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A simple, honest conversation has the power to change the way your staff members think and even to shape your corporate culture. To promote a spirit of accountability among your staff members, communication and corporate-culture experts Jamie and Maren Showkeir recommend engaging them in "authentic conversations" and avoiding the parent-child discourses common in many firms. Effective work environments encourage employees to act according to their individual sense of responsibility and to pull together to make the business as good as it can be. This beats ordering people to do their best, then watching them like a hawk to make sure they don't make mistakes. In this thoughtful, inspiring book, they explain how to foster positive conversations. getAbstract recommends it to all leaders, from top executives to human resources professionals, supervisors and coaches.
I have incorporated their suggestions into my practice and find that it is not as difficult as it might seem to be--to be truthful and vulnerable. Authentic Conversations provides concrete examples of how to communicate with employees, coworkers, and others. The authors explain why certain communications fail and others succeed. This has helped me build self-confidence as a leader, and has gained me respect from those I work with.Authentic conversations is easy to grasp, quick to read, and one to keep on your shelf and refer to often. Read it and give a copy to others in your organization who you know will benefit from this straight forward approach to communication.
Leaders who seek to protect people from disappointment by promising safe landings in all difficult circumstances create cynics.The antidote to all of this is to promote an "adult to adult culture" in which each individual in the organization:*Becomes the eyes and voice of the business*Brings an independent point of view*Is expected to raise difficult issues*Extends a spirit of goodwill to the endeavor*Creates business literacy in others*Choose accountability for the success of the whole business*Manages his own morale, motivation and commitmentThese qualities propel an organization from manipulation to engagement. It's not one you can breeze through because it has this unsettling knack for holding up a mirror and saying, "Hey look. First the Showkeir's lay out their case for change. This model puts unreasonable expectations on the leader and creates dependency in those led. They become, in effect, a black hole into which hopes for a better future disappear. These norms in turn create organizational culture. As a result, business results are less than they could be.At the heart of this problem is an enormous collusion--a pattern of parent-child conversations that have become undiscussible in daily life.
The Showkeirs' fundamental premise is if you want to change a culture you have to change the conversations--difficult and, in their view, dangerous work. To change those conversations we have to accept our complicity in them.The book is broken into two broad sections. This book is challenging and provocative. "In all cases, these types of conversations have a detrimental impact on the culture and the business", they argue. The conversations rest on a set of "old" management assumptions that see people as objects, ignore individual freedom and will, use policies and procedures that ensure compliance and emphasize leaders and experts while ignoring those who work in the system.Leaders who see their role as "holding people accountable (as opposed to them being accountable) and who seek to protect their organizations from the rough and tumble vicissitudes of the market place (as opposed to helping them understand those realities) are operating from an implicit parent child model. [Although the Showkeirs chose not to venture into a discussion of contemporary American politics, it was hard for me to avoid looking at their arguments in the light of how self interest seems to be trumping service on the public stage].The Showkeirs explore the power of cynics to sap organizational change efforts of vitality and momentum. To business that operate on the belief that "business is about logic and fact based decisions", these three realities are radical in their own right.Having laid out their case, the last portion of the book is a "practical guides to conversations like:*Facing a difficult issue*Seeking an exception (a radical reversal of the common organizational practice that it's easier to beg for forgiveness than ask for permission)*Proposing change*Introducing a mandate*Renegotiating an established relationship*Initiating endings*Dealing with individual performanceThese types of conversations, done in a manipulative parent-child environment, tie people in knots. All of this requires that we remain vigilant to three levels that operate in any conversation: the content, others' emotional responses and our own emotional responses.
There's something here I want you to see." The something it wants us to understand is how deeply our everyday conversations at work are riddled with a lack of authenticity and how that lack stifles engagement and personal accountability. People in the organization are enabled, ennobled and empowered--by their own choice. Then, the offer a set protocols for shifting those conversations.The case for change starts with an identification of "relationships that don't work at work ". Specifically, they point out how the following conversations--holding others accountable, caretaking, coping with disappointment and colluding with cynicism--are so deeply engrained that we take them for granted. Manipulative conversational practices like name dropping, hidden agendas, over promising, sarcasm and exaggerated optimism or pessimism are replaced by authentic ones. Done authentically, they create clear, clean communication which, in turn, drives business performance to higher and higher levels.
Trust, engagement, and personal accountability grow out of the conversations we have within the workplace and elsewhere. According to Rodd Wagner and James K. This book provides an array of ideas and pathways to authentic, engaging conversations.As a CPA, I enjoyed the insights provided in Chapter 3 "The Myth of Holding Others Accountable." It identifies as much as managers want to control and hold others accountable, their success is one-sided and failures abound. Harter of the Gallup polling organization, "The evidence is clear that creation and maintenance of high employee engagement, as one of the few determinants of profitability largely within a company's control, is one of the most crucial imperatives of any successful organization." Their research contained in this book (pp. 18-19) identifies companies with engaged workers have significantly less turnover, less employee theft, fewer accidents, less absenteeism, higher customer service scores, higher productivity and profitability, and earnings per share.Authentic Conversations is about developing engaging relationships. Understanding and true accountability flows from honest, meaningful dialogue that Jamie and Maren Showkeir demystify in this book.In my opinion, leaders and followers who aspire to be future leaders should read this book. It provides a breath of fresh insights and strategies for success.
Take it home and see how it changes your life. This is a book that will show you how have these conversations in simple, well-constructed, measured language that is a pleasure to read.
Authentic Conversation is certainly a great business book. It's no secret that the best business books drive positive change in the workplace with admonitions about taking control by managing your boss, or using a positive mental attitude as a path to success at work or perhaps more directly, stop complaining and do something.
How many conversations with our spouses, children, family, and friends skirt the real issues, avoid taking responsibility for our action, and without intent hurt those we love by simply not having the courage or wisdom to have a authentic conversation. Clearly, if organizations would simply have adult relationships and conversations with their employees, HR departments might have more time to plan company picnics or catch up on their reading.
After all, how much HR time is spent on boarding and off boarding employees who likely would not have left in the first place if they just knew how to talk to each other like adults and have authentic conversations routed in individual responsibility and self-awareness. Take this book to work and let its message make working a whole lot more fun.
And in the end, that's the change we're all looking for.Mark Morrow,Alexandria, VA
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