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John Stoker currently lives in Springville, Utah and is the President and CEO of DialogueWORKS. John earned a masters degree in Organizational Behavior at Brigham Young University and has had an exciting career. His career has taken him all over the country and he even went back to Law school and practiced as a criminal defense attorney. DialogueWORKS helps leaders to develop communication and thinking skills that will help them be more effective with the people that they manage in the organizations that they lead. They help businesses to shift their paradigm by teaching courses on communication, leadership development, or emotional intelligence and critical thinking. In short, they help leaders get out of their “stinking thinking” by helping them achieve results, build relationships, and create respect. John is also the author of Overcoming Fake Talk.

Episode Summary

• Served as a Bishop at BYU 2:50
• “What should I do with this person, having a difficult conversation” 5:08
  • Worry/avoid the conversation and when they do have it they don’t do it well
  • Avoid and compound the problem
• Handling poor performance 7:40
  • Address the the issue one-on-one not with the whole team
• 4 Steps in having a difficult conversation 12:00
  • 1st Step Initiate: Starting the conversation
    • Identify the intent for holding the conversation. What do you want to happen?
    • Create an Attention Check “Can we talk?” 12:43
    • Share data that you have or are experiencing and interoperation of the data. “I noticed…I’m wondering, thinking, or believing…”
    • Start with data and then share your perspective 14:25
  • 2nd Step Discovery: Ask as many questions that you can 17:05
    • Confirming Question:
      • Have I or Is it accurate?
    • Learning question:
      • What’s going on?
    • Write down questions:
      • What do I not know?
      • What do I need to know?
  • 3rd Step Connect: 30:32
    • Summarize their perspective first, then add yours. “If I understand correctly… Does that make sense?”
    • Share your expectations & natural consequences
  • 4th Step Build: 38:00 Create Accountability
    • Build Plan: It needs to be their solution
      • What have you tried? What has worked? What hasn’t worked?
    • Get commitment to plan
      • Will you do this? Connects to motivation
      • Can you do this? Connects to ability
      • Is there anything you need from me? Connects to support
      • The answers to these questions become the facts for the next conversation. “Last month when we talked you said…”
    • Read the persons reaction to check their commitment level
• General encouragement for leaders 45:40
  • Prepare: Sit down, think about the person and the context
  • Don’t judge: Learn to suspend judgement and realize we don’t know as much as we think
  • Ask more questions.
  • Listen