to be truly effective Samad: Shawn, welcome Shawn: Well thank you. I m so glad to be here today. Samad: How did you get interested in exploring the topic of change conversations and what motivated you to write your latest book, Conversations for change. Twelve ways to say it right, when it matters the most. Shawn: That s an interesting one. I was coaching an executive who, it was clear to me there were some missing conversations that he was not having in order to be effective as a leader in his organization. I started exploring what are the types of conversations that a highly effective leader needs to know how to use in order to guide and move an organization through times of change. That s how I came up with this concept and I originally called it, win the conversation changes, because I wanted people to understand what and how to create the kind of change in a conversation that was necessary. The publisher (Inaudible 0:01:08) wanted to change the title and I had to check over when they did because of course the book is about change (Inaudible 0:01:15) that they would change the title. Samad: It was very interesting. As I was reading the book I realized that when I look at my work in leading projects and project teams as well as project managers that I talk to, my observation is that a lot of the projects that fail, they fail because of conversations that needed to take place but didn t take place. Shawn: Yes I agree with you and for that reason I explain now the twelve different types of conversations that people really need to know or have in order to create successful projects. So much of project management is guiding people through significant changes. This is (Inaudible 0:02:03) Samad: Absolutely. I really love the idea that these conversations really fell naturally in the typical stages of the projects and as we talk more about the different conversations later I think that will be very clear because there re conversations you do when you initiate the projects, planning the project and different conversations that you need to have when the project is in the execution mode and then you have all types of conflicts, breakdowns and so on. As I read it and especially the last chapter where you put all the information together you have this really nice graph that shows different conversations and I was able to make the link between the types of conversations and the phases of the project. There was a conversation for every phase of the project and I thought that was great. Shawn: Well thank you, I appreciate that very much. Samad: So you opened a book by introducing principles of emotional intelligence. Why should project managers understand emotions as a prerequisite for developing the capacity to have effective and meaningful change conversations. Shawn: It s through my experience that if people understand how to utilize their emotions wisely they create more effective conversations. We ve all seen it where somebody gets derailed because they start to feel afraid or anger or they get stuck in the past, some sort of sadness triggers in them and they can t let it Copyright 2012 Guerrilla Project Management 2

3 go and they keep holding on to it and as a result they create conversations that are not as effective. When we understand how to guide ourselves through our emotions, when we understand how to develop our emotional intelligence, then all this changes. A bit of my work with my coaching clients is starting off with helping them to identify of the seven different core emotions; what I m I feeling right now? How I m I using that to guide my next conversation, my next step so that we can be more effective. Samad: I like that term that you used derailed because so often we enter a conversation with an objective and then somehow during the conversation you get derailed by drama and I think we complain about drama but I think we bring so much of our own drama into the conversation. Suddenly while we are in the middle of the conversation you don t even remember what your original goals were. Shawn: Yes, so true. Samad: You say that values are the glue that holds relationships together and you identified six values that determine why we do what we do and therefore impact our conversations. What is the role of these values or motivations in change conversations? Shawn: You re right. There re six different core work place motivators and when we understand what motivates us as well as what motivates other people, we can begin to see how to speak in our conversations in a way that is really motivating and inspiring to someone else. Most of us speak in patterns that reflect our own core motivators. The hierarchy of these motivators may be quite different from people on our project teams or people that we re leading. If they can begin to have lenses, if they can begin to see their motivators in their way and speak about the projects in way that acknowledges what their motivators and values are so that we can show them how the actions that they are taking will reward their motivators. Let me give you an example of this. Somebody who has a high, what we call a social motivator, that doesn t mean that they have a high need to interact with people, whether it means they have a high need to do good for other people, to help other people. To see what the impact is of their work on other people. Clearly it s somebody who s doing a project for habitat, for humanity or for the goodwill or the united way. They can clearly see the impact of their work on others. Elementary school teachers as they re watching somebody learn how to read, they can see the impact of their work and how they re helping someone. Let s say somebody s in a corporate world and it s not exactly clear how the actions that they re taking are rewarding their need to help others. What you want to do as the manager or as the project leader is help them to connect the dots, it s to acknowledge and reward them for helping other people in meaningful ways because that s what their core motivator is. I say that motivators values are the glue that holds us together; they hold relationships together because when someone s core work place motivators are being rewarded, are being acknowledged they re much more likely to be engaged than to want to continue to work and to stay involved in the project. It is long-term glue in both the relationship between an individual and the organization for which they work, as well as two or three or more people engaged in working together. Samad: That makes sense because our ideas sometimes of reward is limited sometimes to monitor our reward but that really is sometimes not the only motivator, in fact that s not even a motivator in some cases where people are motivated by being respected and seen among their peers as experts or as authority and like you said in different pages in the book the importance of being present and listening to the conversation and really listening, so that you can determine what is a person s motivation is and be able to adjust your conversation accordingly. Copyright 2012 Guerrilla Project Management 3

