July 3, 2025 • 30 mins
Chuck Wisner, author of "The Art of Conscious Conversations," shares transformative insights on how to improve workplace communication through self-awareness, understanding our physical responses to triggering situations, and mastering four essential types of conversations.
• Chuck's journey from musician to architect to communication expert was sparked by witnessing effective conflict resolution
• Our internal dialogue (the "CADs") often contains judgments and negativity that we must learn to process constructively
• Four key questions can transform conversations: examining desires, concerns, authority issues, and standards
• Physical reactions like dry mouth, eye twitches, or tension serve as early warning signs of emotional triggers
• The powerful "circuit breaker" technique helps pause reactive responses when emotionally triggered
• Our personal stories shape how we approach conversations, but detaching from unhelpful narratives is crucial
• "A request without a possible no isn't a request—it's a demand"
• Using the counteroffer approach instead of defaulting to yes helps create promises you can actually keep
• Younger generations often demonstrate better boundary-setting and openness to communication techniques
• True listening requires letting go of the need to constantly demonstrate intelligence through talking
Learn more about conscious conversations and transforming your communication in Chuck Wisner's book "The Art of Conscious Conversations: Transforming How We Talk, Listen, and Interact."
To stay connected and continue the conversation, be sure to follow us on LinkedIn.
And don't forget to check out our previous episodes for more tips and strategies to boost your workplace happiness. You can find them on your favorite podcast platform or on our website.
If you have any questions, comments, or topic suggestions for future episodes, please reach out to us. We'd love to hear from you!
Stay inspired, stay motivated, and stay happy at work!
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
Welcome back for another episode of the Happy at
Work podcast with Laura, tessaand Michael.
Each week, we have thoughtfulconversations with leaders,
founders and authors abouthappiness at work.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
Tune in each Thursday for a new conversation.
Enjoy the show.
Speaker 3 (00:38):
Hi everyone.
Welcome to the Happy at Workpodcast.
We are thrilled to have todaywith us Chuck Wisner, who is the
author of the Art of ConsciousConversations, transforming how
we Talk, listen and Interact,and so I know I am excited just
to understand better what all ofthat means in the context of
(01:02):
your book.
Welcome, chuck, to the Happy atWork podcast.
Speaker 4 (01:05):
Thank you for having me Happy to be here.
Speaker 3 (01:07):
Wonderful.
So let's just start kind offrom the beginning and tell us a
little bit about your careerand how that has evolved over
the years, and then what broughtyou to write this particular
book.
Speaker 4 (01:19):
Okay, writing the book is my fourth career, so,
and all happy careers.
My first career was I was amusician, so I'm a percussionist
.
I played professionally and Iblah, blah, blah.
Then I moved to Boston to go toarchitecture school, so I'm
trained formally as an architectand worked in that field for 20
(01:41):
years and was a partner at afirm Found.
All about conflict in thebuilding industry lots of big
egos and big money fighting allthe time, and through that
conflict there's conflictlessons.
And also I had a partner whobecame an alcoholic and as we
grew from a small firm of sevenor eight guys hanging around to
(02:02):
a larger firm, that was aproblem.
We didn't know what to do Dumb,smart architects.
So we hired in some help and weended up with a woman named
Linda Reed who was working inthe leadership field around
Boston Consulting.
And I've always had aphilosophical, spiritual sort of
dimension to my life and whenLinda came in and worked with us
individually and worked with usas a group, I was like
(02:25):
dumbfounded.
I was like how did she do that?
How did she ask us thosequestions?
How did she get us to cometogether?
How did she help us out theother end and it felt like magic
.
We became friends and I gotinterested and I started reading
, I started studying and forfour years I did that.
I studied the ontology oflanguage, I became a mediator, I
did a certification inbody-mind therapy all of this
(02:46):
sort of exploration and then oneday, four years later, I sold
my partnership in architectureand started a whole new career.
And then I've been in that for25 years and through all my
dealers and my clients lovingthe work we were doing, but no
book that compiled a lot ofcomplexity around language and
conversations, I decided that Iwould try it in my hand at
writing that book.
(03:07):
So sorry about the long story.
Speaker 2 (03:09):
I love that.
It's really interesting justhow much we can get with
language and listening, and inthe work that Tessa and I do at
the intersection of psychologyand business, we find that
people don't really listen thatmuch.
They're usually just waitingfor you to stop so that they
could say something moreinteresting.
And I'm curious what are thefour types of questions in your
(03:29):
book that you feel are reallyimportant for our listeners to
be aware of?
Speaker 4 (03:33):
Yeah.
So just riffing off yourlistening piece, my basic idea,
my basic lesson and what I'velearned and also try to teach is
that we don't listen well,because we're too engaged in our
own story, you know.
And then not only do we have astory that we get our ego gets
hooked to, but we have aninternal dialogue that I like to
(03:55):
call the CADs the CADs in ourbrain running around making
trouble, because they're reallyalways in there telling us no,
no, you're right, they're wrongas our ego.
But then if you really startinvestigating your private
conversation, there's a lot tolearn from it.
And I've done this exercisewith hundreds of people where I
ask them to do the left-hand,right-hand column exercise that
(04:18):
Chris Arduous, I think, createdback in the 70s, and on one side
of the paper you write what wassaid as a record.
At the left side you write whatyou were feeling and thinking.
And the surprising thing is thenumber of people majority of
people when they write downtheir private conversation, how
surprised they are.
So I say, well, what's there?
And they say, well, curse words, judgments, negativity, blame,
(04:40):
shame, judgment.
And so then it's the dilemma.
It's like, okay, well, youcan't hold that inside because
it's not healthy.
You can't blurt it out becauseyou'll ruin your relationship or
lose your job.
And what do you do?
You process it.
And so, through my work, Ialways found people aware of
that but never knew how to workit.
So they became something useful.
And so the four questions thatI just say write these on a
(05:03):
sticky note and remember them,because it's A it's a way to
process your own judgments andnegativity, and B, it's a way to
ask good questions.
So the four questions aredesires.
So every judgment we have,there's a desire hidden there.
We might not speak it, but wewant the meeting to go a certain
way, or we want a certainoutcome, or you know, and
desires are okay, except oftenthey don't align with reality.
(05:25):
The second one is concerns.
We always have a concern abouttomorrow.
We don't want tomorrow to feellike or look like today, and
that's often unspoken but yet avery valuable way to create a
collaborative conversation.
The third is authority issues.
There's power issues.
In every conversation we have,whether it's with our kids, our
(05:45):
spouse, our boss, our colleaguesor our community, we give
different people's voicesdifferent levels of authority,
yet we're often unaware of that,unconscious of that.
And the last one is one of myfavorites is standards.
It's a catch-all word for allof our values and morals and
what we think is right and wrongand good and bad, and so every
judgment we have there's thisstandard underneath.
(06:06):
That's driving that judgment,but yet we rarely share it.
So one I use these fourquestions to say in every
conversation in the book.
It's like learn to share yourthinking, you know.
Learn to share your fourquestions, right, the four
questions, and instead of goinginto a conversation with a fist,
you go into a conversation withan open hand.
