Dan Erwin

Double-Checking My Conversational Skills

Last Sunday, I headed to one of my restaurant haunts for a late lunch. Although I have a number of favorite restaurants, I usually head to NoLo’s for their weekend brunch, especially for the avocado toast and salad, a favorite of mine. Although I very often go with friends to favorite restaurants, my Sunday brunch is inevitably solo. As a consequence, I always sit at the large bar and order my meal. The place, as usual, was mobbed with late 20’s and 30s, along with a few “olders.” I inevitably take my male purse, stuffed with a couple articles or a small book, just in case. I took the only chair with two young black women on my right and two young black men my left, all obviously college grads. The neighborhood is young professionals and Sunday is a packed noisy crowd. The kind of happy noise that lets me know I’m still a member of the human race, even as a member of the so-called “elderly.”

I pulled a couple study articles out, looking at them briefly, turned to my left and started talking, a conversation that lasted more than two hours—and was great fun. But what made it especially insightful, creating the rationale for this post, is the three of us had several conversations, then together analyzed the relationships.

I began by commenting that the avocado toast that the fellow to my immediate left had just been served was one of my favorites. I usually have two eggs, sunny side, but he had scrambled eggs on top, providing another opportunity for small talk. And then, we were off. We talked about favorite restaurants, where we all lived and whether we ate here regularly. I asked about their work, learning they were sales people, both college grads and obviously successful professionals. After introducing myself as “Dan,” the fellow to my left introduced himself, providing me with his name—“Isaac”—to which I responded that Isaac didn’t fit any African Americans I knew. I was correct: he was Ethiopian. I couldn’t remember who colonized Ethiopia, to which he responded “no one.” And then I remembered, “Haile Selassie and all that stuff,” I commented. Yes, but he wanted to know how I knew that and I responded with my “don’t know shrug.” Both he and his friend talked so rapidly and so humorously that with my hearing deficit, I had to ask them to repeat, explain, rephrase, etc. They were quite OK with that.

Shortly, we had a ten-minute conversation on Detroit, my home in the 1940s. Detroit is inevitably a conversation for a lot of people. .

How to Be Your Own Worst Enemy

One of the most damaging cognitive biases, especially for the successful, is the illusion of control. It’s the tendency for people to overestimate their ability to control events. It occurs when someone feels a sense of control over outcomes that they demonstrably do not influence. The illusion of control is a confusion between skill and chance situations. So, it’s seen in issues as disparate as gambling behavior and belief in the paranormal. Another place it operates—very much out of sight--is in business conversations.

In a fascinating study Boaz Keysar and Anne Henley, psychologists at the University of Chicago, studied 40 pairs of listeners and speakers.  The talkers believed that their intended meaning was understood "most of the time."  But that belief, like a lot of other so-called "soft skill" beliefs, won't stand up to the scrutiny of research.

Instead, the research showed that nearly half the time that speakers thought they were understood, they were actually wrong.  In 46% of the cases there was a breakdown--the listeners didn't get it.  What's most surprising is ...

Why You Need to Think and Talk on Two Tracks (Part Two)

In complex business conversations, metacomm can profoundly impact conversations and make them far more constructive and efficient—even timesaving. To a significant degree, metacomm functions to facilitate conversation and is highly useful for training participants in sequencing 101. In our studies and experience with metacomm, we have found a number of these forms especially useful.

Monitoring processes. Conversations that stick to your planned objectives to focus on problem solving, innovation or developing cross-disciplinary agreements, readily become mere discussions rather than action-oriented. However, the use of metacomm can serve to 

Why You Need to Think and Talk on Two Tracks (Part One)

One of the most difficult problems with collaborative conversation is staying on track. Smart people inevitably get waylaid by tangential ideas that are suggested by their meeting interactions. That’s precisely why many think that team meetings are such a waste. Yet solutions and decisions in today’s business world inevitably require conversations to gain the buy-in of diverse teams and multiple business disciplines.

One underlying limitation business groups face is that few participants have a good handle on sequencing ideas. We used to think that software coders, who constantly work with digital sequencing, should be able to manage linkages. We’ve found, however, that the majority of technical people are unable to make the transfer of digital sequencing to conversational sequencing. Those with an extensive background in the liberal arts are able to sequence conversations fairly well, but most technicians, lacking the arts background, have a great deal of difficulty sequencing conversations. Add the sequencing difficulties to the highly analytical nature of development and conversational misunderstanding becomes the status quo, costing business billions of dollars and sometimes costing jobs for the less capable. Amazon’s Jeff Bezos deals with this problem by forcing all his senior team executives to write out their proposals, using a format forcing reasoned linkages and sequencing in six pages prior to every team meeting. The first 30 minutes of each meeting is spent reading the proposals: then they’re ready to converse...

A New Approach to Human Assessment

Back in March 2014, I read a fascinating interview of Microsoft’s new CEO, Satya Nadella, by the Times writer, Adam Bryant. Nadella’s orientation was so unique and rhetorically fascinating that I decided there was enough information provided for a verbal analysis. Using psycho-rhetoric, a new tool that makes assessments possible, I posted the results on my blog. 

I drew a number of conclusions growing out of Nadella’s consistent use of the rhetorical form of point/counterpoint. The form--a verbal pattern--stresses affinity to the past, and provides an alternative reading for the future. The use of the form made it possible to reap the positive and constructive legends surrounding Gates’ tenure without rejecting Steve Ballmer’s tenure. Significantly, the strategy limits the potential for rejection and blowback that many new CEOs face.

