A conversation for opportunity: key
questions
Where can we act?
What could we do?
Which possibilities do we build on?
Which possibilities are feasible?
What target do we set ourselves?
Where are the potential obstacles?
How will we know that we’ve succeeded?
( c) 2011 Kogan Page L imited, All Rights Reserved.
45 Seven Ways to Improve Your Conversations
Recall your original objective. Has it changed? Conversations
for opportunity can become more exciting by placing yourselves
in a future where you have achieved your objective. What does
such a future look and feel like? What is happening in this
future? How can you plan your way towards it? Most people
plan by starting from where they are and extrapolate current
actions towards a desired objective. By ‘backward planning’
from an imagined future, you can find new opportunities for
action.
A conversation for action (‘part’)
This is where you agree what to do, who will do it and when it
will happen. Translating opportunity into action needs more
than agreement; you need to generate a promise, a commitment
to act.
Managers often remark that getting action is one of the
hardest aspects of managing people. ‘Have you noticed’, one
senior director said to me recently, ‘how people seem never to do
what they’ve agreed to do?’ Following up on agreed actions can
become a major time-waster. A conversation for action is the first
step in solving this problem. It’s vital that the promise resulting
from a conversation for action is recorded.
A conversation for action: key stages
A conversation for action is a dynamic between asking and
promising. It takes a specific form:
• You ask the other person to do something by a certain
time. Make it clear that this is a request, not an order.
Orders may get immediate results, but they rarely
generate commitment.
• The other person has four possible answers to this
request:
– They can accept.
– They can decline.
( c) 2011 Kogan Page L imited, All Rights Reserved.
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