Speaker 3 (06:24):
That is.
I really love those fourquestions because I love when
you can take the theoretical andmake it more applicable and
tactical.
And I've had the experience,the good fortune over the course
of my career to work in thekind of DEI space and I've
worked with some really amazingresearchers in the space around
(06:46):
subconscious, unconscious biasand I'm very aware of when you
talk about consciousconversations, what I'm also
hearing through those questionsis this level of developing the
self-awareness.
For what is that ongoingdialogue that's happening in my
mind and in the context ofunconscious bias?
(07:07):
We talk about the importance ofagain, not judging your
thoughts but understanding thatwe have a tendency to organize
information in our brain.
That's how we can make quickdecisions, especially, I used to
do this in a health carecontext.
So in a medical context you haveto make really fast decisions.
So in a medical context youhave to make really fast
decisions.
But again, it's aboutdeveloping that level of
self-awareness and not lettingthe ego kind of get in front of
(07:30):
your judgment.
And so can you talk a littlebit about how do you develop
that sense of self-awareness sothat you can, every time you
come to these kind of criticalconversations you have to have
then?
you can do it with, as you justsaid, an open hand and open
heart, open mind, not kind of goto a quick judgment place.
Speaker 4 (07:51):
Yeah, one image I like is this image of a spiral
If you ever put a quarter in theMuseum of Science into this
funnel and by the time it getsto the bottom it's spinning so
fast you can't even know it's aquarter, right, you can't
recognize it as a quarter.
So I like to think about thatas when something happens in
real time, say, we get triggered, we have an emotional trigger,
we have an emotional patternedreaction, right, we tend to spin
(08:15):
down the funnel.
And when we spin down thefunnel it's all murky and foggy
and cloudy and we can't seestraight and we can't think
straight.
So the idea is, how do youcatch yourself?
How do you become aware enoughto catch yourself?
And so the process there is toA recognize your patterns, right
.
So I have a pattern of gettingtriggered when someone disagrees
(08:36):
with me and I, you know,whatever, my mouth dries up, I
get angry or whatever I do, Iget disappointed or I push back.
What's your pattern?
Right?
Investigate that pattern, right, because our ego is the thing
that forces us down the funnel.
Our ego is the thing that sortof takes us.
You're right, you know, standfor your position, you know,
fight for your, fight for beingcorrect and the ego then is that
(09:01):
sort of bog that we're in whenwe recognize our patterns and we
don't judge them.
Like you said, it would not ajudgmental look, but a real,
just a curiosity, like it's whyI like to call them patterns,
because I think it's lessjudgmental than habit.
So I have a pattern.
I used to have a pattern ofgetting angry with my kids when
they were young and I recognizedthat and I realized what I was
doing is I was turning into myfather and then when I could
(09:24):
recognize that, I could say, oh,I don't want that pattern, I
can do something else.
So then I see awareness as thelight that brings us out of the
dark funnel and out of the darkfog.
So, catching ourselves,awareness, and then
investigating what am I worriedabout?
What are my standards?
Is this really true?
What are the facts?
Those kinds of things that thenlift us up so that we can in
(09:48):
the future, with practice,reprogram our pattern this
sounds very similar to.
Speaker 2 (09:53):
I think we're talking about the same thing, but I
label it amygdala hijacking.
Is this pretty similar whereyou just get, you just go off?
Speaker 4 (09:59):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
And so that's the emotionalpiece that you know and I love
that the amygdala idea and Ithink it was Proust who said our
emotions are an upheaval of ourthinking, a physical upheaval
of our thinking which really isbasically saying, yeah, you're
going to have an emotion, you'regoing to get angry or sad or
(10:19):
disappointed, but really there'ssomething underneath there that
you need to look at right.
Then maybe it's that trigger,that just immediate trigger,
that throws us into our pattern,because our body knows how to
do that.
Speaker 3 (10:30):
And it's interesting because when you were talking
about being able to kind ofrecognize the signs, those
triggers, and you talked aboutthe dry mouth and the getting
angry and the thinking, itreally is that multidimensional
emotion, physical symptoms, andoftentimes those come without
even understanding the thinkingpart to your point, like what's
(10:53):
underlying, because I have beenin situations where I feel okay
and I think I'm not stressed,but I know that when my right
eye twitches on a regular basisthere's something wrong.
Like I definitely have somelevel of underlying stressor.
That's happening, my body istrying to signal to me you are
(11:14):
stressed out, even though you'retelling yourself you're not
stressed out, right?
So like you have to really kindof dig deep, do some meditation
and really get to the heart ofwhat's actually happening.
It's like the physical symptomscan sometimes be a nice, you
know, sign of something going onthat you're not recognizing
through thought.
Speaker 4 (11:32):
Yeah, yeah, no, that's great.
I don't.
I think we're not trained tolisten to our bodies.
You know we're so trained to beleft brain oriented and versus
more intuitive and big picture,but we're also not trained to
listen to our bodies.
And a lot of my clients I'veworked with.
It's like what's the signalthat you're getting stressed,
like some people their shoulderscreep up to their ears.
(11:52):
Some people their mouth driesout, some people get sick to
their stomach, but that physicalit's like, like you said, it's
like a circuit breaker, and ifyou can have the circuit breaker
, then you have a space toinvestigate and maybe make a
change right.
So that's part of that process.
Speaker 2 (12:08):
Yeah, when I was teaching this work, it was
really funny.
I'm a human being.
What triggers me is lack offairness, and even if it's
unfair to someone else, I'll getinvolved.
I don't know where it came from.
Speaker 4 (12:21):
You're a great aunt.
Speaker 2 (12:24):
Well, my trigger is like I lunge, like I literally
my spine goes up, like I'm likea cat, like I'm about to jump on
someone.
And what I do is I just stopcommunicating, I'll go to the
bathroom, I'll phone out, don'thit the send button and I put a
picture of my dog when she was apuppy on the home screen of my
phone and I look at that and I'mlike does Penny want a daddy
(12:46):
like that?
And that's the thing that likewill relax me back.
So I think for all of ourlisteners, if you know what your
physical thing is, try to get alittle circuit breaker in there
.
And the easiest way is don'ttalk.
Speaker 4 (13:00):
Yeah, remove yourself .
Just leave the room, you know,do whatever you need to do to
create that space that you canthen be thinking out of the
funnel a little more clearly.
It's okay if you see fairness,but if you're untriggered you
can have a much more productiveconversation, much more
conscious conversation than ifyou're triggered.
Speaker 2 (13:22):
And it saves a lot of apologies the next day, because
usually that's what I have todo.
Speaker 4 (13:29):
A lot of damage to make up for yeah, yeah and um.
Speaker 2 (13:33):
You know our podcast is really short, but I wanted to
get to.
Uh, one of our favorite topicsfor all of us is could you share
with our listeners about thefour archetypes?
What are those about?
Speaker 4 (13:43):
well, the four archetypes are the questions,
the four types of conversations,is how the book's organized,
because when I decided to sortof compile this book that you
know touched on emotionalintelligence and meditation and
linguistics, you know that howdo I organize that?
