How to Thrive in Crucial Conversations

In this episode of the Change Agent Leadership Podcast, we dive into one of the most critical skills for any leader: navigating crucial conversations with confidence and clarity.

Drawing from the best-selling book Crucial Conversations by Patterson, Grenny, McMillan, and Switzler, I explore what makes a conversation “crucial”—opposing opinions, strong emotions, and high stakes—and why most people either avoid these moments or mishandle them.

You’ll learn how to recognize when a conversation turns crucial, how to prepare with the right mindset, how to lead with emotional intelligence during the conversation, and how to ensure real follow-through after it’s over.

In this episode, you’ll learn:
 • What defines a crucial conversation (and how to spot one)
 • Why mindset and self-awareness are the foundation for success
 • How to create psychological safety and shared meaning
 • The power of follow-through: Who will do what, by when?
 • Key leadership strategies to build trust, reduce conflict, and lead change

Whether you’re dealing with a tough team dynamic, giving feedback, or addressing high-stakes performance issues, these tools will help you lead with clarity and confidence.

00:00 Introduction to Crucial Conversations
00:34 Defining Crucial Conversations
02:06 Preparing for a Crucial Conversation
06:40 During the Crucial Conversation
11:06 After the Crucial Conversation
12:52 Final Thoughts and Key Takeaways
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Transcript

 Welcome back to another episode of Change Agent Leadership. Today we're talking about something that I think we all face, which is crucial conversations, and more importantly, how to thrive in them is the topic for today.  So what makes a conversation crucial? , we all talk all day different ways and text messages, emails, chats in many different forms, but sometimes a conversation, you know, it just feels different.

Like emotions are higher.  The stakes just seem like are real. There's something, it just tangible, but we just can't put our finger on it. Like, what exactly is, why is this conversation different? And so today we're gonna talk about crucial conversations, and in the book actually crucial conversations. A lot of the information I have today is based on that.  

They define crucial conversations as having three main points, opposing views, strong emotions, and high stakes. So think back to a conversation that maybe didn't go so well. Chances are those three items were at play.  

So for example, you want a promotion and you talk to your boss, but your boss says, you know, you're not just quite ready for that, but there's another factor. Your raise is actually tied to a strategy you want to implement, but your team members aren't on board. So what happens? Stakes are high, there's opposing views and there's strong emotions. Thus, a crucial conversation is, is about to take place if it already isn't taking place. 

I do like to quote by, George Bernard Shaw. He says, the single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place, and that's true many times, right? We think a conversation has actually happened. Which is when two people are talking and there's a agreed shared pool of information, and sometimes that just doesn't happen. And many times we avoid conversations because we're afraid of what could happen.

Or even worse, we just let them fester and we may say things, jab at each other and it just gets worse. But the book reminds us, we either talk it out or we're going to act it out. So we've all seen that in different parts of our lives where people stop talking and then passive aggressiveness starts showing up, and we don't want that to happen.  

So today we're gonna talk about three phases. Of a crucial conversation. And the first one is before the conversation actually happens. And this is where we work on ourselves.  So crucial conversations start before you or I ever open our mouths. There's two foundational things to consider. What is my role in this conversation?

And two, what do I really want? What I want for myself, for others, for the relationship? You know, what is my desired outcome?   So there's two steps to take place before the conversation. One is to get unstuck. We want to get ourselves unstuck, and we do this by recognizing that we have a part to play and we wanna be curious about our story and our mindset.

So what is the mindset that we're bringing into this? Are we bringing in. Um, past feelings about the person or we're in a bad mood from something else, that's not the time to have a crucial conversation. And then the second part is to start with the heart. So. You're the only person that you can control.

I'm the only person I can control in the situation. So, but we wanna be clear on our motives and what stories we're telling ourselves from past conversation or situations we had with that person.  So in other words, did a previous conversation not go well? Are we telling ourself, well that conversation didn't go well, so of course this one's not gonna go well.

