Photo by torbakhopper

Our fast-paced modern lives dictate shorter conversations. In the age of 140-characters long messages and 60-second sound bites, our interactions are truncated to the bare essentials. With lack of time, our conversations have become transactional.

Our interactions at work revolve around discussing tasks for meeting deadlines for our daily and weekly goals. We spend much of our limited time with our children chasing them for routine matters like, eating their meals, finishing their homework, and sleeping in time. Our conversations with our life partner quickly deteriorate into merely managing our busy lives.

Limitations to the way we interact

This approach has serious implications for all our relationships, particularly as leaders and parents. Task-oriented conversations with our team-members don’t inspire them and instead, drain their energy. Such conversations fail to tap in to their deeper interest, aspirations, and sources of intrinsic motivation, resulting in lower levels of employee engagement.

Likewise, with children, supporting them merely in their daily pursuits diminishes the role we can play, as parents, to help them discover their potential, deepen their self-awareness or strengthen their value system. Between life partners, the transactional conversations dull the ability to deeply connect with each other and grow the shared love.

Transformational conversations

While we do need some of the transactional conversations to get by in our daily lives, there’s an opportunity for us to move many of our conversations to being transformational. Fewer transformational conversations maybe more powerful and effective than numerous transactional ones. Transformational conversations tend to be deeper, reflective, supportive, and insightful.

They invariably lead to newer insights, higher self-awareness, and move us forward in a meaningful way – we are usually no longer the same person we were before the conversation. Such conversations allow us to create inspired teams, thoughtful children, and reform our closest relationships.

Besides, transformational conversations are emotionally healing too – they result in a direct experience of compassion within us that in turn has psycho-physiological effects that restore the body’s natural healing and growth processes.

5 keys to transformational conversations

1.   Not seeking predetermined outcomes

For transformational conversations, it is crucial to not have a predetermined outcome for the conversation in mind. In majority of our conversations, we have an agenda – whether with our colleagues or our children, we want something done (ideally in our way). A transformational conversation requires us to be open to wholly engaging with another person without knowing where the conversation would lead us.

Leaving our agenda behind allows us to be totally present in the conversation. Whether it’s someone in our team or one of our children, choosing to engage with them, without the keenness to move them towards our viewpoint, but simply to better understand them and what drives them, paves the way for a meaningful conversation.

2.   Believing in the other’s potential

“There is nothing in a caterpillar that tells you it’s going to be a butterfly.”  Buckminster Fuller

The other key aspect of transformational conversations is a strong belief in the human potential – specifically, the potential of the other person in resolving their challenges or thinking through new ways of being. Many a time, we judge others and view their traits to be permanent – a colleague who doesn’t seem driven enough, a child who’s not emotionally resilient, or a partner who doesn’t express their love. Our shallow conversations reflect that.

Instead we give chance to a real transformation, when we believe in the other person’s intrinsic motivation to be better. Our conversation then focuses on what within them do they need to connect with to make the positive changes. Is that colleague not driven enough or hasn’t found something inspiring enough, is the child not resilient or we have been too protective, does the spouse not care or there’s something in the relationship that’s holding them back.

3.   Asking powerful questions

“You cannot teach a man anything; you can only help him find it within himself.” – Galileo Galilee

For conversations to be transformational, they have to emanate from a genuine curiosity about the other – a keen desire to understand their humanness, their hopes and frustrations, and the range of their thoughts and emotions. This requires a willingness to ask direct, open-ended and learning questions that not only lead to rich answers, but also benefit the other person in growing their self-awareness.

Asking a team member about how they feel about their performance, what could help them do their job better, what would they do if they were the CEO, what’s the deeper purpose of their professional pursuits; asking children to describe the values they believe to be the most important, what was most enjoyable part of their day, what was the most difficult emotion they experienced lately. These facilitate greater reflection, a sharper connection with their inner self, and a more open and engaging relationship with the leader or the parent.

4.   Listening deeply

Holding meaningful and engaging conversations requires an ability and willingness to listen deeply. This is vital to building trust and for the other person to feel safe towards candid sharing. Besides, only by listening intently can we connect with both, what is being said in the conversation and what is not. Listening deeply requires being fully present for the other and necessitates listening without personal agenda and being non-judgmental.

5.   Acknowledging and being supportive

“Nobody cares how much you know, till they know how much you care.”

Acknowledging others for what they are sharing, and their thoughts and feelings, helps the other person to feel heard and supported in the conversation. This helps their building courage to move forward towards their goals – be it a small business problem or a life changing goal.

For example, in an argument, instead of merely stating your point of view, what’s greatly helpful to move the discussion forward is to acknowledge what you heard the other person say, empathizing with what they might be feeling and why, and then stating your point. Rather than merely sharing your advice, asking a team-member about the ways they would like you to support them in their goals not only helps you clarify their bottlenecks, but also makes the team-member appreciate your concern for their progress.

Would love to hear your personal experiences in having a transformational conversation – particularly, what skills did you need and what helped you to hold such a conversation.