And the four conversationstypes of conversations?
(14:04):
I learned when I was studyinglanguage and they, the four
conversations, are reallydifferent.
We're in them all the time, buteach one has a tool and a
practice that can make us betterand more conscious in our
conversations and they'restorytelling, collaboration,
creativity and commitmentconversations.
And they unfold in aninteresting way because
(14:25):
storytelling is primary If weare stuck in our story or we
have a negative story aboutourselves or others, and that's
how we enter a conversation goodluck listening, good luck
opening your mind or heart tohear them right.
So we have to do our own workto investigate our own patterns,
our own stories in order toenter a conversation more
(14:46):
collaboratively.
Speaker 2 (14:47):
It's interesting to talk about storytelling and let
me know if I'm on the righttrack.
There are people that I knowand I call them professional
victims, and no matter what theconversation's about, it always
gets into that.
And what I learned aboutstorytelling on my own end when
I moved to Buenos Aires fromBoston just a few months ago.
(15:09):
People don't ask what you dofor a living, People don't care
and they really don't like itwhen you show off, and it was
really weird.
It's like what do I talk about?
The weather?
They have plenty to talk about,but it's really interesting to
think that we all do have astory.
It's not necessarily bad, butwe all have a story.
(15:30):
Is that okay?
Is that something that weshould work on changing?
What do you think about us allhaving a story?
Speaker 4 (15:35):
Yeah.
So the way I think about thatis our stories.
We need stories, and some ofour stories are fabulous.
I had a grandmother that toldme I could walk on water, and my
grandfather told me that I wasnot a big enough man, so luckily
, the positive one won out.
But so stories are not a badthing, except there's some
stories that don't serve us well, and what happens is, I think,
(15:56):
our ego and our identity getsattached to our story, and so
this whole idea of becomingknowing what our patterns are,
knowing what our stories are, isthe detachment part.
So I can be out here going, Ican be out here witnessing, I
can be out here witnessing.
Oh, I have an interesting storyabout my anger that came from
my pop that I don't have toadopt anymore, that I can change
, and it's that detachment thatallows us to take a negative
(16:19):
story that's not serving us welland transform it.
Speaker 3 (16:24):
That is.
I mean, that is so interesting.
And it brings me to another, Ithink, key concept in your book,
because if I were to thinkabout my own story, it
definitely is.
I don't want to disappointanyone, right?
So I don't disappoint anyone bysaying yes, all the time, yes, I
can do it, I can do it and itdoesn't matter how much is on my
(16:44):
plate, but I just don't want todisappoint that person who's
asking something of me and soeventually I burn out because
I've taken too much on.
And you talk about the power ofsaying no in your book, and can
you talk about why that's suchan important exercise and teach
me how to do it?
Speaker 4 (17:02):
So the last conversation is the commitment
conversation, which is reallythe promises we make.
It's like everything thathappens in life starts with the
request or an offer I request todo something.
Someone's requesting you to dosomething or you're offering to
do something, and then we havechoices, and there's three
choices yes, which many peopleare addicted to.
Yes because we don't want tohurt people's feelings.
(17:22):
We don't want to upset therelationship.
We don't want to disappoint, wewant to please, right.
Okay, there's times wherethat's fine, but a quick yes
makes a sloppy promise, becauseyou don't really know all the
elements of what you're beingrequested to do.
And for every request in theworld there are five or six
components that you might sayyes to five of them, but the
(17:45):
sixth one, you might go, can'tdo it Monday, I can give it to
you Tuesday.
No is important, because arequest without a possible no
isn't a request.
Speaker 3 (17:55):
All right, can you say that one more time?
A?
Speaker 4 (17:56):
request without a possible no isn't a request.
It's a demand.
Speaker 3 (18:01):
Yes, okay.
Speaker 4 (18:02):
Now you might create the demand because you don't
know how to say no, or the otherperson might deliver it and it
might be a boss that'sauthoritarian and just goes.
You're going to do this right,so, anyway, I love that line.
A request without a no is not arequest.
But there's a third option andit's called the counteroffer.
So if you want to break yourpattern around, yes, adopt
(18:22):
counteroffer, which basicallymeans if someone makes a request
, just ask two or threequestions before you say
anything, because one option is,let's say, take the four
archetypal questions.
You might say well, whatproblem are we trying to solve?
What's our desire or goal here?
What's your concern?
Are you just concerned aboutthe board?
(18:44):
What does the standard ofsuccess look like?
What would good look like?
Right, a couple of questions.
You know and be aware of thepower issues, because then they
might say they might say oh, no,I want a PowerPoint, but I want
mostly pictures, no words, gotit, I want it by Monday.
Okay, who's it for?
Blah, blah, blah, and then youmight go okay, I got it, I can't
(19:05):
do it Monday, like I saidearlier, but I can give it to
you Tuesday morning.
That's a counteroffer, and assoon as you make a counteroffer,
you're in the commitmentconversation dance, because then
they get to say yes, no orcounteroffer, and that five or
10 minutes of clarificationcreates a much better promise
that you most likely will beable to fulfill.
Speaker 3 (19:27):
I mean to be honest with you that will change my
life.
I mean just allowing justenough of a pause in the speech
and I love your questionsbecause, especially in a power
dynamic, where you're dealingwith your boss or someone who's
in a more powerful position andyou don't want to disappoint
them to just ask some clarifyingquestions, which is perfectly
(19:51):
natural to have to do, and andnot.
It doesn't come across as I'mresisting, or, but it really
does allow the space and opensup the opportunity to really
assess whether or not you cancreate a more, a better promise.
Speaker 4 (20:07):
I guess is as usual, yeah, and adopting the
counteroffer.
If your intent is correct, yourintent is to want to make a
promise you can keep and buildtrust, because that's where
trust comes from.
So if your intent is thatyou're not asking questions to
be a smart aleck, you're askingquestions.
Let me understand, so I canreally really help you.
Speaker 2 (20:25):
Right what I've learned as a recovering people
pleaser that will say yes, whichI hadn't.
Later, I've adopted whatHarvard does to me with most of
my course proposals, which issay no, but they don't actually
use the word no.
They'll come back with withwhat you're talking about Last
few questions for the students,but it's for the questions that
(20:47):
you're talking about.
Then they come back with aconditional and they say if you
can have a PhD and this and thatthen we can move you to the
next level, and I've used that.
If someone says, do you want togo out to dinner at seven, I
might say, if we can go to sushiat my favorite place, which is
(21:08):
across the street from myapartment, then I'm in and I've
started to do that and I'meating a lot of sushi.
It's good, yeah, right acrossthe street.
Speaker 4 (21:18):
No, the counteroffer is a beautiful thing and it's
really.
We're never taught that.
Basically, you know, we tend tobe addicted to yes and we're
afraid of no, and thecounteroffer is just the
counterbalance.
It afraid of no and thecounteroffer is just the
counterbalance.
It's like wait a minute, we'remaking promises that can change
your life tomorrow, or at leasttonight at dinner, right?
Speaker 3 (21:40):
So let's make sure we do that well.
But can I ask a quick follow-up, just simply because I feel
like this is maybe a little bitgenerational?
