Victoria leads a high-level Engineering team. It’s vital to her team that Sales doesn’t promise the customer anything Engineering can’t deliver.
It wasn’t going well. Engineering was no longer being invited to meetings involving Sales. That’s putting it mildly. Engineering was told to “stay out.” The relationship with Sales had gotten extremely contentious, to the point where the door was completely shut.
Victoria showed up for the Causative Communication workshop wanting to know how to communicate effectively with these people. How do you talk to someone who doesn’t even want to talk to you?
Her big focus was on finding out, “What do I say?”
She honestly believed she understood the Sales position and needed to get them to listen to her. She also knew they weren’t open to hearing anything.
What she didn’t know was that when that happens, you need to listen.
We spent three hours on what real listening is and how to do it. Victoria went back to work a different person.
She asked Frank, the head of Sales, to meet one-on-one. He agreed, with great reluctance.
Victoria said, “I really just want to understand what you’re trying to tell us. I just want to understand. Please tell me.”
Frank talked and talked and talked and Victoria listened. Really listened.
When he finished, she asked him, “What else should I know?”
And Frank said, “Well…“ And talked and talked and talked and talked and talked.
When he finished, Victoria said, “I can really understand that. I see exactly what you’re saying. What else should I know?”
Frank said, “Well …” And talked and talked and talked and talked and talked.
She asked, “What else?” five or six times more times, and each time there was a lot.
But Frank’s tone and face took on a different look as he told her everything, from being openly hostile to a mildly friendly look in his eyes.
When Victoria asked, “Is there anything else?” for the final time, Frank thought for a moment and then said, “Gosh, I don’t think so, I think that’s really it.”
He looked somewhat relieved.
Victoria said, “Thank you very much, Frank. I really appreciate your telling me and I really understand what you’ve been saying.”
That had taken their entire 45-minute meeting time. Frank was really surprised Victoria didn’t jump in and argue or tell him he was wrong. Victoria just said, “Thank you, Frank. I really appreciate you telling me and I really understand.” Frank could see it was true.
Victoria came out of that meeting. She said, “I felt like I accomplished nothing.”
The next day, she got an email from Frank with a meeting link. Frank wrote, “We’re having a meeting on Wednesday and I noticed you weren’t on the list of invited participants. I want to make sure that you can come and that you’ll be there. Here is the link.”
Victoria stared at that email for a long time. She couldn’t believe it. Then she clicked the link and accepted the meeting invitation.
When Victoria was talking to me about it later she said, “But I didn’t DO anything!” She started laughing.
Nothing? Really?
Be the cause!