Nothing Left Unsaid

*Note: The following text is the output of transcribing from an audio recording. Although the transcription is largely accurate, in some cases it is incomplete or inaccurate due to inaudible passages or transcription errors.

Having no missing conversations can improve relationships and culture

Bill Berthel

Welcome to the Get Emergent podcast, where we discuss leadership, team and organizational topics and best practices. We like to provide ideas, concepts, and pragmatic experiments to help you develop your potential in your work and your leadership. I’m Bill Berthel.

Ralph Simone

And I’m Ralph Simone.

Bill Berthel

Ralph. We often train and coach around this concept of having no missing conversations.

Ralph Simone

What’s a missing conversation’s any conversation that isn’t happening that needs to happen because of the impact it will have on relationships, performance, and culture.

Bill Berthel

So it’s a conversation I’m not having. I, may be avoiding avoiding it.

Ralph Simone

For lots of reasons. And I think the first thing we need to do is leave as little unsaid as possible. So first, have a conversation. I think people are too hung up with having it perfectly.

Bill Berthel

Yeah.

Ralph Simone

And so they avoid it. First, have them. Second, have them better. M Don’t worry about having them perfectly. The old expression, you can’t change what you don’t know.

Bill Berthel

Yeah.

Ralph Simone

So if there’s something about our relationship that I’m doing that’s causing you some angst, you gotta let me know.

Bill Berthel

Right.

Ralph Simone

If there’s something that I’m doing or not doing that’s impacting performance, you gotta let me know. If there’s something that someone is doing that’s affecting the culture adversely, we need to speak up. And I think we have to let go of being totally comfortable doing it. I think we have to let go of doing it perfectly. We’ve got to make sure that we are talking to the people that we need to talk to about what needs to be said.

Bill Berthel

So as I think about this idea of missing conversations, I think that another reason they go missing is because we’re a little fearful of having it. Maybe it’s about not being perfect, but I might be a little worried about I’m going to hurt somebody’s feelings or harm the relationship or be disagreed with or be rejected for what I think.

Ralph Simone

Absolutely. So those are reasons why I wouldn’t rush off to have it.

Bill Berthel

Yeah.

Ralph Simone

I think there’s another reason, and this is something that we’ve tried to eliminate in our lexicon, is that we refer to them often as difficult conversations.

Bill Berthel

Right. Right.

Ralph Simone

So as soon as you call it difficult, it’s going to’ity kind of shine away from having it. And so we think that we need to mitigate the amount of conversations that are not happening that are important to improving relationships, performance, and culture.

Bill Berthel

Yeah. I like that. Reframe. And, Dr. Susan David and Emotional Agility calls them pivotal conversations. She suggests Every conversation we have is a pivotal conversation. It’s why we have it. We’re going to get somewhere, do something a little different, learn something, adjust something. There’sn to be either a one degree pivot or a, 180 degree pivot. That’s okay. It’s pivotal.

Ralph Simone

But if we weren’t that intentional, think about what we can do. We can either create connection.

Bill Berthel

Yeah.

Ralph Simone

Set direction or maybe adjust right direction. So I think every conversation has the potential to be pivotal. And what we don’t wanna do is hold on to information that could be useful.

Ralph Simone

For someone. Because again, if we don’t know, we can’t act on it.

Bill Berthel

Ah.

Ralph Simone

And I think some people are, they don’t like mixing it up. And I think when we talk about teams will have conflict. And sometimes those conversations can feel maybe a little difficult. But the way that we learn and grow is through people seeing things differently.

Bill Berthel

Absolutely. I think this is really important in teams. Ralph, you bring up teams. of course there can be conflict in any relationship, but teams are really dynamic because there’s multiple relationships happening all at once and missing conversations. If a conversation is going missing, if it’s unshared information, if it’s even out of just the pressure of time and urgency, maybe we’re not avoiding it. We aren’t prioritizing. Connecting. That is going to lead to more and more dysfunction on a team.

Ralph Simone

No question. And one of the things that trips people up is this idea of, well, do I disagree with somebody publicly or, should that be handled privately like the old adage that you praise in public and your discipline and private? I think that gets in the way of things not being said when it needs to be said. And so I do think there are some operating ground rules and some cultural norms that may need to be challenged. I mean, I’ve had people come up to me after meetings where I’ve said something that was different than they thought or said and they’d say, hey, you made me look bad in front of my boss. Next time you got to run that by me before the meeting. I said, really? I said, first of all, I didn’t know it was going to come up. Second of all, I was asked a question. Third of all, I apologize, but no, I’ve got to engage. And I think we withdraw sometimes because we think we’re maybe putting people on the spot. I think we gotta take a little more risk in that area, quite frankly.

Bill Berthel

Yeah. So I hear you saying it’s important how we set these conversations up. But let’s not have too many barriers to getting to these conversations. How we frame them as important, the context around them really matter. But let’s not paralyze ourselves to the point where we’re not able to enter into these conversations.

Ralph Simone

Yeah, operating ground rules or guidelines help you with that.

Bill Berthel

Right.

Ralph Simone

We want to have constructive conflict. We want people to disagree, we want people to be respectful. But we don’t want people sitting on their hands.

Bill Berthel

Absolutely.

Ralph Simone

Because we won’t make all of the best decisions if people are not speaking up.