We've done a few podcasts withGen Z, for instance, a panel of
Gen Z.
Michael and I are alwaysfascinated.
Of course I have two boys whoare 21 and 18.
So I have raised Gen Z.
But they are such a dynamicgeneration who has gone through
(22:00):
so much.
But they're really good atboundaries and they're really
good at understanding.
You know kind of what they wantto do and what they really
don't want to do and to kind ofpush back.
Do you find in your researchhas it been more of the Gen Xers
and the boomers who are more ofthe people pleasers and we're
seeing a little bit of a shift,or not really, it's just more
(22:23):
anecdotal at this point.
Speaker 4 (22:25):
You know I don't have any real good studies to back
this up, but what I can say iswhat's interesting to me is
there are more Gen Zers.
What's the generation beforeWise?
Speaker 3 (22:36):
Yeah, plenty else.
Speaker 4 (22:37):
Yeah, that are more interested in my book than older
people.
Yeah, I believe that Somehowthere's more open book like,
yeah, this is important,communication is important, even
though, then, that we have todeal with all of the technology
and social media and stuff.
But they do have boundaries andthey have some standards that
they want to live by and they'rewilling to talk about that.
(22:59):
And I think older folks that alot of times those things we
just held inside and suffered.
Speaker 3 (23:05):
Yeah, because we didn't have the same level of
influence, where people wereencouraging us to talk about our
feelings and so forth, whereasthis generation, who has gone
through a global pandemic andreally deals with mental health
and talks about these things, Ithink what we see in the
research is that they are muchmore purpose driven in the way
(23:25):
that they're thinking aboutliving their lives.
So I love that you're findingthat young people are
gravitating towards your book.
That's wonderful.
Speaker 4 (23:32):
Yeah, no, it's really great.
Speaker 2 (23:34):
I love it too.
That is interesting and Iwanted to ask advice for our
listeners from you.
Two weeks ago I was in Brazil.
I was giving a conference tosome business people and part of
it was listening was one of themodules, and I met this woman
who someone told me she owns tworesorts in Brazil.
She has 4,000 employees supersmart, just really good at
(23:54):
questions and she invited me outto dinner at the end of the
conference with a few otherpeople and when I showed up
there were already three peoplethere and I don't think anyone
knew who she was and she saidnothing about herself and she
was fascinated with everyonereally asking very in-depth
questions.
You know senior people, juniorpeople and you could tell that
(24:16):
people loved it.
But she really liked it.
She was really much moreinterested in other people and
their stories than than hers andI'm curious.
It was like this woman had noidea how likable she was being,
even though we knew nothingabout her really.
And how do people get themindset of being a better
(24:39):
listener?
She was amazing at it.
But how do we want to be abetter listener as opposed to?
Well, I should do it like do myexercise.
What can we do to incentivizepeople to say I want to be a
better listener, becauseAnything that could inspire yeah
, I think we're trained to beadvocates and we're trained to
be bad advocates.
Speaker 4 (24:56):
actually, we're trained to hold our position
with a fist and hammer it intothe meeting or hammer it into
the conversation.
And I think that idea of usingthe questions to open our hand
right, Personally, that's ahumbling, vulnerable place.
You can demonstrate thatvulnerability.
But once you do that, you haveyou find a curiosity to say that
there's a lot more in thisperson that I'm engaging with,
(25:19):
having sushi with you.
Know, I, I, there's plenty toknow.
And so questions, I say you fallin love with questions, because
not not questions that areinquisitory, but questions that
you really want to understandhow they think or what they're
doing in their life and whatmatters to them, and so I think
this idea of learning how to askquestions in a really open
(25:39):
hearted way is really crucial,and I'll go back and say to do
that, well, you got to do yourown damn work.
What keeps you from doing that?
What are you holding on to thatkeeps you from opening your
hand and being vulnerable andhumble?
That allows you then to beinterested in the other person
in a really honest way.
Speaker 3 (26:00):
I love that because I know in my doing my own work,
one of the reasons I think Iwasn't a good listener is
because I thought if I can addto the conversation, that's how
I bring value, if I can bereally smart and say something
intelligence, that's how I canadd value, rather than leading
with curiosity, relaxing intothe conversation, not trying to
(26:22):
constantly be thinking aboutwhat I'll say next, but really
listening and let that happenmore organically.
That's when the real stuffhappens right and that's what's
valuable, not necessarily havingto say something super smart.
Speaker 4 (26:37):
Yeah, yeah, that's what leads us into collaborative
, really really productive,collaborative conversations when
both people are open andthere's mutual learning going on
.
Because I'm open to my mindbeing changed by something you
say.
I say, oh wow, I never thoughtof it that way.
And then all of a sudden we'rein a really very different
conversation.
Speaker 2 (26:58):
About that.
I'm curious if we've read thebook and we say I really want to
have collaborativeconversations and I love the
idea of doing that because youget a much bigger deal or you
get much more out of it, whenboth people are doing that, if
I'm in a collaborative mindsetand the other person is not,
what's yeah, the fist is out.
(27:20):
What do I?
How do I?
How do I manage that?
I want to be collaborative, butthey're they're not.
Speaker 4 (27:25):
Yeah all right, yeah, so there's a.
So there's a couple of layershere One sometimes, if you open
your hand and you're showingyour cards and being vulnerable,
it has a tendency to makepeople feel safe.
And people that are readypsychologically, spiritually,
emotionally they'll meet you.
(27:45):
Okay, now that you said that Ican say this, they'll meet you
and go.
Okay, now that you said that Ican say this.
Then there are other people,next layer, that are stubborn
and they haven't tasted thatbeauty of humility and
vulnerability, right, becausethey think it's unsafe.
They're fearful because they'respinning down the spiral.
So that's where you can ask thefour questions of them, because
(28:06):
your questions are you try topry their hand open.
So what are you reallyconcerned about?
And if they don't really answerthat well, that's not a concern
.
But what matters to you?
Why are you worried about this?
What are your?
You have you seem to reallyhave a strong judgment about
this.
How are you?
What are the standards by whichyou're judging?
Is it a moral standard?
Is the value standard?
Is the belief you have?
Ask those questions so slowly.
Maybe you can open their handand it works.
(28:32):
It can work when people areready and if we can ask skillful
questions.
That's why I love these fourshortcuts, because they're like
a little recipe right Now.
Then you're going to meetpeople that just won't budge and
it's okay to walk away fromthose conversations.
Let them be stuck.
Because you tried your best,you opened your hand.
You're trying to pry their damnhand open.
They don't budge.
See you later, buddy, I'm notgoing to waste my energy.
Speaker 2 (28:54):
When I teach negotiation and I basically, if
I'm the one trying to becooperative, I could be
considered the soft negotiator,and if the other side is just
your typical, you know, hardnegotiator, a soft person is
going to lose and in hindsightyou would have been better
walking away from a deal thansaying yes to a bad deal.
Bad deal.
Speaker 4 (29:14):
Yeah, absolutely yeah , yeah.
They won't accept the badenough, so just leave you know.
