Better Conversations Every Day®: 4 Core Skills That Will Change the Way You Lead and Live Your Life

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The Challenge with Conversations

Think back to the conversations you’ve had over the last three months: Was there ever a time where you wished for a do-over? Or perhaps you’ve been avoiding a conversation with someone because every time you talk to them it leaves you feeling angry, confused, or misunderstood. Or maybe you’ve spent countless hours thinking and talking with everyone about a conversation you need to have, except for the actual person that you need to speak with. Many of our conversations don’t always go the way we intend, which can lead to misunderstanding and confusion at best, and at worst can break down critical relationships. But done the right way, a great conversation, or just a better conversation, can connect you to people in productive ways, enable you to share your ideas more effectively, improve collaboration, influence decisions, and get work done with clarity and ease. And beyond the workplace, a better conversation can help you build deeper connections, trust, and relationships with your friends and family.

The Center for Creative Leadership’s (CCL) research of C-suite executives has shown that communication is perceived as one of three critical competencies for effective change management, along with collaboration and commitment (Dellaert & Kernick, 2019). Much of that communication comes through conversations. These are moments of truth where you have an opportunity to make more meaningful connections with your colleagues beyond providing direction, problem-solving, or offering advice. Rich conversations can spark more creativity and innovation in your teams and inspire a deeper level of motivation and understanding.

Unfortunately, there’s no simple trick for getting better at having the kinds of deeper conversations that build connection and trust; it takes time, energy, intentionality, consistency, and practice. But there are techniques, many of which come from coaching, that you can use to improve the quality of your conversations to make them more meaningful and enjoyable.

THE ROLE OF COACHING IN ORGANIZATIONS

In over 50 years, CCL’s executive coaches have coached tens of thousands of leaders. In that time, we have studied the art and practice of coaching through the onboarding and evaluation of hundreds of coaches, which helped us learn what it takes to be an exceptional coach. In turn, we have taken that knowledge to facilitate coach training skills programs for thousands of HR professionals, managers, and leaders. Our experiences have exposed us to countless life-changing, transformational conversations. As a result, we have a strong belief that better conversations will always be rooted coaching.

Coaching is a nebulous term, so it is perhaps useful to understand CCL’s definition as a starting point: A relationship between an experienced helping professional (the coach) and a leader, where the coach supports the growth and development of the leader through a series of thought-provoking and action-oriented 1-1 conversations. As part of the coaching process, the coach works with the leader to assess and understand their development needs, challenge current constraints while exploring new possibilities, and ensure accountability and support for reaching goals (Frankovelgia & Riddle, 2010).

Formal coaching in organizations (commonly known as executive coaching) is an incredibly useful tool for both individuals and organizations, and it can help leaders have confidential conversations to make important changes in behavior and mindset, achieve higher performance, and have greater satisfaction at work (Steinberg, 2020). More than 70 percent of leadership development programs include coaching because it increases leaders’ self-awareness, accelerates learning, facilitates the development of critical thinking skills, improves team leadership performance, and can lead to sustainable organizational change (Stawiski, Sass, & Belzer,