ALIGN

ALIGN, COMPONENT 1

FRAME THE CONVERSATION


Organizations can be described as a network of concurrent and sequential conversations that establish the frame in which people interpret the world around them. Coaches help their clients become aware of this conversational network and learn how to impact it to achieve alignment with their vision. Clients will want to have the tools to generate positive internal and external conversations.

Conversations are both internal to each individual, forming their mental model, and external between people or groups, both verbal and non-verbal. Transforming the conversation to align with vision is a STYLE change (see Part two). Because people need to feel connected to one another, here and now, in a relational system, such as an organization, they will be engaged in multiple, conversations. Of these, whole-person, positive conversations are the ones that create productive alignment.

As a coach you will want to introduce clients to the understanding that everything that’s happening is a conversation, even if unspoken, because a conversation is anything that sends a message to others. For example, when a leader says they have an “open door policy”, they generally are hoping to convey a message of invitation to employees to come talk over their concerns. A real open door occurs when the leader actually listens to the employee that comes to talk with them, as listening, a non-verbal act, is the message.

Watzlawick, Bavelas, and Jackson, communication theorists, wrote, “You cannot not communicate” (and I add, you cannot not influence the communication network). Becoming aware of how their conversation is being interpreted, clients can raise the level of emotional engagement that employees bring to company life through conscious, deliberate and specifically focused conversations.


Leadership is a positive conversation.

Leaders play a special role in setting the stage for healthy whole systems, which they do via the way they speak of and act regarding themselves and those around them. Because their choice to build a positive context for productivity and creativity at work defines them in their leadership role, we can say, “leadership IS a positive conversation.”

The positive conversation of leaders is not talking for talk’s sake. Rather, their conversations are the heart and soul of any thriving organization’s culture. They are the leaders’ style, as well as their strategic communications methodology incorporating very specific techniques, such as reframing towards the positive, to bring about connectivity and alignment.

However, if what leaders say and what they do initiates a negative conversation, or an incongruent one (saying one thing and doing something else), the resulting leader-employee relationship is weakened and is likely to lack commitment to a whole system change process. A simple example of this is the feeling employees have about themselves after a meeting with their leader that was filled with interruptions; they often report having the sense of “I am not valued or worthy of attention.” So saying you have an open-door policy, and having it interpreted the way one hopes, are two separate conversations.


A happy birthday story

Understanding this, a newly appointed healthcare CEO in Southern California sought a way to shift the hostile culture amongst employees and between them and administration that existed in the system he came in to lead. He knew he wanted to connect with employees, and, equally important, he wanted them to connect with each other – to recognize they were part of a whole.

He began hosting a birthday party every month, open to any employee whose birthday fell in that period. This CEO sang “happy birthday” to them, cut and served the cake, and asked all the attendees what they were going to give themselves for their birthday present. After a few months of celebrating birthdays, even doctors started showing up for the cake and conversation.

To achieve the results desired in a communication requires that clients learn how to frame the communication. A frame is the setting within which a communication occurs. It is the context of the communication, the structure that coveys its’ meaning. In the birthday party example above, the CEO communicated much more than just talking about his open door would; the birthday party, and the time devoted to it, spoke of his connection to them and his authentic, personal interest in them. By framing the conversation in the form of the monthly birthday party, when he wished them a happy birthday, they knew he meant it.

The frame is the construct that can lead us to be attached to a belief, sometimes in a way that seems unreasonably so. Changing the frame – reframing – is a way you can shape another’s belief system to achieve the conversational results you desire.