The members of the senior leadership team of a large Silicon Valley company were good people, they were just adversarial.  Facts were instantly disputed and ideas were challenged and criticized.  Their weekly meetings turned into antagonistic confrontations, they were unpleasant and rarely ended well.

The General Manager had a tendency to become overbearing and repeat himself to the point where the team tuned him out.

They were the kind of meetings that left you feeling bad for a couple of hours after they were done.

Two of the nine on the team attended a Causative Communication workshop.  Neither one of them was particularly liked or respected by the others (no one was) at the time they started the workshop.  Neither one had any authority relative to the others. What they did have going for them was an eagerness to create change.

In the next senior leadership meeting after the training, they both did something they’d never done before, that no one on the team had ever done before.

After someone finished speaking, they made a point of acknowledging them.  Whether or not they responded to what was said, whether or not they agreed or not.  They made sure that each speaker was acknowledged.

This doesn’t mean that they agreed with or validated what the person had just said.  What they did was tune in and listened well enough that they really heard what the person said, and then they let them know that they really understood what they just said and their point of view.

These weren’t statements like, “You’re right”. They were more like, “I really understand what you’re saying.”

They put a lot of sincerity and intention into the acknowledgments.  These acknowledgments were not tossed off, nor were they robotic.  They were sincere.  They were true.

The passionate General Manager received equally passionate acknowledgments.  Everyone was acknowledged after they spoke.

Two people did this in a group with seven who did not.  At least at first.  As the meeting progressed, more of them started acknowledging each other.  It happened naturally, organically.

And the tone changed.  And kept changing.

It was a two-hour meeting.  It was the first meeting in their history where there was no yelling. Where the General Manager was sweet-tempered and only said things once.  Where they all walked away feeling good. Rather a miracle.

I saw the two right after that meeting. You could have lit the city of San Francisco with the radiance of their faces. This was the first day after their training and they knew they had made history in their organization.  Even better, they knew they had the whole rest of their lives ahead of them where they could walk into any situation with confidence and transform it, where they could enter into any conflict and make it evaporate.

It’s startling to think that a very simple skill like the ability to acknowledge others really well can make such a powerful difference. That it can transform a complex adversarial situation into a sweet-tempered, friendly collaboration that makes real progress.

How long does it take to change a culture? Apparently two hours if you have the skills to do so.

You can try this yourself. Next time you’re either in the middle of, or a witness to, a conflict, give it your best acknowledgments, let the people around you know you really understand what they’re saying and see what happens.  I’d love to hear about it.

You have the power in your hands to help and transform the world around you to be more in harmony. All you need to do is learn how to use it. 

Be the cause!