The 5 Conversations You Should Know How to Lead
Here’s a random bit of knowledge that might only be useful at a cocktail party or the Jeopardy Tournament of Champions:
Contestant: “I’ll take Obscure Design Terms for $200, Ken”
Ken Jennings: “It is the bare essence of an architectural design, the organizing principle of its planimetric layout.”
Contestant: “What is a Parti.”
Ken Jennings: “That is correct! The term emerged from the nineteenth-century Beaux Arts tradition as a fancy word for The Big Idea.”
The folklore when I was in school was that just five partis were the basis for every building in the world. This may or may not be true, but groups of five are common in many aspects of life: five fingers on hands and toes on feet, five human senses, five Olympic rings (ok, five continents), five stars in a rating system, Saturday Night Live’s Five-Timers’ Club, etc.
I’d like to add another grouping to the list, my own big idea that there are five primary conversations all professionals should know how to lead. Based on observations from over three decades as a designer, consultant and coach, I believe these conversations are the connective tissue for all strategy, innovation, and change efforts:
The Internal Conversation: The conversation we have with ourselves (consciously or not) that is informed by our beliefs and therefore drives our behaviors.
The Developmental Conversation: The conversation we have with colleagues and direct reports when we want to support their growth.
The Exploratory Conversation: The conversation we have with clients or customers when developing a new product, service, or engagement.
The Generative Conversation: The conversation we have with collaborators when we want to harness everyone’s best thinking.
The Challenging Conversation: The conversation we have with anyone when we need something to change.
These five conversations especially define the experience for the delivery of external and internal professional services. Each conversation reflects a common stakeholder interaction with corresponding leadership behaviors that makes it effective (or not). Most importantly, successful outcomes require agility with every single one of them.
And guess what? Recent research on AI by the Potential Project backs this up. An AI-augmented world will make mundane tasks more efficient and create space for more meaningful human-to-human interactions. So now is the time to commit to developing your conversational agility.
Here’s an experiment: for one week, conduct an informal audit of how well you and your organization are leading these conversations. Was the objective clear at the start? Did it conclude with a clear action or agreement?
At the very least, consider Conversation #1, the Internal Conversation, which is the foundation for all of the others. Are you aware of your personal narrative, the running conversation in your head? If not, how does that impact your ability to support yourself? If so, how does it impact your ability to care about or lead others?
Check out the individual coaching and cohort learning experiences I’ve created for developing the skills that support the five conversations and more.If you’d like to explore, I’m here for you.