Jim and Jan discuss the importance of compassion and courage in having difficult conversations. They emphasize the need for empathy, mutual solutions, and bi-directional dialogue. Jim and Jan also provide tips for creating a positive environment for such discussions, including clear expectations, empathy, and core values. They highlight the impact of small actions and encourage listeners not to be neutral in situations of injustice.
Key Takeaways
[02:18] Jim and Jan delve into the significance of having the courage to engage in difficult conversations. They also touch on the fear that comes with these conversations and how it can be a warning sign to address.
[09:47] Jim and Jan stress the need for empathy and finding mutual solutions in these conversations instead of just pointing out problems. They also acknowledge that difficult conversations are a two-way street and require forgiveness and bi-directional dialogue to be effective. They highlight the importance of approaching tough conversations with respect, understanding, validation, active problem-solving, and follow-up.
[17:33] They discuss the challenges of having difficult conversations in organizations and offer tips on how to create a more positive environment for them. This includes setting clear expectations, using empathy and questions to facilitate collaboration, and focusing on core values like kindness, honesty, fairness, discipline, curiosity, and gratitude.
[23:18] The importance of running effective meetings is also discussed as a key factor in reducing the burden of excessive meetings while increasing productivity and engagement. They advise to treat people with respect and seek meaningful connections through shared values and purpose when engaging in communicating.
[28:37] Jim and Jan also give three things that you would have to remember when it comes to these tough and difficult conversations. Also, some closing thoughts for Jim and Jan about having a difficult conversation.
[35:31] Closing quote: Remember, if you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor. If an elephant has its foot on the tail of a mouse and you say that you are neutral, the mouse will not appreciate your neutrality. — Desmond Tutu
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Quotable Quotes
"If you care enough, you'll have the courage. If you don't care, the fear will override." Share on X "Fear is such a strong signal to our logical brain." Share on X "I just always try to put myself in the other person's shoes. Just say, like, hey, let me just play this out. If I were to receive this message, how do I think I'd react?" Share on X "Tough conversations can be challenging, but approaching them with empathy or spec and a focus on finding solutions can greatly improve the outcome and foster positive relationships." Share on X "We have to take responsibility for it being misinterpreted and ensure that our intentions come across in our words and deeds." Share on X "Difficult conversations are not one way, they're a two-way street." Share on X "We can create a positive environment where difficult conversations aren't difficult." Share on X "Let's not react, but let's respond with thought." Share on X "When we let our emotions and reactions govern how we hear and address things, it doesn't serve us well." Share on X "Difficult conversations can occur in meetings, and collaboration is important." Share on X "What's not being said is as important as what is being said." Share on X "Expectation setting for people is a difficult conversation." Share on X "Put yourself in the other person's shoes and have it be a process that you're collaborating on something rather than telling." Share on X "My three would be similar: respect, use questions to help that person self-discover, and use questions to brainstorm on possible solutions together." Share on X "The better we get at asking really good questions I think that's the road to righteousness." Share on X "If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor. If an elephant has its foot on the tail of a mouse and you say that you are neutral, the mouse will not appreciate your neutrality." -… Share on XThese are the books mentioned in Jim and Jan’s podcasts.
The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion
In this “landmark contribution to humanity’s understanding of itself” (The New York Times Book Review) social psychologist Jonathan Haidt challenges conventional thinking about morality, politics, and religion in a way that speaks to conservatives and liberals alike.
The Power of Habit
In The Power of Habit, Pulitzer Prize–winning business reporter Charles Duhigg takes us to the thrilling edge of scientific discoveries that explain why habits exist and how they can be changed. As Duhigg shows, by harnessing this new science, we can transform our businesses, our communities, and our lives.
More info →When: The Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing
Everyone knows that timing is everything. But we don't know much about timing itself. Our lives are a never-ending stream of "when" decisions: when to start a business, schedule a class, get serious about a person. Yet we make those decisions based on intuition and guesswork.
More info →All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten
More than thirty years ago, Robert Fulghum published a simple credo—a credo that became the phenomenal #1 New York Times bestseller All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten. Today, after being embraced around the world and selling more than seven million copies, Fulghum’s book retains the potency of a common though no less relevant piece of wisdom: that the most basic aspects of life bear its most important opportunities.
