Establishing trust with conversational intelligence
One of the most disarming exchanges I have ever had with a colleague came in the form of a simple question. He had just picked up the phone to answer my call, and I was quick to launch into the first topic of our meeting. But he interrupted me and asked:
“Laura - how are you doing today?”
Um, well...
Huh.
Wow.
More than a decade later I don’t remember what I actually said, but I do remember how that question made me feel. Instead of racing into our business agenda (as we are wont to do in a world of back-to-back meetings) we paused for a few moments to share what was going on for each of us.
With that simple intervention the whole conversation shifted.
Years later I know why. As discussed in Judith Glaser’s seminal book Conversational Intelligence, we had moved from having a typical “Level 1” low-trust exchange focused mostly on telling things to each other, to a “Level 2” conversation that created conditional trust through inquiry. Over time we arrived at “Level 3”, having high-trust conversations based on genuine connection and collaboration.
To quote Glaser, “What happens at the moment of contact defines the relationship.” Here’s why: in a literal nanosecond our brain retrieves the mental model we associate with personal safety, we make a judgment about how it aligns with our current situation, and we don’t dispute it - we simply react. In this briefest of moments trust is established, confirmed, or eroded.
The topic of trust is often a backdrop to my work with individual leaders and teams, whether they realize it or not. The simple truth is this: bad conversations trigger distrust, good ones trigger trust. Knowing this and engaging deliberately is conversational intelligence. It’s also the foundation for de-escalating conflict, but that's a topic for another time!
So, what’s the “CI-Q” of your organization? What would be possible if people knew how to engage in conversations that put relationships before tasks, and that prioritized co-discovery over individual expertise?