Or do we go into it thinking, well, they're gonna bring up that conversation. And the truth is that usually doesn't apply. So we get to get our head straight and start with our heart and make sure that that is taking place. And we do that by taking control of our assumptions. I did a video episode on, um, the Assumption Ladder, and I recommend you watch that.

There's information in the show notes, it's a good episode on. How assumptions are formed and why. If we don't have a good pool of information, we can many times jump to conclusions. And then those conclusions, those assumptions then form facts that are false. And so we don't wanna do that in the same way with crucial conversations.

We want to be able to reflect on past situations. And we want to understand what's going to affect us going forward. Think of this in terms of a path to action. So just like the assumption ladder, there's a path to action. We have facts, and then we make assumptions, and then we make,  observations and then we take action based on those observations. The same thing is during a crucial conversation, or even before in this case, we would sometimes reflect, and what we normally do is we think about a conversation that's happened and we, we see and hear, like we met with our boss and we think back, well, I met with this person before.

It didn't go well. I made my points clear, but then we tell ourself a story. Which is, well, their response wasn't what I wanted, so they must be upset. They don't trust me. They think I'm not valuable. And if we believe that, then we start to feel hurt, angry, worried about the conversation, or worried about our job, which, what does that do?

That causes us to act. We then start to shut down. We withdraw or we lash out, which is not what we want. So instead we want to reverse just like the assumption ladder. We want to reverse our thinking.   We wanna start on the other side, which is to act. And notice our behavior. So we want to act by noticing our behavior and actions and ask the question, am I in some form of silence or aggressive mode?

Like what? What is causing me to think this way? And then we look at our feelings by naming our emotions. What am I really feeling? What emotions are encouraging me to act this way? Then question the story. Well, what assumptions am I making? What story is creating these emotions? And then here, and tell the story by checking the facts. 

So instead of off of our assumptions, like what really happened? What was the actual conversation? What evidence do I have to support that story? And what that does, it just gives us clarity going forward. We're not jumping to assumptions in our mind.    And so three key action steps before the conversation so we have the right path to action.

One, ask, what story am I telling myself? Two, reflect on am I trying to be right or am I trying to get it right? Right? We want to get it right. It's not about being right. And then three, we want to reflect and reset. What is my goal here? What's my desired outcome for me? For us, for the organization  if necessary.

So those are the three action steps before.   So the next step obviously is the conversation's going to happen. So during the conversation, we want to create safety and clarity.  Crucial conversations, many times catch us off guard. We can't plan for every conversation that's going to happen or when it's going to happen, but we can pause and ask the questions, which I mentioned earlier.

Are emotions running high? Do we have opposing views? Are there high stakes? If so. This may not be the time for a crucial conversation. It's okay as a leader or just as an individual, if you're not in a leadership position to recognize if those three things are present and you're not in the right state of mind, this is not the time to have a crucial conversation.

Again, the goal here is to create psychological safety and find a shared pool of meaning for everybody. We want everybody to have that. So the key here is not to make declaration statements, but instead to form a dialogue. We don't want to declare going into a situation you're out to get me. That seems unfair.

I mean, we may not be that blunt, but we're saying things like maybe you are that blunt. Um, but we're saying things that are declaration that's actually attacking the person. And we all know if we do that, it's probably going to escalate and not in a good way. Right? Whenever you or I feel attacked, we generally escalate.

We don't want that instead. We want to revisit the information and tell the story based on the assumption ladder that I mentioned earlier. So we wanna say things like, Hey, Bob or Susie. So I was surprised by the review one State Facts. I actually expected a raise because I've put in a lot of hard work recently or whatever the facts are, and then we turned to our feelings a little bit.

I actually feel hurt. I'm, and I'm concerned about my future here because it didn't turn out the way I wanted. I'm actually went the exact opposite of what I thought. And then here's the key point. Ask the question, can we talk about this more because I like to hear your perspective and what do I need to do to move forward?

That answers the questions that are not being answered for you right now. It's called stating your Path and it's sharing your truth while inviting others into the conversation. So it's not just a one-sided conversation, it's actually both sides.   And so some action steps during the conversation. There's really four of 'em.