Speaker 3 (29:21):
Yes, I mean you have to at some point walk away.
This has been a wonderfulconversation.
We've gone way over time.
Both Michael and myself are sointo this topic.
We'll have to have you back.
Speaker 4 (29:36):
Let's do it again.
Yeah, let's do it again, whynot?
Speaker 3 (29:43):
And just even think about a few cases and so forth.
Speaker 2 (29:46):
We hope you've enjoyed this episode.
If you'd like to hear futureepisodes, be sure to subscribe
to the Happy at Work podcast andleave us a review with your
thoughts.
Speaker 1 (29:57):
Are you interested in speaking on a future episode or
want to collaborate with us?
Let us know.
You can send us an email atadmin at happyatworkpodcastcom.
And, lastly, follow us onLinkedIn or Twitter for even
more happiness.
See you soon.
Welcome back for another episode of the Happy at
Work podcast with Laura, tessaand Michael.
Each week, we have thoughtfulconversations with leaders,
founders and authors abouthappiness at work.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
Tune in each Thursday for a new conversation.
Enjoy the show.
Speaker 3 (00:38):
Hi everyone.
Welcome to the Happy at Workpodcast.
We are thrilled to have todaywith us Chuck Wisner, who is the
author of the Art of ConsciousConversations, transforming how
we Talk, listen and Interact,and so I know I am excited just
to understand better what all ofthat means in the context of
(01:02):
your book.
Welcome, chuck, to the Happy atWork podcast.
Speaker 4 (01:05):
Thank you for having me Happy to be here.
Speaker 3 (01:07):
Wonderful.
So let's just start kind offrom the beginning and tell us a
little bit about your careerand how that has evolved over
the years, and then what broughtyou to write this particular
book.
Speaker 4 (01:19):
Okay, writing the book is my fourth career, so,
and all happy careers.
My first career was I was amusician, so I'm a percussionist
.
I played professionally and Iblah, blah, blah.
Then I moved to Boston to go toarchitecture school, so I'm
trained formally as an architectand worked in that field for 20
(01:41):
years and was a partner at afirm Found.
All about conflict in thebuilding industry lots of big
egos and big money fighting allthe time, and through that
conflict there's conflictlessons.
And also I had a partner whobecame an alcoholic and as we
grew from a small firm of sevenor eight guys hanging around to
(02:02):
a larger firm, that was aproblem.
We didn't know what to do Dumb,smart architects.
So we hired in some help and weended up with a woman named
Linda Reed who was working inthe leadership field around
Boston Consulting.
And I've always had aphilosophical, spiritual sort of
dimension to my life and whenLinda came in and worked with us
individually and worked with usas a group, I was like
(02:25):
dumbfounded.
I was like how did she do that?
How did she ask us thosequestions?
How did she get us to cometogether?
How did she help us out theother end and it felt like magic
.
We became friends and I gotinterested and I started reading
, I started studying and forfour years I did that.
I studied the ontology oflanguage, I became a mediator, I
did a certification inbody-mind therapy all of this
(02:46):
sort of exploration and then oneday, four years later, I sold
my partnership in architectureand started a whole new career.
And then I've been in that for25 years and through all my
dealers and my clients lovingthe work we were doing, but no
book that compiled a lot ofcomplexity around language and
conversations, I decided that Iwould try it in my hand at
writing that book.
(03:07):
So sorry about the long story.
Speaker 2 (03:09):
I love that.
It's really interesting justhow much we can get with
language and listening, and inthe work that Tessa and I do at
the intersection of psychologyand business, we find that
people don't really listen thatmuch.
They're usually just waitingfor you to stop so that they
could say something moreinteresting.
And I'm curious what are thefour types of questions in your
(03:29):
book that you feel are reallyimportant for our listeners to
be aware of?
Speaker 4 (03:33):
Yeah.
So just riffing off yourlistening piece, my basic idea,
my basic lesson and what I'velearned and also try to teach is
that we don't listen well,because we're too engaged in our
own story, you know.
And then not only do we have astory that we get our ego gets
hooked to, but we have aninternal dialogue that I like to
(03:55):
call the CADs the CADs in ourbrain running around making
trouble, because they're reallyalways in there telling us no,
no, you're right, they're wrongas our ego.
But then if you really startinvestigating your private
conversation, there's a lot tolearn from it.
And I've done this exercisewith hundreds of people where I
ask them to do the left-hand,right-hand column exercise that
(04:18):
Chris Arduous, I think, createdback in the 70s, and on one side
of the paper you write what wassaid as a record.
At the left side you write whatyou were feeling and thinking.
And the surprising thing is thenumber of people majority of
people when they write downtheir private conversation, how
surprised they are.
So I say, well, what's there?
And they say, well, curse words, judgments, negativity, blame,
(04:40):
shame, judgment.
And so then it's the dilemma.
It's like, okay, well, youcan't hold that inside because
it's not healthy.
You can't blurt it out becauseyou'll ruin your relationship or
lose your job.
And what do you do?
You process it.
And so, through my work, Ialways found people aware of
that but never knew how to workit.
So they became something useful.
And so the four questions thatI just say write these on a
(05:03):
sticky note and remember them,because it's A it's a way to
process your own judgments andnegativity, and B, it's a way to
ask good questions.
So the four questions aredesires.
So every judgment we have,there's a desire hidden there.
We might not speak it, but wewant the meeting to go a certain
way, or we want a certainoutcome, or you know, and
desires are okay, except oftenthey don't align with reality.
(05:25):
The second one is concerns.
We always have a concern abouttomorrow.
We don't want tomorrow to feellike or look like today, and
that's often unspoken but yet avery valuable way to create a
collaborative conversation.
The third is authority issues.
There's power issues.
In every conversation we have,whether it's with our kids, our
(05:45):
spouse, our boss, our colleaguesor our community, we give
different people's voicesdifferent levels of authority,
yet we're often unaware of that,unconscious of that.
And the last one is one of myfavorites is standards.
It's a catch-all word for allof our values and morals and
what we think is right and wrongand good and bad, and so every
judgment we have there's thisstandard underneath.
(06:06):
That's driving that judgment,but yet we rarely share it.
So one I use these fourquestions to say in every
conversation in the book.
It's like learn to share yourthinking, you know.
Learn to share your fourquestions, right, the four
questions, and instead of goinginto a conversation with a fist,
you go into a conversation withan open hand.
Speaker 3 (06:24):
That is.
I really love those fourquestions because I love when
you can take the theoretical andmake it more applicable and
tactical.
And I've had the experience,the good fortune over the course
of my career to work in thekind of DEI space and I've
worked with some really amazingresearchers in the space around
(06:46):
subconscious, unconscious biasand I'm very aware of when you
talk about consciousconversations, what I'm also
hearing through those questionsis this level of developing the
self-awareness.
For what is that ongoingdialogue that's happening in my
mind and in the context ofunconscious bias?
(07:07):
We talk about the importance ofagain, not judging your
thoughts but understanding thatwe have a tendency to organize
information in our brain.
That's how we can make quickdecisions, especially, I used to
do this in a health carecontext.
So in a medical context you haveto make really fast decisions.
