My partner in crime used to have the kind of job where the whole office would receive and read those business self-help books. Since I don't have one of those jobs, I was curious and borrowed one from her shelf. I was hoping it would help me talk to men, but I'm not sure I'm the target audience for this type of book.
I chose "Fierce Conversations" by Susan Scott. I figure anything fierce can be of use to me. Part of the book is a section called "mineral rights"--a series of questions meant to get to the bottom of an issue. I posed the first question to my partner in crime and we went from there. Was it helpful? You be the judge.**
1. What is the most important thing you and I should be talking about? Coffee.
2. Describe the issue. We don't have any coffee. And we should have coffee.
3. How is this currently impacting you? Who or what else is being impacted? This is impacting us because we love coffee and have none. Coffee levels are depleting rapidly. We are both being impacted. So is the general mood around here.
4. If nothing changes, what are the implications? When you consider those possible outcomes, what do you feel? If we don't get coffee, we will still have no coffee and be totally grumpy. That makes us feel sad. And a little angry.
5. How have you helped create this issue or situation? We drank all the coffee already.
6. What is the ideal outcome? When you contemplate these possibilities, what do you feel? Ideally we would have coffee. And that would make us feel happy.
7. What's the most potent step you can take to begin to resolve this issue? What exactly are you committed to do and when? When should I follow up with you? The most potent thing would be to make coffee. We are committing to making coffee and drinking it immediately. We can follow up in 5 minutes when we have the coffee.
I mean, ultimately there was a positive outcome. I'm not sure I'm meant to be part of the business world, though.
**All questions are quotes from "Fierce Conversations" by Susan Scott.