More info →The Spirit of Leadership: Optimizing Creativity and Change in Organizations
This book not only to make up for this glaring error of omission, but also probes deeply into all the major roots of organizational spirit.
More info →The Power Paradox: How We Gain and Lose Influence
A revolutionary and timely reconsideration of everything we know about power. Celebrated UC Berkeley psychologist Dr. Dacher Keltner argues that compassion and selflessness enable us to have the most influence over others and the result is power as a force for good in the world.
More info →The Second Mountain: The Quest for a Moral Life
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • Everybody tells you to live for a cause larger than yourself, but how exactly do you do it? The author of The Road to Character explores what it takes to lead a meaningful life in a self-centered world.
More info →THE COMPASS SOLUTION – A GUIDE TO WINNING YOUR CAREER
The greatest financial investment of your life and over half are effectively lost on their journey. With no map, no clear path, and no guide, most are condemned to wander. But your story doesn’t need to unfold that way.
The Compass Solution will introduce you to the four cardinal navigational points essential to your career survival that will provide you with shelter from the storms:
More info →Team of Teams
Great book on teamwork and organizational structure. The importance of culture and the Commander's intent is crucial.
More info →Plato’s Lemonade Stand: Stirring Change into Something Great
We’ve all heard the old adage: When life hands you lemons, make lemonade. But no one ever says how. Finally, with the inspiration of Plato and the help of many other great philosophers, Tom Morris has figured it out and here gives us a recipe we all can use. Following up in the tradition of previous books like If Aristotle Ran General Motors, If Harry Potter Ran General Electric, Philosophy for Dummies, True Success, and Socrates in Silicon Valley, Tom blends powerful insights with great stories and good fun to illuminate the path of wise living in the face of challenge and change. Along the way, he shows us how to move with wisdom from difficulty to delight in everything we do.
More info →Man’s Search For Meaning: The classic tribute to hope from the Holocaust
A prominent Viennese psychiatrist before the war, Viktor Frankl was uniquely able to observe the way that both he and others in Auschwitz coped (or didn't) with the experience. He noticed that it was the men who comforted others and who gave away their last piece of bread who survived the longest - and who offered proof that everything can be taken away from us except the ability to choose our attitude in any given set of circumstances. The sort of person the concentration camp prisoner became was the result of an inner decision and not of camp influences alone. Frankl came to believe man's deepest desire is to search for meaning and purpose. This outstanding work offers us all a way to transcend suffering and find significance in the art of living.
More info →Grandstanding: The Use and Abuse of Moral Talk
We are all guilty of it. We call people terrible names in conversation or online. We vilify those with whom we disagree, and make bolder claims than we could defend. We want to be seen as taking the moral high ground not just to make a point, or move a debate forward, but to look a certain way--incensed, or compassionate, or committed to a cause. We exaggerate. In other words, we grandstand.
More info →Philosophy for Life and Other Dangerous Situations: Ancient Philosophy for Modern Problems
This book is an invitation to a dream school with a rowdy faculty that includes twelve of the greatest philosophers from the ancient world, sharing their lessons on happiness, resilience, and much more. Lively and inspiring, this is philosophy for the street, for the workplace, for the battlefield, for love, for life.
More info →The Coddling of the American Mind: How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas Are Setting Up a Generation for Failure
Something has been going wrong on many college campuses in the last few years. Speakers are shouted down. Students and professors say they are walking on eggshells and are afraid to speak honestly. Rates of anxiety, depression, and suicide are rising—on campus as well as nationally. How did this happen?
More info →Never Split the Difference: Negotiating As If Your Life Depended On It
A former international hostage negotiator for the FBI offers a new, field-tested approach to high-stakes negotiations―whether in the boardroom or at home.
More info →How to Win Friends and Influence People
For more than sixty years the rock-solid, time-tested advice in this book has carried thousands of now famous people up the ladder of success in their business and personal lives.
Now this previously revised and updated bestseller is available in trade paperback for the first time to help you achieve your maximum potential throughout the next century! Learn:
* Three fundamental techniques in handling people
* The six ways to make people like you
* The twelve ways to win people to you way of thinking
* The nine ways to change people without arousing resentment
Practical Wisdom: The Right Way to Do the Right Thing
In their provocative new book, Barry Schwartz and Kenneth Sharpe explore the insights essential to leading satisfying lives. Encouraging individuals to focus on their own personal intelligence and integrity rather than simply navigating the rules and incentives established by others, Practical Wisdom outlines how to identify and cultivate our own innate wisdom in our daily lives.