So in a medical context youhave to make really fast
decisions.
But again, it's aboutdeveloping that level of
self-awareness and not lettingthe ego kind of get in front of
(07:30):
your judgment.
And so can you talk a littlebit about how do you develop
that sense of self-awareness sothat you can, every time you
come to these kind of criticalconversations you have to have
then?
you can do it with, as you justsaid, an open hand and open
heart, open mind, not kind of goto a quick judgment place.
Speaker 4 (07:51):
Yeah, one image I like is this image of a spiral
If you ever put a quarter in theMuseum of Science into this
funnel and by the time it getsto the bottom it's spinning so
fast you can't even know it's aquarter, right, you can't
recognize it as a quarter.
So I like to think about thatas when something happens in
real time, say, we get triggered, we have an emotional trigger,
we have an emotional patternedreaction, right, we tend to spin
(08:15):
down the funnel.
And when we spin down thefunnel it's all murky and foggy
and cloudy and we can't seestraight and we can't think
straight.
So the idea is, how do youcatch yourself?
How do you become aware enoughto catch yourself?
And so the process there is toA recognize your patterns, right
.
So I have a pattern of gettingtriggered when someone disagrees
(08:36):
with me and I, you know,whatever, my mouth dries up, I
get angry or whatever I do, Iget disappointed or I push back.
What's your pattern?
Right?
Investigate that pattern, right, because our ego is the thing
that forces us down the funnel.
Our ego is the thing that sortof takes us.
You're right, you know, standfor your position, you know,
fight for your, fight for beingcorrect and the ego then is that
(09:01):
sort of bog that we're in whenwe recognize our patterns and we
don't judge them.
Like you said, it would not ajudgmental look, but a real,
just a curiosity, like it's whyI like to call them patterns,
because I think it's lessjudgmental than habit.
So I have a pattern.
I used to have a pattern ofgetting angry with my kids when
they were young and I recognizedthat and I realized what I was
doing is I was turning into myfather and then when I could
(09:24):
recognize that, I could say, oh,I don't want that pattern, I
can do something else.
So then I see awareness as thelight that brings us out of the
dark funnel and out of the darkfog.
So, catching ourselves,awareness, and then
investigating what am I worriedabout?
What are my standards?
Is this really true?
What are the facts?
Those kinds of things that thenlift us up so that we can in
(09:48):
the future, with practice,reprogram our pattern this
sounds very similar to.
Speaker 2 (09:53):
I think we're talking about the same thing, but I
label it amygdala hijacking.
Is this pretty similar whereyou just get, you just go off?
Speaker 4 (09:59):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
And so that's the emotionalpiece that you know and I love
that the amygdala idea and Ithink it was Proust who said our
emotions are an upheaval of ourthinking, a physical upheaval
of our thinking which really isbasically saying, yeah, you're
going to have an emotion, you'regoing to get angry or sad or
(10:19):
disappointed, but really there'ssomething underneath there that
you need to look at right.
Then maybe it's that trigger,that just immediate trigger,
that throws us into our pattern,because our body knows how to
do that.
Speaker 3 (10:30):
And it's interesting because when you were talking
about being able to kind ofrecognize the signs, those
triggers, and you talked aboutthe dry mouth and the getting
angry and the thinking, itreally is that multidimensional
emotion, physical symptoms, andoftentimes those come without
even understanding the thinkingpart to your point, like what's
(10:53):
underlying, because I have beenin situations where I feel okay
and I think I'm not stressed,but I know that when my right
eye twitches on a regular basisthere's something wrong.
Like I definitely have somelevel of underlying stressor.
That's happening, my body istrying to signal to me you are
(11:14):
stressed out, even though you'retelling yourself you're not
stressed out, right?
So like you have to really kindof dig deep, do some meditation
and really get to the heart ofwhat's actually happening.
It's like the physical symptomscan sometimes be a nice, you
know, sign of something going onthat you're not recognizing
through thought.
Speaker 4 (11:32):
Yeah, yeah, no, that's great.
I don't.
I think we're not trained tolisten to our bodies.
You know we're so trained to beleft brain oriented and versus
more intuitive and big picture,but we're also not trained to
listen to our bodies.
And a lot of my clients I'veworked with.
It's like what's the signalthat you're getting stressed,
like some people their shoulderscreep up to their ears.
(11:52):
Some people their mouth driesout, some people get sick to
their stomach, but that physicalit's like, like you said, it's
like a circuit breaker, and ifyou can have the circuit breaker
, then you have a space toinvestigate and maybe make a
change right.
So that's part of that process.
Speaker 2 (12:08):
Yeah, when I was teaching this work, it was
really funny.
I'm a human being.
What triggers me is lack offairness, and even if it's
unfair to someone else, I'll getinvolved.
I don't know where it came from.
Speaker 4 (12:21):
You're a great aunt.
Speaker 2 (12:24):
Well, my trigger is like I lunge, like I literally
my spine goes up, like I'm likea cat, like I'm about to jump on
someone.
And what I do is I just stopcommunicating, I'll go to the
bathroom, I'll phone out, don'thit the send button and I put a
picture of my dog when she was apuppy on the home screen of my
phone and I look at that and I'mlike does Penny want a daddy
(12:46):
like that?
And that's the thing that likewill relax me back.
So I think for all of ourlisteners, if you know what your
physical thing is, try to get alittle circuit breaker in there
.
And the easiest way is don'ttalk.
Speaker 4 (13:00):
Yeah, remove yourself .
Just leave the room, you know,do whatever you need to do to
create that space that you canthen be thinking out of the
funnel a little more clearly.
It's okay if you see fairness,but if you're untriggered you
can have a much more productiveconversation, much more
conscious conversation than ifyou're triggered.
Speaker 2 (13:22):
And it saves a lot of apologies the next day, because
usually that's what I have todo.
Speaker 4 (13:29):
A lot of damage to make up for yeah, yeah and um.
Speaker 2 (13:33):
You know our podcast is really short, but I wanted to
get to.
Uh, one of our favorite topicsfor all of us is could you share
with our listeners about thefour archetypes?
What are those about?
Speaker 4 (13:43):
well, the four archetypes are the questions,
the four types of conversations,is how the book's organized,
because when I decided to sortof compile this book that you
know touched on emotionalintelligence and meditation and
linguistics, you know that howdo I organize that?
And the four conversationstypes of conversations?
(14:04):
I learned when I was studyinglanguage and they, the four
conversations, are reallydifferent.
We're in them all the time, buteach one has a tool and a
practice that can make us betterand more conscious in our
conversations and they'restorytelling, collaboration,
creativity and commitmentconversations.
And they unfold in aninteresting way because
(14:25):
storytelling is primary If weare stuck in our story or we
have a negative story aboutourselves or others, and that's
how we enter a conversation goodluck listening, good luck
opening your mind or heart tohear them right.
So we have to do our own workto investigate our own patterns,
our own stories in order toenter a conversation more
(14:46):
collaboratively.
Speaker 2 (14:47):
It's interesting to talk about storytelling and let
me know if I'm on the righttrack.