4 Shawn: Yes, I agree. Samad: You described four communication styles that can help us understand our own communication preferences as well as where other people, individually or in teams are coming from in their own communication. Talk to us about these four communication styles. Shawn: There re four core communication styles and often this model is referred to as the disk but its dominance influence study is incompliance. When somebody has a high level of a dominant drive they love challenges, they love solving complex problems, they get engaged around wanting to lead and manage projects. They like things in a very clear-cut bottom-line and from a conversation standpoint we would want to set up a communication to talk about results, to talk about the business focus and to be clearly task oriented. The next one, people who have a high influence communication style really enjoy people connecting. They are the cheerleader types, if you will, who really engage on a personal level. They want to know how someone s doing and they may be aware of the politics; they understand often what motivates them that is where the moral is of the group. The next one is the steady style. People who have this style like to focus on how things are done, they do things in a step by step pace. So they are focused on creating processes that enable everyone to understand how the work will be done. Finally the compliant standard style is a style that s focused on high quality. It wants to answer the question why, why are we doing this, why is this important? People will have this communication style, about the background, the detail, the data, before they re willing to move forward with decisions. They like a (Inaudible 0:10:44) view of things. One of the gifts, if you will, in the book, Conversations for change, is that there s also an opportunity for people to take an assessment to find out what their own communication style is. That s a really great opportunity you get your own unique report. Each book has a unique code in it where you re able to take the assessment online and I get great feedbacks from people about their experiences of taking this and they re beginning to really understand how to identify peopleread, somebody else s communication style in the moment. So my goal in working with people when I coach and its not to have them type someone and say Paul is always a hi-five and Jim is always a highsix. That s not really the case what we want to do instead is understand how to identify communication needs of the moment, the needs in this meeting right now that are being expressed. How to identify them and then how to speak to them. That s what we re doing here in this first part of the book we re talking about the foundations for every conversation and having the emotional intelligence, the understanding of our work place motivators and the understanding of communication styles. When we put those three pieces together we now have the (Inaudible 0:12:06) that the rest of the different parts of the conversations can be built on. Samad: Absolutely. I think it s a powerful type of awareness which gives us this language, this vocabulary that you can actually identify different conversation styles or even within the same conversation when the style has changed. Its possible that you re in a room of people and you re presenting or you re responding to questions from different types of communication styles or people with different kinds of communication styles, but that awareness of the fact that there is these four types of communication styles that if you re present and mindful you are actually able to detect the change and therefore you can then change your response accordingly. Like you said you re talking to someone who wants facts and data and your conversation is more leaning towards building connections in a relationship. That s just not aligned at all and it s going to create that lack of rapport. Copyright 2012 Guerrilla Project Management 4

5 Shawn: That s correct, very well said. Samad: I would like us to talk about the twelve types of conversations that are important for leading teams today. Talk to us about each type and how we can best use it in our projects as we lead others throughout the life cycle of a project. Shawn: Conversation book connection is the first one and this is really about building a rapport. It s your ability to understand what somebody s values, motivator and communication style is. This first conversation is so important, some people might call it small-talk and I say its really not small-talk its in fact very important for long-term relationship building because when we get into (Inaudible 0:14:02) if you will, if there are issues we can reflect on what happened in those early stages when we were in this getting to know you, the rapport building, how are you, what are your habits, what are your interests. Then we can reflect back and remember what somebody s likely preferred communication style is. It s also very important that people remember to recreate a conversation for connection, even in relationships where you ve known someone for a while. It s easy, particularly for people who have a high dominance or high compliance communication style to want to dive right into the task at hand and they skip over this conversation for connection. In my blog, which is: shawnkenthayashi.com, I give people very specific tips about