Leadership today requires collaboration, teamwork, great interpersonal communications and relationship building skills, among other things. What it boils down to is that today, as never before, we need leaders with the courage to have wholehearted conversations.
I have been reading Brené Brown's wonderful book, “The Gifts of Imperfection” (affiliate link) and can’t recommend it highly enough. My kindle copy is full of highlights and notes. A passage about courage particularly resonates with me. The root of “courage” is cor, Latin for “heart.” And in one of its earliest forms the word “courage” meant something very different than it does today. Courage meant “To speak one’s mind by telling one’s whole heart.” That’s what this post is about. How to have wholehearted conversations.
What is a wholehearted conversation
A wholehearted conversation is a dialogue, a way to rediscover and nurture connections with others. It is a form of communication that differs from normal conversation, debate, or discussion. It is the interchange of ideas in an open and honest manner with the goal of achieving mutual understanding.
A wholehearted conversation is a cycle of conversation that permits change. A discovery process that allows for new ways of understanding and making sense. It's a dialogue. When you engage in Dialogue you engage your whole being in an active living relationship with others that is full of possibilities for newness, meaning-making, and understanding. You let meaning rise from the group. You can learn to reflect and talk together, even in the heat of challenging moments. You look for and bring to light the hidden meanings, assumptions, values, traps, voices, and forces of the interactions.
What facilitates a wholehearted conversation
Dialogue requires a commitment to speak and listen more deliberately. This allows for deeper understanding to emerge and encourages a sense of shared meaning. How can this happen?
1. Create a safe space, with kindness and respect
We can’t change human behavior by command, resolve, or even good intentions. But we can create a safe, holding environment for a group of people. When feeling safe, people are more aware of their thinking, their conversations, their interrelationships, and their potential for better action.
Therefore, for wholehearted conversations to happen you have to foster a safe environment within which people can listen to each other, inquire, and openly share their thoughts and feelings without fear of ridicule or shame.
2. Listen with attention, to understand, connect and appreciate
The Chinese character for listen contains the sub characters one heart, eye and ear- all of which we must use to truly listen. Listening is the first step for making dialogue effective. You need to listen for common ideas and for the voices that question those ideas. Let meaning unfold in the conversation as a whole. Try to hear the shared meaning that can evolve only if many individual meanings are heard, appreciated, and understood.
3. Speak with clear intention, sharing thoughts, feelings, and dreams
Sharing your voice, being vulnerable enough to say what you really mean, want, and need, is also important. Honesty and authenticity should be present in dialogue. In the interplay of listening and speaking to search for understanding is how mutuality is established. Each regards the other as a partner in a shared inquiry, someone whose point of view is valued, someone with whom to explore the familiar and develop the new.
4. Bring an open mind. Stay curious, in learning mode, asking questions
If you are flexible and humble you will keep an open mind, remembering that you are not ALWAYS right! When you are unclear about what someone means, ask a question. Questions should never belittle or criticize. Questions allow you to dig deeply into ideas and perspectives that may be novel to you. Questions can give room for reflection and develop the understanding of the entire group.
5. Suspend assumptions and biases. Check them out
Assumptions play a large part in how we view the world and how we behave towards others. By identifying assumptions we learn to build common ground and consensus. We learn to respect others and their contributions, regardless of the fact that these contributions may contradict things we have long held to be true.
6. Make meaning together
By being open to the possibility that the meanings of one person may cause those of others to be revised and/or changed, you start making meaning together. The conversation develops together, even though everyone is responsible individually for whatever they feel is needed and relevant.
7. Embrace joy and growth
Humor and laughter, when not used against others, helps collaboration and learning. When people can enjoy their interaction, they will be more willing to be open and to give others the benefit of the doubt.
Remember. . .
You can create and experience the magic of wholehearted conversations when a group wanders into territory that can only be discovered by the entire group. This is meaning that no individual formed alone - rather it flows from the group as a whole. For the group, this can be a powerful experience because it is the creation of shared meaning. Creating shared meaning is a step toward creating community, working collaboratively, and sparking innovation.
Photo by: wtl photography