There are people that I knowand I call them professional
victims, and no matter what theconversation's about, it always
gets into that.
And what I learned aboutstorytelling on my own end when
I moved to Buenos Aires fromBoston just a few months ago.
(15:09):
People don't ask what you dofor a living, People don't care
and they really don't like itwhen you show off, and it was
really weird.
It's like what do I talk about?
The weather?
They have plenty to talk about,but it's really interesting to
think that we all do have astory.
It's not necessarily bad, butwe all have a story.
(15:30):
Is that okay?
Is that something that weshould work on changing?
What do you think about us allhaving a story?
Speaker 4 (15:35):
Yeah.
So the way I think about thatis our stories.
We need stories, and some ofour stories are fabulous.
I had a grandmother that toldme I could walk on water, and my
grandfather told me that I wasnot a big enough man, so luckily
, the positive one won out.
But so stories are not a badthing, except there's some
stories that don't serve us well, and what happens is, I think,
(15:56):
our ego and our identity getsattached to our story, and so
this whole idea of becomingknowing what our patterns are,
knowing what our stories are, isthe detachment part.
So I can be out here going, Ican be out here witnessing, I
can be out here witnessing.
Oh, I have an interesting storyabout my anger that came from
my pop that I don't have toadopt anymore, that I can change
, and it's that detachment thatallows us to take a negative
(16:19):
story that's not serving us welland transform it.
Speaker 3 (16:24):
That is.
I mean, that is so interesting.
And it brings me to another, Ithink, key concept in your book,
because if I were to thinkabout my own story, it
definitely is.
I don't want to disappointanyone, right?
So I don't disappoint anyone bysaying yes, all the time, yes, I
can do it, I can do it and itdoesn't matter how much is on my
(16:44):
plate, but I just don't want todisappoint that person who's
asking something of me and soeventually I burn out because
I've taken too much on.
And you talk about the power ofsaying no in your book, and can
you talk about why that's suchan important exercise and teach
me how to do it?
Speaker 4 (17:02):
So the last conversation is the commitment
conversation, which is reallythe promises we make.
It's like everything thathappens in life starts with the
request or an offer I request todo something.
Someone's requesting you to dosomething or you're offering to
do something, and then we havechoices, and there's three
choices yes, which many peopleare addicted to.
Yes because we don't want tohurt people's feelings.
(17:22):
We don't want to upset therelationship.
We don't want to disappoint, wewant to please, right.
Okay, there's times wherethat's fine, but a quick yes
makes a sloppy promise, becauseyou don't really know all the
elements of what you're beingrequested to do.
And for every request in theworld there are five or six
components that you might sayyes to five of them, but the
(17:45):
sixth one, you might go, can'tdo it Monday, I can give it to
you Tuesday.
No is important, because arequest without a possible no
isn't a request.
Speaker 3 (17:55):
All right, can you say that one more time?
A?
Speaker 4 (17:56):
request without a possible no isn't a request.
It's a demand.
Speaker 3 (18:01):
Yes, okay.
Speaker 4 (18:02):
Now you might create the demand because you don't
know how to say no, or the otherperson might deliver it and it
might be a boss that'sauthoritarian and just goes.
You're going to do this right,so, anyway, I love that line.
A request without a no is not arequest.
But there's a third option andit's called the counteroffer.
So if you want to break yourpattern around, yes, adopt
(18:22):
counteroffer, which basicallymeans if someone makes a request
, just ask two or threequestions before you say
anything, because one option is,let's say, take the four
archetypal questions.
You might say well, whatproblem are we trying to solve?
What's our desire or goal here?
What's your concern?
Are you just concerned aboutthe board?
(18:44):
What does the standard ofsuccess look like?
What would good look like?
Right, a couple of questions.
You know and be aware of thepower issues, because then they
might say they might say oh, no,I want a PowerPoint, but I want
mostly pictures, no words, gotit, I want it by Monday.
Okay, who's it for?
Blah, blah, blah, and then youmight go okay, I got it, I can't
(19:05):
do it Monday, like I saidearlier, but I can give it to
you Tuesday morning.
That's a counteroffer, and assoon as you make a counteroffer,
you're in the commitmentconversation dance, because then
they get to say yes, no orcounteroffer, and that five or
10 minutes of clarificationcreates a much better promise
that you most likely will beable to fulfill.
Speaker 3 (19:27):
I mean to be honest with you that will change my
life.
I mean just allowing justenough of a pause in the speech
and I love your questionsbecause, especially in a power
dynamic, where you're dealingwith your boss or someone who's
in a more powerful position andyou don't want to disappoint
them to just ask some clarifyingquestions, which is perfectly
(19:51):
natural to have to do, and andnot.
It doesn't come across as I'mresisting, or, but it really
does allow the space and opensup the opportunity to really
assess whether or not you cancreate a more, a better promise.
Speaker 4 (20:07):
I guess is as usual, yeah, and adopting the
counteroffer.
If your intent is correct, yourintent is to want to make a
promise you can keep and buildtrust, because that's where
trust comes from.
So if your intent is thatyou're not asking questions to
be a smart aleck, you're askingquestions.
Let me understand, so I canreally really help you.
Speaker 2 (20:25):
Right what I've learned as a recovering people
pleaser that will say yes, whichI hadn't.
Later, I've adopted whatHarvard does to me with most of
my course proposals, which issay no, but they don't actually
use the word no.
They'll come back with withwhat you're talking about Last
few questions for the students,but it's for the questions that
(20:47):
you're talking about.
Then they come back with aconditional and they say if you
can have a PhD and this and thatthen we can move you to the
next level, and I've used that.
If someone says, do you want togo out to dinner at seven, I
might say, if we can go to sushiat my favorite place, which is
(21:08):
across the street from myapartment, then I'm in and I've
started to do that and I'meating a lot of sushi.
It's good, yeah, right acrossthe street.
Speaker 4 (21:18):
No, the counteroffer is a beautiful thing and it's
really.
We're never taught that.
Basically, you know, we tend tobe addicted to yes and we're
afraid of no, and thecounteroffer is just the
counterbalance.
It afraid of no and thecounteroffer is just the
counterbalance.
It's like wait a minute, we'remaking promises that can change
your life tomorrow, or at leasttonight at dinner, right?
Speaker 3 (21:40):
So let's make sure we do that well.
But can I ask a quick follow-up, just simply because I feel
like this is maybe a little bitgenerational?
We've done a few podcasts withGen Z, for instance, a panel of
Gen Z.
Michael and I are alwaysfascinated.
Of course I have two boys whoare 21 and 18.
So I have raised Gen Z.
But they are such a dynamicgeneration who has gone through
(22:00):
so much.
But they're really good atboundaries and they're really
good at understanding.
You know kind of what they wantto do and what they really
don't want to do and to kind ofpush back.
Do you find in your researchhas it been more of the Gen Xers
and the boomers who are more ofthe people pleasers and we're
seeing a little bit of a shift,or not really, it's just more
(22:23):
anecdotal at this point.
Speaker 4 (22:25):
You know I don't have any real good studies to back
this up, but what I can say iswhat's interesting to me is
there are more Gen Zers.