how to people-read and how to create room for conversation for connection. You also find in the book for each of the types of conversations that there re phrases that you can use to start a conversation. In this particular case the conversation for connection, someone might be feeling like, so and so suggested that we connect with each other and I wanted to reach out to you to see if we might be able to have a cup of coffee sometime or how did you meet bob or I checked your LinkedIn profile and noticed that we both know so and so, how did you meet them or I understand that you have expansive experience in (Inaudible 0:15:42) you all know about that. It couldn t be something as simple as, where is your accent from or I love the, look around you at the moment and you point out something that you re really enjoying because it s what gets the conversation started. What s on your mind? How is your project going? You seem excited what s happening, or it would be the ways that you can get a conversation for connection to begin. When we don t have this type of conversation we have few new relationships we assume that we already know the person well and they don t have anything else to add so we jump right into business and then relationships become all about business and the emotional connection that causes inspiration and loyalty either never forms or falls apart. That s why it s really important to master conversations for connection. They naturally lead into the next type of conversation which is the conversation for creating new possibilities. Here is where we explore new ideas, we brainstorm, and we look at how we can build on what already exists. It s very natural for somebody who s maybe initially to start off the conversation for connection and then move into a conversation for exploring new possibilities. We work together where could this evolve to? For existing project teams it also shows that when we realize we want to brainstorm new ideas we want creativity brought into what we re doing. The next type of conversation is the conversation for structure and this is where we re exploring how we would bring our ideas alive, what s the process. This is where people who have a highsteady communication style really excel. They know how these conversations are structured. They put the process steps in place then they communicate them. That leads to the conversation for commitment. Inevitably there ll be more steps along the way in a project and so we want to know who s doing what, in conversations for commitment is where people step up and take ownership or commit to. It s also where we as individuals get (Inaudible 0:17:57) ourselves about what we re committed to. What are our own Copyright 2012 Guerrilla Project Management 5

6 goals, who are we, who do we want to be, and what do we want to stand for. That leads to a conversation for action. What are the next actions that need to occur in order to bring a goal alive? This is where we may literally ask a question, what the next step that s needed is. Looking at a project and then say what s the next step after that and what s the next step after that. Do we stay clear of the actions, the procedures that need to be taken? Then we have the conversation for accountability where we look at who is going to each part of this. What am I accountable for? This is an important conversation particularly for managers and project managers to take on with people who are working for them because people need to know exactly what they are accountable for and then we put that circle back to people to (Inaudible 0:18:53) and check in on how we re doing against our accountabilities. These conversations that I have talked about to this point often happen in that sequence. The next sets of conversations don t necessarily happen in this sequence if it has happened anywhere along the way. Conversation for conflict resolution, for example, if somebody committed to do something and then they didn t take the action but they agreed to we may lay down a conflict about that or how do you handle it in a way that really moves forward rather than getting bogged down. That s what this particular chapter and focus is about, creating the right type of dialogue to move through a conflict rather than getting stuck in a conflict. Occasionally we do get stuck in things and that s when we need to have the conversations for breakdown, when we realize things are not going as we intended, we realize we re stuck and jammed up inside perhaps we re emotionally jammed up about something, then we need to acknowledge (Inaudible 0:19:58) and say, okay I need the conversation for breakdown here, you said that I can get myself unstuck or get the team unstuck. When that doesn t go well for people or if conversations for break down are skipped over, missed, it would often lead to a conversation will withdraw or disengagement. When we need to withdraw or disengage from something it may be because something else is going on in our lives, I don t mean to imply that that s always because there has been a conflict. We need a healthy way to do that so that we lead the project team, we lead the relationship in a positive way and not on negative terms. Then the conversations for change, when we recognize that something needs to change whether it s because we re initiating the change ourselves or because something has changed around us. Whenever we find ourselves reporting to a new leader, whenever we find ourselves working on a new project it s important to have conversations for change. In this particular chapter I flash out how to do that how to vision for someone, how to inspire others to take on a change. The other type of conversation is for appreciation, this is where we need to use (Inaudible 0:21:19) but it s acknowledging what people are doing, how they re contributing, how they re adding value, to the project, the team and the organization. As conversations are moving on, this is when we recognize that we re ready to perhaps go into a new role, a new job, maybe someone s retiring. We re changing what we re doing and we re moving into a different line of work, perhaps. Finally the last pieces tying it all together, understanding the conversation (Inaudible 0:21:54) intentional about which conversation you need to move into for your listeners that they would be interested in and exercise to rate your conversation effectiveness, you ll find at my website: if you click on the picture of the book, conversations for change, you ll see right at the top of that I give you the first chapter of the book as well as an exercise to rate yourself in all twelve of these types of conversations to see which ones you may need to focus on developing yourself. Samad: What I liked about how you structured each chapter for each of these twelve conversations is how you first provide a high level view of the need for conversation, when to use it and when not. Then you go into when its done right and you show the best practices, then you provide phrases and questions Copyright 2012 Guerrilla Project Management 6