I like to ask myself three strategic questions before entering a conversation

Bill Berthel

I like to ask myself three strategic questions when I’m considering entering a conversation, especially with’s something I sense that it might be missing or I’ve been avoiding. Quite honestly, it’s probably missing because I’ve been avoiding it. The first is what do I wish to accomplish by having the conversation? Why am I having this conversation to begin with? And then what do I want as a consequence? What outcome do I want from this conversation? And if I can get really clear on those two things, not Locke set on them, not just my own expectations, because I haven’t had the conversation yet, but if I can get my own clarity on why am I having the conversation, what do I want to accomplish, and what consequence or outcome do I want from the conversation? I’m much more apt to frame it more effectively and actually have the darn conversation instead of allowing.

Ralph Simone

I might add a fourth thing to that.

Bill Berthel

Yeah, what’s that?

Ralph Simone

Is how do you want to show up in the conversation in order to get that outcome? And again, I think it’s preparation and it is framing it in a way in which you can put it in play.

Bill Berthel

No, I like that. I get it that there are topics that might be too uncomfortable to discuss, But I think most people eventually appreciate that the conversation has surfaced. I’ve been approached with some topics where someone wants me to change something, and in the moment it might be a little hard to hear, but in the long game, it’s always been better for the relationship. I’ve trusted that person more, I’ve respected them more. So even if I’m not suggesting we were re going to lose popularity in the moment, but even if it feels a little uncomfortable in the moment, gosh. I think the majority of these turn out to be really helpful in the long run.

Ralph Simone

If we go back to some of the things we ve talked about before, humility comes into play. And this is not about being rightah. This is not about making somebody else wrong. This is about us being better. And I usually ask myself, will this make us better than I’m going to share it now, I can work on sharing it better, but if this is something that will make us better, it’s important enough to talk about, then I can work on sharing it better. And I’m clumsy with some of these things along the way, but sometimes I’ll even frame that. I said, this is a little awkward or uncomfortable for me to say, but I think it’s important enough to say that I want to get it out. And then what happens is people start to help you get it out. You almost lose the defensiveness around the point because people want to get better. And I do think humility does come into play. This is not about being right. This is not about getting something off my chest so I feel better. This is so we do better as a relationship, as a team, as organization.

Bill Berthel

I think on, a team, we all have some equitable responsibility to surface missing conversations.

Sometimes we miss the opportunity to give one another really meaningful feedback

Bill Berthel

I think another thing we sometimes get stuck on or that blocks us from having a conversation is we think it’s someone else’s job to do it.

Ralph Simone

Yes.

Bill Berthel

And we might be thinking, well, it’s the leaders job, the manager’s job, the boss’s job to do it. I’d like to challenge our listeners to suggest that we all have a responsibility if we’re on that team. Maybe your organizational awareness needs to be high. Maybe there’s a need to bring that to your leader. Maybe there’s a need to vet that out in a more appropriate space first. But I think that’s facilitating the missing conversation is bringing it up in the right place. Yeah.

Ralph Simone

One of the things that’s helped me personally is I want to remember that I am doing it out of respect.

Bill Berthel

Absolutely.

Ralph Simone

When I frame it that way, I’m less inclined to avoid it. I’m sharing this information out of respect for you, out of respect for our relationship, out of respect for this team. And to me, it changes it almost instantly in my mind. Now, I’m not saying that it makes it easy, but it makes it easier to put it in play.

Bill Berthel

Oh, absolutely. And. And, right now we’re framing missing conversations as more of the difficult kind of conversations to have. They’re not all that. Some could be really positive too. We might not be making the time or prioritizing. As I mentioned before, sometimes we miss the opportunity to recognize one another. That could be a missing conversation, to give one another really meaningful feedback. Not anything overly negative or difficult. We’re just going about our day and missing conversations.

Ralph Simone

I think that’s a great counterpoint and I’d like to challenge myself and the listeners. What opportunities are you not taking to provide positive feedback to those people who are in support of you and your organization? Take the time, make the investment, and don’t allow that positive information to go missing.

Bill Berthel

Yeah, I love it. I think it was Ken Blanchard said that feedback is the breakfast of champions. And I think if we get the opportunity to serve one another breakfast more often, we’re going to be doing really good.

Ralph Simone

Absolutely.

Where would people start thinking about having more missing conversations

Bill Berthel

Ralph, where would you have folks start thinking about having more missing conversations?

Ralph Simone

Well, I think the place that I might start, I might keep a little journal as to what am I not saying? And I might have a journal on the constructive side and on the positive side. And then why not? Why is it important? And then I might prepare a little outline to say it and then make a commitment to myself to actually have those conversations. But I think it starts with some level of awareness. Where am I not speaking up? Where am I hesitant? What conversations are missing for me in my role? I think that’s where I would start.

Bill Berthel

I love, I love that, for myself, I’ve become more aware of the types of conversations I’m more apt to avoid or not have. And that’s been out of practicing and noticing the trends of those conversations I’m not having. And you’ve likened that to your backhand in tennis. You might have a really strong forehand, but which part of your game still isn’t as strong as another part of your game? And, I suggest let’s look for that, too. Let’s be aware of the types of conversations you may not feel most ready for, most strong for and practice in that space.

Ralph Simone

Exactly. Because we avoid right the backhand. We cheat on the court so we don’t have to use the backhand. start using the backhand so that the backhand becomes more natural or just as strong.

Bill Berthel

Right. yeah. Nice, Ralph. Thank you.

Ralph Simone

Thanks, Bill.

Bill Berthel

And folks, thanks for listening. You can listen to a new podcast two times every month here at GetEmergent or wherever you listen to podcasts. This is where we bring you contemporary leadership topics and ideas balanced with what we hope you find are better practices that you can apply to your work and your leadership. Thank you.