What's the generation beforeWise?
Speaker 3 (22:36):
Yeah, plenty else.
Speaker 4 (22:37):
Yeah, that are more interested in my book than older
people.
Yeah, I believe that Somehowthere's more open book like,
yeah, this is important,communication is important, even
though, then, that we have todeal with all of the technology
and social media and stuff.
But they do have boundaries andthey have some standards that
they want to live by and they'rewilling to talk about that.
(22:59):
And I think older folks that alot of times those things we
just held inside and suffered.
Speaker 3 (23:05):
Yeah, because we didn't have the same level of
influence, where people wereencouraging us to talk about our
feelings and so forth, whereasthis generation, who has gone
through a global pandemic andreally deals with mental health
and talks about these things, Ithink what we see in the
research is that they are muchmore purpose driven in the way
(23:25):
that they're thinking aboutliving their lives.
So I love that you're findingthat young people are
gravitating towards your book.
That's wonderful.
Speaker 4 (23:32):
Yeah, no, it's really great.
Speaker 2 (23:34):
I love it too.
That is interesting and Iwanted to ask advice for our
listeners from you.
Two weeks ago I was in Brazil.
I was giving a conference tosome business people and part of
it was listening was one of themodules, and I met this woman
who someone told me she owns tworesorts in Brazil.
She has 4,000 employees supersmart, just really good at
(23:54):
questions and she invited me outto dinner at the end of the
conference with a few otherpeople and when I showed up
there were already three peoplethere and I don't think anyone
knew who she was and she saidnothing about herself and she
was fascinated with everyonereally asking very in-depth
questions.
You know senior people, juniorpeople and you could tell that
(24:16):
people loved it.
But she really liked it.
She was really much moreinterested in other people and
their stories than than hers andI'm curious.
It was like this woman had noidea how likable she was being,
even though we knew nothingabout her really.
And how do people get themindset of being a better
(24:39):
listener?
She was amazing at it.
But how do we want to be abetter listener as opposed to?
Well, I should do it like do myexercise.
What can we do to incentivizepeople to say I want to be a
better listener, becauseAnything that could inspire yeah
, I think we're trained to beadvocates and we're trained to
be bad advocates.
Speaker 4 (24:56):
actually, we're trained to hold our position
with a fist and hammer it intothe meeting or hammer it into
the conversation.
And I think that idea of usingthe questions to open our hand
right, Personally, that's ahumbling, vulnerable place.
You can demonstrate thatvulnerability.
But once you do that, you haveyou find a curiosity to say that
there's a lot more in thisperson that I'm engaging with,
(25:19):
having sushi with you.
Know, I, I, there's plenty toknow.
And so questions, I say you fallin love with questions, because
not not questions that areinquisitory, but questions that
you really want to understandhow they think or what they're
doing in their life and whatmatters to them, and so I think
this idea of learning how to askquestions in a really open
(25:39):
hearted way is really crucial,and I'll go back and say to do
that, well, you got to do yourown damn work.
What keeps you from doing that?
What are you holding on to thatkeeps you from opening your
hand and being vulnerable andhumble?
That allows you then to beinterested in the other person
in a really honest way.
Speaker 3 (26:00):
I love that because I know in my doing my own work,
one of the reasons I think Iwasn't a good listener is
because I thought if I can addto the conversation, that's how
I bring value, if I can bereally smart and say something
intelligence, that's how I canadd value, rather than leading
with curiosity, relaxing intothe conversation, not trying to
(26:22):
constantly be thinking aboutwhat I'll say next, but really
listening and let that happenmore organically.
That's when the real stuffhappens right and that's what's
valuable, not necessarily havingto say something super smart.
Speaker 4 (26:37):
Yeah, yeah, that's what leads us into collaborative
, really really productive,collaborative conversations when
both people are open andthere's mutual learning going on
.
Because I'm open to my mindbeing changed by something you
say.
I say, oh wow, I never thoughtof it that way.
And then all of a sudden we'rein a really very different
conversation.
Speaker 2 (26:58):
About that.
I'm curious if we've read thebook and we say I really want to
have collaborativeconversations and I love the
idea of doing that because youget a much bigger deal or you
get much more out of it, whenboth people are doing that, if
I'm in a collaborative mindsetand the other person is not,
what's yeah, the fist is out.
(27:20):
What do I?
How do I?
How do I manage that?
I want to be collaborative, butthey're they're not.
Speaker 4 (27:25):
Yeah all right, yeah, so there's a.
So there's a couple of layershere One sometimes, if you open
your hand and you're showingyour cards and being vulnerable,
it has a tendency to makepeople feel safe.
And people that are readypsychologically, spiritually,
emotionally they'll meet you.
(27:45):
Okay, now that you said that Ican say this, they'll meet you
and go.
Okay, now that you said that Ican say this.
Then there are other people,next layer, that are stubborn
and they haven't tasted thatbeauty of humility and
vulnerability, right, becausethey think it's unsafe.
They're fearful because they'respinning down the spiral.
So that's where you can ask thefour questions of them, because
(28:06):
your questions are you try topry their hand open.
So what are you reallyconcerned about?
And if they don't really answerthat well, that's not a concern
.
But what matters to you?
Why are you worried about this?
What are your?
You have you seem to reallyhave a strong judgment about
this.
How are you?
What are the standards by whichyou're judging?
Is it a moral standard?
Is the value standard?
Is the belief you have?
Ask those questions so slowly.
Maybe you can open their handand it works.
(28:32):
It can work when people areready and if we can ask skillful
questions.
That's why I love these fourshortcuts, because they're like
a little recipe right Now.
Then you're going to meetpeople that just won't budge and
it's okay to walk away fromthose conversations.
Let them be stuck.
Because you tried your best,you opened your hand.
You're trying to pry their damnhand open.
They don't budge.
See you later, buddy, I'm notgoing to waste my energy.
Speaker 2 (28:54):
When I teach negotiation and I basically, if
I'm the one trying to becooperative, I could be
considered the soft negotiator,and if the other side is just
your typical, you know, hardnegotiator, a soft person is
going to lose and in hindsightyou would have been better
walking away from a deal thansaying yes to a bad deal.
Bad deal.
Speaker 4 (29:14):
Yeah, absolutely yeah , yeah.
They won't accept the badenough, so just leave you know.
Speaker 3 (29:21):
Yes, I mean you have to at some point walk away.
This has been a wonderfulconversation.
We've gone way over time.
Both Michael and myself are sointo this topic.
We'll have to have you back.
Speaker 4 (29:36):
Let's do it again.
Yeah, let's do it again, whynot?
Speaker 3 (29:43):
And just even think about a few cases and so forth.
Speaker 2 (29:46):
We hope you've enjoyed this episode.
If you'd like to hear futureepisodes, be sure to subscribe
to the Happy at Work podcast andleave us a review with your
thoughts.
Speaker 1 (29:57):
Are you interested in speaking on a future episode or
want to collaborate with us?
Let us know.
You can send us an email atadmin at happyatworkpodcastcom.
And, lastly, follow us onLinkedIn or Twitter for even
more happiness.
See you soon.
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