I teach tools for communication and leadership, rather than scripts, templates, or blueprints, for a very specific reason: tools adapt to the situations within which we use them, but scripts, templates, and blueprints are fixed – static – rote.
I also talk about the problem of what I call “communi-telling”: top-down delivery of information or mandates about what is going to happen and how it should happen. Instead, I urge leaders, especially when dealing with change, to have conversations about what’s happening and why, with a focus on learning about the impact on the people you lead.
Here’s the thing, though: if you’re not comfortable with the possibility of hearing something you don’t like – hearing someone push back on the plan, for instance – you’re much more likely to communi-tell about the plan than to have a conversation about it.
I am not a fan of the admonition to “get comfortable with being uncomfortable.” It makes no sense; if I’m “comfortable with being uncomfortable,” then by definition I’m … not actually uncomfortable.
That said, if we want to lead – whether through change or in any other situation, in our career or in our community – we do need to be willing to hear things we may not want to hear. We need to be willing to be open-minded enough to listen and work to understand, even if we don’t agree. Even if we might strongly disagree.
And we have to practice the tools of communication and leadership. Just as someone picking up a hammer for the first time isn’t ready to build a house or craft a bookcase, we must get comfortable (yes: comfortable) with the tools before we’re ready to use them in a high-stakes situation.
That includes being ready to experience the discomfort of disagreement and debate. It includes being willing to face the discomfort of having someone argue with us. Not disrespectfully – never go there, and never accept that. But any honest exchange of ideas is almost always going to run into some level of disagreement.
And it’s there that ideas and plans are improved, and where people learn and grow.
Curious about those tools? Drop me a line through my contact form.