More info →Choosing Courage: The Everyday Guide to Being Brave at Work
Doing for courage what Angela Duckworth has done for grit and Brene Brown for vulnerability, Jim Detert, the world's foremost expert on workplace courage, explains that courage isn't a character trait that only a few possess; it's a virtue developed through practice. And with the right attitude and approach, you can learn to hone it like any other skill and incorporate it into your everyday life.
More info →Discipline Is Destiny: The Power of Self-Control
In his New York Times bestselling book Courage is Calling, author Ryan Holiday made the Stoic case for a bold and brave life. In this much-anticipated second book of his Stoic Virtue series, Holiday celebrates the awesome power of self-discipline and those who have seized it.
To master anything, one must first master themselves–one’s emotions, one’s thoughts, one’s actions. Eisenhower famously said that freedom is really the opportunity to practice self-discipline. Cicero called the virtue of temperance the polish of life. Without boundaries and restraint, we risk not only failing to meet our full potential and jeopardizing what we have achieved, but we ensure misery and shame. In a world of temptation and excess, this ancient idea is more urgent than ever.
In Discipline is Destiny, Holiday draws on the stories of historical figures we can emulate as pillars of self-discipline, including Lou Gehrig, Queen Elizabeth II, boxer Floyd Patterson, Marcus Aurelius and writer Toni Morrison, as well as the cautionary tales of Napoleon, F. Scott Fitzgerald and Babe Ruth. Through these engaging examples, Holiday teaches readers the power of self-discipline and balance, and cautions against the perils of extravagance and hedonism.
At the heart of Stoicism are four simple virtues: courage, temperance, justice, and wisdom. Everything else, the Stoics believed, flows from them. Discipline is Destiny will guide readers down the path to self-mastery, upon which all the other virtues depend. Discipline is predictive. You cannot succeed without it. And if you lose it, you cannot help but bring yourself failure and unhappiness.
More info →The Fifth Discipline: The Art and Practice of The Learning Organization
In The Fifth Discipline, Senge describes how companies can rid themselves of the learning “disabilities” that threaten their productivity and success by adopting the strategies of learning organizations—ones in which new and expansive patterns of thinking are nurtured, collective aspiration is set free, and people are continually learning how to create results they truly desire.
More info →Look: A Practical Guide for Improving Your Observational Skills
Jim Gilmore introduces the metaphor of ''six looking glasses.'' Each looking glass represents a particular skill to master in order to enhance the way we look at the world.
More info →Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones
No matter your goals, Atomic Habits offers a proven framework for improving--every day. James Clear, one of the world's leading experts on habit formation, reveals practical strategies that will teach you exactly how to form good habits, break bad ones, and master the tiny behaviors that lead to remarkable results.
If you're having trouble changing your habits, the problem isn't you. The problem is your system. Bad habits repeat themselves again and again not because you don't want to change, but because you have the wrong system for change. You do not rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your systems. Here, you'll get a proven system that can take you to new heights.
Clear is known for his ability to distill complex topics into simple behaviors that can be easily applied to daily life and work. Here, he draws on the most proven ideas from biology, psychology, and neuroscience to create an easy-to-understand guide for making good habits inevitable and bad habits impossible. Along the way, readers will be inspired and entertained with true stories from Olympic gold medalists, award-winning artists, business leaders, life-saving physicians, and star comedians who have used the science of small habits to master their craft and vault to the top of their field.
Learn how to:
- make time for new habits (even when life gets crazy);
- overcome a lack of motivation and willpower;
- design your environment to make success easier;
- get back on track when you fall off course;
...and much more.
Atomic Habits will reshape the way you think about progress and success, and give you the tools and strategies you need to transform your habits--whether you are a team looking to win a championship, an organization hoping to redefine an industry, or simply an individual who wishes to quit smoking, lose weight, reduce stress, or achieve any other goal.
More info →Clarity: Business Wisdom to Work Less and Achieve More
FIND YOUR CLARITY AND SUCCESS WILL FIND YOU!