One, state your path clearly and respectfully as to what you're looking for. Two, ask for their perspective. Create a poll chair of meaning and look for common ground. Three, clarify intent. Again, it's not statements like attacking them and it may be stating that at times you may actually have to stay if the per state, if the person's getting upset, state, I'm not attacking you.

I'm actually trying to understand. Or if the person does seem upset, you may want to call that out in a nice way. Say, you seem upset. Are you okay? What's going on here? Again, sometimes it leads to step four, which is a pause. Sometimes you need to pause if needed. I. Because there's another statement if the person answers, yeah, I am upset.

Well. Do we need to take a break? Do we need to circle back? Or maybe you or I need to make the statement. I'm feeling upset right now actually. I, I'm actually feeling attacked. Uh, I'm not sure why. Could we take a time out and regroup in 10 minutes or later on and then set that time? Key things here. You want to listen more than you speak. 

That is always helpful. And then also keep in mind, you don't have to have all the answers. So when people are challenging you during these, remember it's high stakes, there's high emotions. You don't have to have all the answers. The book is called Crucial Conversations. It's plural. It's not just one crucial, a crucial conversation.

We've all had those. It's about conversation. So this is about plural. Think through your last conversation. Here's some key things to think about. Did you create common ground? Something to consider. Did you listen more than you talked? And if you could have  had the conversation again, if you could have it again, what would you change?

What would make it better? Just think through those and then thinking through those things helps us be prepared for those next conversation. If we just move from one conversation to the other and we don't reflect, we really should not expect much to change. We want to remember to talk it out so we don't act it out.

And part of that is just talking to ourself. Thinking through what went well, what would I change and what would make it better?   

Then the third part of a crucial conversation is after, which is a really a move to action. So I really think this is a big gap in crucial conversation, which is follow through. 

Skipping this step can really hurt relationships and break trust. I mean, how many times have you left a left a conversation? I know I have. Maybe it's crucial, maybe it's not, but especially a crucial conversation where I'm thinking, okay, I think we had a breakthrough here. Like that was good. We actually had a good dialogue.

Only realized nothing actually changed. Why? Because we made assumptions. We weren't clear.  

And so some key anchors. At the end of every crucial conversation, there's three and they're really simple. One who will do what? Number two by when and three, when will we follow up? If those three anchors are in place, people,  both people, you and I, people in the conversation will feel respected and will feel that there's, oh, there is.

There's the next step here. This is not just a normal conversation. This is a crucial conversation. Follow up does show that you care that you're invested and that the conversation matters. It wasn't just a normal conversation. Even a 10 minute check-in can make a huge difference. Remember. Many people feel they have to choose between telling the truth and keeping a friend.

That's a lie. You can be honest and kind at the same time.   So remember, action steps after the conversation. Summarize your agreements,  so I'll do this by Friday, or let's agree to review next week. Schedule it, put it on the calendar. Don't leave it vague. And then three reflect what went well, what would I do differently next time?

What could I change?  Make a list of questions for yourself that'll help some final thoughts. Crucial conversations take effort. They take time and energy. They're emotionally charged, often uncomfortable. But as leaders, this is what we push into. Why? 'cause this is really where trust is built. And change can truly happen.

As change agent leaders, we want to move change in a positive direction by building trust and a positive culture. So remember the three key phases of crucial conversations before get clear in your mind. What your desired outcome is. Challenge your stories that you're bringing into it. During the conversation, create safety as much as you are responsible for.

Share your heart and invite others to share theirs. And then after the conversation, clarify expectations. Ensure there's follow through and respect each other. And reflect and learn. Remember, talk it out. You don't want to act it out. It's a conversation. That will take place over time, thus crucial conversations.

And last, take the high road even if the other person doesn't. If you found this helpful, please like and subscribe and share it with someone who could benefit from learning how to thrive in crucial conversations. I'm Jonathan Hankin, your change agent, coach. Keep questioning, keep growing and keep leading change.

I'll see you next time.