Chasing Stray Cats and Other Ways to Talk Like a Leader
An email I just received has a fascinating line in it. “Let me know what questions you might ask of someone in my situation….” He made me realize that I don’t plan my questions.
3 principles for powerful conversations:
#1. Chase stray cats:
Staying on-topic blocks insight and ends creativity.
Chase a stray cat for awhile. When someone seems to go off topic, let them go. If it seems to stray too far, say, “I”m curious as to why you brought this topic up. Could you help me understand how it connects to the reason we’re here?
Powerful insights emerge when you ask about stray cats.
#2. Care about people, even as you focus on projects.
People get projects done. Care about them.
- Elevate their interests over yours. Worry more about their needs and less about yours. What’s useful for them?
- Forget about yourself. Self-consciousness blocks connection.
- Accept, don’t judge.
- Listen, don’t fix. The best way to let people know you care is to listen.
- Sit back and relax.
- Attend to answers.
- Give feedback.
- Ask second questions.
#3. Trust forward-facing curiosity.
The biggest challenge to forward movement is circling the past.
- Run toward the future, not the past. The past is a point of reference, not a black hole to circle.
- Listen to understand, not solve. Easy solutions don’t answer big challenges. If there was an easy answer, they wouldn’t be talking with you.
- Pay attention to confusion. Never pretend something’s clear when you’re confused.
- Clarify ambiguity. It’s practically useless when someone says, “Things are going well.”
- Explore your assumptions. You’ll be surprised at what you don’t know, when you explore what you think you know.
Which of these ideas do you find most useful?
What principles for powerful conversations might you add?
Bonus: Here are the questions I sent:
- If things were going perfectly, what would it look like?
- What have you tried?
- How has it worked?
- What have you learned?
- Who are your influential allies?
- How might they help?
- What do you need to stop doing because it isn’t working?
- What new behavior would you like to try? (You can’t expect old behaviors to produce new results.)
Dan, Thanks for reminding us to pay attention to confusion! Simple to say, difficult to execute on 🙂
If things are going perfectly, I can see the next few feet of the path that moves us forward 🙂
“Help me connect the dots.. I don’t see what you see..” is a favorite of mine.
Thanks for a thoughtful post.
Most helpful?
“#2. Care about people, even as you focus on projects.”
I tend to focus on the task rather than the relationship. This is a helpful reminder.
Thanks.
There is noise all the time — you need to actively listen for the actual signals in the sound. The approach you offer here, Dan, creates a good system to do just that. Well done
Dan
you ask those bonus questions and the answers I am finding are very different each day. Sometimes because of the stray cats we chase. finding insight from listening to others and trying to understand the perspective they have is also important. we used to call it walking in someones shoes. Ken Mason’s comment about “help me connect the dots…” is a winner. I can hear myself saying that in such a calm tone in a tense situation that the subjects head would explode like those commercials on tv for the shopping web site. Except the smoke might be green or yellow maybe even rainbow. Thanks my friend, I have to go now. A few more cats to chase right after i get done pushing this rope.
Thanks Rob!
Be mindful of the malicious stray cat who throws up roadblocks to slow progress. They come in all sizes and at all levels of the organization.
Darrin