Using point/counterpoint, Nadella positioned the individual expertise as the real power of Microsoft’s teamwork. He also moved to confirm the present leadership team, strongly emphasizing their abilities, and securing the value of continuity. Finally, he used the Microsoft rhetoric of “formula,” but tweaked so that he can insert his own strategy. In effect, Nadella affirms the traditions of the past while adapting them to the new leadership and the present. Implicitly, my post suggested that Nadella was a superb CEO choice, a conversationalist and leader par excellence.

Well, was the analysis correct? Just three years later, a March issue of The Economist had a two page article on Nadella and...

Converse Like a Professional, But. . . .

. . . expect to revisit, restructure and revalue the conversation.

FYI: This is a response to a great number of interactions over more than thirty years of consulting. It grows out of two recurring questions: "How do I say that?" and"Can I say that?" They've been asked by entry-level employees and managers as well as senior executives. So here goes.

Conversely, don't merely talk. Conversation is about interaction and even dialog. It emphasizes shared, growing ideas. Talk tends to quickly become monologue or a presentation--as in, "my talk was about. . . " Talk is also very encompassing, whereas conversation refers to a specific kind of talk with definite parameters.

The term "professional" emphasizes a person who engages in a practice and has certain and unique kinds of competencies and skills. It can be used popularly to refer to any businessperson at any level: entry-level to executive. Although some academics don't think of business as a profession and some business people don't think of themselves as professional, clearly the term has cachet. The term is used both negatively and positively, as in "that's not very professional," and "you can count on her being very professional in her dealings." It's important to think about yourself in this manner. It implies a more careful consideration of your behaviors.

Ummm, yeah. Vocabulary is always important. The shift of a single word can automatically change one's perspective...

WTF Is Conversation? (Part II)

We all talk: sometimes to particular persons; sometimes to anyone who will listen; and sometimes to ourselves when we can’t find anyone to listen. In this blog, however, we’re only interested in a certain kind of talk: conversation--and just conversation within the business context. Indeed, we believe business conversation, whether face-to-face, or in texts and emails, is a unique technology made necessary by the knowledge economy. So the old saw, “stop talking and go to work,” is now outdated and obsolete.

WTF Is Conversation?

Two young salmon are swimming upstream. From a distance they see an older salmon swimming towards them, downstream. As the young salmon cross paths with the older salmon, the elder says “The water’s nice today, huh boys?” The young salmon say nothing. Then one of the younger salmon looks to the other and says, “What the fuck is water?”

Based on more than 40 years of experience and a great deal of communication and behavioral research, we’ve concluded that in the knowledge economy, conversation is the real business of business. This is a reflection of how the skills of the economy have changed in historic ways. And it’s also a fact hidden in plain sight. Years ago, the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein, obsessed with the difficulties of language, pointed out that because of their simplicity and familiarity, the things that are most important for us are hidden. In other words, you don’t see something if it’s always in front of your nose. That’s why we don’t easily recognize what’s most striking and most powerful—that business first and foremost is about conversations.

Conversation is the foundation of all other abilities that increasingly make people valuable as technology advances. This conclusion leaves a lot of people out. Some of them went into their jobs hoping they wouldn’t have to talk much. Most have no humanities courses to support conversational skills. If, like many, they’ve had a communication course or two, conversation won’t have been in the mix. Furthermore, most grew up in families that were conversationally challenged. The consequence is

How to Sabotage Your Own Conversation

    Now, mostly dead is slightly alive.
    In “The Princess Bride” by William Goldman.

Sometimes it’s just a verbal tic. But a significant group of generally smart professionals periodically shoot themselves in the foot with its use. They can resolve a problem, break it down into bits and pieces for a solid resolution--and even explain their rationale. But along the way their input loses its credibility for a simple reason: they don’t understand that hedges limit their credibility.

It’s not just the Upper Midwesterners who hedge, but New Yorkers, Virginians and even Californians. Furthermore, it’s not just women who do it: a surprising share of men do the same thing. This small behavior happens too frequently—and inevitably means...

No Yoda, But a Collage of Mentors (Part I: Leadership Success)

Question any leader or executive about their success and eventually they’ll tell you that their mentor played a big role. Today, however, there is no Jedi-Master Yoda, wise and powerful, taking on people and unlocking the paths to business immortality. The onus is now yours to find numerous mentors, build the relationships, learn from them, weave the skills together and create your successful identity. No single master, but a collage of mentors.

The need for mentorship is more profound than ever: success without mentors is nearly impossible. Compounding the issue is that choice assignments in this hypercompetitive world are in short supply. So it’s the mentored employee who will be presented with better opportunities, faster promotions and top salaries.

Even worse, research reveals job performance does not impact what happens to most people in most organizations...

A Stupidity-Based Theory of Management

I kid you not. That’s the actual title of research reported in the Journal of Management Studies. One of the authors, Mats Alvesson, has a long history of ground-breaking research. And this is another feather in his cap. Not quirky, it’s really, really smart and very useful research.

This is one of those studies which tell you more than you want to know about how organizations actually work. The researchers don’t screw around. They nail organizational BS to the wall. What’s unique about the research are...