7 to start the conversations which I found to be extremely helpful and then you talk about mistakes in the conversation as well as when the conversation is not taking place. Then you always close the chapter with final words. I thought that was done really well. Shawn: Well thank you, I appreciate that. Samad: Based on your research and leadership coaching experience, which of the twelve conversations presents the most challenged people? Shawn: Well that depends on what there preferred communication style is. For somebody who has a high steadiness communication style, they re probably going to struggle with conversations for conflict resolution and conversations for accountability. Somebody who has a high influence communication style preference, they re probably going to struggle most with the conversation for structure and they may also struggle with conversations for breakdown and withdrawal and disengagement. People who have a high dominance communication style may struggle with conversations for connection and they may struggle with or not recognize opportunities for conversations for appreciation. Somebody who has a high compliance to standards communication style definitely needs to learn how to and when to create more opportunities for conversations for connection, conversations for creating new possibilities and conversations for appreciation. Those are the ones that I often see; they stun people s preferred communication styles. Samad: Give us your final words on what you hope readers will take with them after reading, Conversations for change. Twelve ways to say it right when it matters the most. Shawn: My intention in writing the book was to help managers, coaches, leaders, people who want to be better communicators. To have a map for themselves that really helps them to think out what it would take for them to be more successful in their interpersonal communication and their leadership. That s what I hope they take away from the book, it confidence in their ability to create the next conversation. Samad: I think when you have a map, when you have a framework, when you have awareness about what conversation are we having, because most of the time. When we get, like we discussed, derailed by drama, you forget what type of conversation you re having and I think having this level of awareness really creates this mindfulness and so when you are in the heat of the moment you can actually recall some of these principles and apply them. This will give you conversation to have the confrontations, the intervention or a different conversation in the first place. So I really appreciate the insights that you shared in the book. Shawn: Thank you. I appreciate, you re kind yourself. Samad: I understand that you re working on a new book that s coming up in early 2012; can you tell us a little bit about the new book, if you can, and some of the things we should look forward to? Shawn: I am very excited. Actually this book will be in bookstores in a matter of just a week or two. It will be in the bookstores by 2 nd January, The book is called, Conversations for creating star performers. Go beyond the performance review to inspire excellence everyday. In the new book I frame out four people, primarily the managers, coaches, leaders, project managers I think will really find value in the new book as it gives people the conversation structures to develop star performers. To help people Copyright 2012 Guerrilla Project Management 7

8 identify what it means to be a star performer and then to have an ongoing conversation so that the performance will become the summary of what s been focused on throughout the year and not the only developmental conversation that people are having. Samad: That sounds really good. Shawn: I m so excited about this new book, I think readers of conversations for change will also find it to be a handy tool for then it provides people with twenty four different competencies and how to start a conversation with someone about developing each of the twenty four competencies as well. Samad: Wonderful. This is something that I look forward to read. Tell us a little more about the work you do as part of the professional development group and how our audience can find out more about your work and contact you. Shawn: Thank you so much. I often work with people as an executive coach and I will work with teams to help them become high performing teams. You can find out more about my work at: I also have a blog that I mentioned earlier which teaches people how to people-read, and I think your listeners will find value in that and it is: Samad: Shawn, I want to thank you so much for coming by and talking to us about this exciting book, Conversations for change. Twelve ways to say it right when it matters the most. I truly believe that this book should be a must-read for all project managers and I encourage our audience to read it and apply the insights in it. I personally found it to be a great reminder of the framework that a conversation can take when it s a very difficult conversation especially and there re great insights, great examples, tips and ways you can have a good conversation versus what happens when you don t have the conversations. I can t say enough good things about the book and I really thank you Shawn for writing it and talking to us. Shawn: Thank you so much for having me, it is my pleasure. Copyright 2012 Guerrilla Project Management 8