I had a phone call yesterday with a potential client, Jim.  Jim is a COO in a high-tech company in Detroit, Michigan.  Jim is accomplished, intelligent, and committed to his career.  He has been working with his VP of sales to improve his leadership style, but has been unable to get the VP to buy in.  This has been going on for 12 months.

I asked Jim what he has done so far.  Jim said he told the VP that the people that report to him despise him, his colleagues don’t like dealing with him, and he is alienating employees all over the company.  I asked Jim whether he challenged the VP to change or to start packing.  Jim said no, he had simply given up. 

A client of mine, Julie, told me this week that her assistant has been belligerent, selfish, and incredibly difficult to deal with.  Julie explained that because of the assistant’s attitude, she was preventing the team from expanding its client base and causing breakdowns in its internal structure.  Julie said that it wasn’t her fault that the assistant was acting this way.  She had spoken to the assistant several times, but the results remained the same. 

The Problem?

Jim and Julie are petrified of having a fierce conversation.

Many of you can relate.  You have been here before.  You want to make the situation go away, but you feel lost.  You feel angry.  You feel cheated.  You know exactly what you want to say.  The problem is, you don’t say it.

The reason you don’t enter into a brash, unbridled, fierce conversation, is that you have another conversation in your head, the unspoken conversation that prevents you from saying what needs to be said.  The unspoken conversation goes something like this: 

• I can’t say that, he/she will never speak to me again.
• People don’t say that.
• It won’t make a difference, anyways.
• He/she won’t like me.
• I don’t think the other person can take the truth.

As a result, the unspoken conversation overrules the fierce conversation.

Aren’t you curious?  Where did those unspoken conversations come from?  More importantly, if you had fierce conversations, can you imagine how powerful and successful you might be?

You enter every conversation by “listening” to your unspoken conversation that says: “I can say this,” or “I can’t say that.”  “It is okay to want this,” or “it is not okay to want that.”  “I can achieve this,” or “I can’t achieve that.”  “I will be accepted if I say this,” or “I won’t be accepted if I say that.”

Unfortunately, these unspoken conversations are the products of fierce conversations never had.  During their lives, Jim and Julie, and perhaps you, never had these fierce conversations:

• You have the right to make requests to get your core needs met.
• You have the right to confront issues that are troubling you.
• You have the right to stand up for integrity.
• You have the right to ask to be accepted.
• You have the right to disagree.
• You have the right to say no.
• You have the right to demand the best in people.

Imagine your level of accomplishment if someone granted you the “rights” to these fierce conversations?

The power available from fierce conversations comes from owning your “rights” to confront, to provoke, and to tell the truth.  The moment you stop honoring the unspoken, and begin to honor your commitments, you will strengthen your power to speak, to lead, and to serve.  You will have extraordinary conversations, and you will achieve extraordinary results in 2006.

If you are interested in having the conversations that create breakthroughs in your company, please contact The Simon Leadership Alliance, at msimon@simonalliance.com.