Clarity can mean different things to different people. For some, it arrives in the form of an answer or a direction. For others, it’s understanding the context of a complex situation. For most, however, clarity evokes a calm and focused state of mind with lower stress and diminished anxiety over what to do next.
As satisfying as it is to help people find clarity with their business problems, it’s far more rewarding to teach someone how to find their own clarity. That’s the purpose of this book – to describe how people can find the clarity to help manage, grow, and lead their businesses to greater success.
Any executive, leader, or owner can benefit from greater clarity regarding their business. Let Clarity show you how you can:
- Learn to quickly sift through distractions and address the real issues.
- Identify the core problems affecting your business and impeding your success.
- Develop the curiosity to destroy assumptions and find solutions.
- Enhance your awareness of the emotions and context that lead us astray.
- Improve your success with better sequencing, timing, and patience.
- Create Conscious Competence around the most impactful parts of your business.
- Develop your own Business Wisdom® to see the world clearly!
GROW WISER, WORK LESS, AND WIN BIG IN BUSINESS!
More info →The Paradox of Choice: Why More Is Less
Whether we’re buying a pair of jeans, selecting a long-distance carrier, choosing a doctor, or setting up a 401(k), everyday decisions—from the mundane to the profound challenges of balancing career, family, and individual needs—have become increasingly complex due to the overwhelming abundance of choice with which we are presented. We assume that more choice means better options and greater satisfaction. But beware of choice overload: it can make you question the decisions you make before you even make them, it can set you up for unrealistically high expectations, and it can make you blame yourself for any and all failures. In The Paradox of Choice, Barry Schwartz explains why too much of a good thing has proven detrimental to our psychological and emotional well-being. Synthesizing current research in the social sciences, he makes the counterintuitive case that eliminating choices can greatly reduce the stress, anxiety, and busyness of our lives. In accessible, engaging, and anecdotal prose, he offers practical steps for how to limit choices to a manageable number, have the discipline to focus on the important ones and ignore the rest, and, ultimately, derive greater satisfaction from the choices you do make.
"An insightful study that winningly argues its subtitle." —Philadelphia Inquirer
"The Paradox of Choice is genuine and useful. The book is well-reasoned and solidly researched." —New York Observer
More info →Strengths Finder 2.0
In its latest national bestseller, StrengthsFinder 2.0, Gallup unveils the new and improved version of its popular assessment, language of 34 themes, and much more (see below for details). While you can read this book in one sitting, you'll use it as a reference for decades.
More info →The Experience Economy
Joe and Jim mentioned this book in TLP004 - it is an exceptionally thought provoking book and one of Jim's favorites.
More info →The Littlest Green Beret
This is Jan’s book and a great insight into his development as a leader. Tremendous story.
More info →Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion
Some people just won't take no for an answer. In Influence, Dr. Robert Cialdini explains the six psychological principles that drive our powerful impulse to comply to the pressures of others and shows how we can defend ourselves against manipulation (or put the principles to work in our own interest).
More info →The Future of Management
What fuels long-term business success? Not operational excellence, technology breakthroughs, or new business models, but management innovation—new ways of mobilizing talent, allocating resources, and formulating strategies. Through history, management innovation has enabled companies to cross new performance thresholds and build enduring advantages.
More info →The Five Dysfunctions of a Team
In The Five Dysfunctions of a Team Patrick Lencioni once again offers a leadership fable that is as enthralling and instructive as his first two best-selling books, The Five Temptations of a CEO and The Four Obsessions of an Extraordinary Executive. This time, he turns his keen intellect and storytelling power to the fascinating, complex world of teams.
More info →Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us
Most people believe that the best way to motivate is with rewards like money—the carrot-and-stick approach. That's a mistake, says Daniel H. Pink (author of To Sell Is Human: The Surprising Truth About Motivating Others). In this provocative and persuasive new book, he asserts that the secret to high performance and satisfaction-at work, at school, and at home—is the deeply human need to direct our own lives, to learn and create new things, and to do better by ourselves and our world.
Drawing on four decades of scientific research on human motivation, Pink exposes the mismatch between what science knows and what business does—and how that affects every aspect of life. He examines the three elements of true motivation—autonomy, mastery, and purpose-and offers smart and surprising techniques for putting these into action in a unique book that will change how we think and transform how we live.
More info →