*Note: Jenna Ryan on The Self Love U Blog has more amazing Crucial Conversations sketchnotes on her blog. Click on the link for her site or the image above to see more of her work.

Embrace “And” > “Or” When Making Decisions

• We often fall into the pitfall of making a “sucker’s choice” between two ugly options. Example: We think we need to choose between bringing up something important or being kind. We can have both.
• “What makes these sucker’s choices is that they’re always set up as the only two options available. It’s the worst kind of either/or thinking. The person making the choice never suggests there’s a third option that doesn’t call for unhealthy behavior. For example, maybe there’s a way to be honest and respectful. Perhaps we can express our candid opinion to our boss and be safe.”

Create a Safe Environment for Voicing Productive Conflict

• When put into challenging situations, people often resort to silence or violence. To counter this unproductive tendency, establish mutual purpose in conversations with others.
• “Mutual purpose means that others perceive that we are working toward a common outcome in the conversation, that we care about their goals, interests, and values.“
• Example: “Pro-life” advocates were asked to partner with “pro-choice” advocates to establish a mutual purpose between their two groups. Despite the fact that both sides had passionate opinions about abortion, they were collectively able to establish a mutual purpose of reducing teen pregnancies. This shared purpose aligned both sides behind a common goal—despite the fact that they vehemently disagreed with each other on many other issues.
• Use contrasting to rebuild safety when others misinterpret your intent in the discussion. Contrasting sets the boundaries of your message by expressing what you DO mean and what you DON’T mean.
• For instance, if one of your personable team members needed to work on their technical skills, contrasting could sound like this: Let me put this in perspective. I don't want you to think that you're not doing a good job as an Account Manager. You have incredible interpersonal skills and clients love working with you. I just think you could be even better if you worked on your technical proficiency. Strive to learn the details of our technical processes and you would be unstoppable.

Don’t Confuse Stories with Facts

• “Just after we observe what others do and just before we feel some emotion about it, we tell ourselves a story. That is, we add meaning to the action we observed."
• The Path to Action: See/Hear —> Tell a Story —> Feel —> Act
• We cannot help the fact that our brain instantly constructs a story based upon a set of observations. However, we can work to always put facts before interpretations (stories) and open our minds to other stories that fit the facts we’ve observed.
• Three story archetypes show up frequently in the mental stories we tell ourselves:
  • Villain - Someone else is the "bad guy."
  • Victim - We have been wronged.
  • Helpless - We cannot do anything about it.
• We often turn others into villains by telling a bad story for them based on what we’ve observed. “When you find yourself labeling or otherwise vilifying others, stop and ask: 'Why would a reasonable, rational, and decent person do what this person is doing?'”

State the Path that Led to Your Story

• Example: "The cheating husband"
  • The Facts: Carole reviews her and her husband Bob’s monthly credit card statement, only to find that there’s a charge from the "Good Night Motel"—a cheap place located not more than a mile from their home.
  • Carol's Mental "Story": “‘Why would he stay in a motel so close to home?’ she wonders. ‘And why didn’t I know about it?’ Then it hits her—‘That unfaithful jerk!’”
  • Other "Stories": What story did Carole tell herself? What other stories could be told from these facts?
  • The Truth: “The couple had gone out to a Chinese restaurant earlier that month. The owner of the restaurant also owned the motel and used the same credit card imprinting machine at both establishments. Oops.”
• Sometimes it's important to share your story with someone during a disagreement. In those instances, it’s vitally important to first lay out the facts that led you to craft that story. Here’s why:
  • Facts are the least controversial.
  • Facts are the most persuasive.
  • Facts are the least insulting.
  • Facts contribute to the shared pool of meaning.
• Just like Carole, we jump to conclusions frequently. These conclusions are often fraught with unfair assumptions and inadequate facts. Be careful what story you tell. Take a second to ask clarifying questions and assume positive intent. You often don't have all the facts.