Encyclopedia of Leadership

8.1

POWERFUL LEADERSHIP CONVERSATIONS

Inspired by Tor Norretranders, Jonathan Sydenham, Douglas Stone, Bruce Patton,

Sheila Heen, Roger Fisher, and Deborah Tannen.

Even in this electronic age, face-to-face conversations are still the most powerful and signifi-

cant communications leaders have. Research shows that only 20 percent of communication is

contained in a conversation’s actual words, while 80 percent is in the tone of voice and other

nonverbal cues. Further research shows that leaders believe they communicate three times

more than do the people they are communicating with! This tool helps you examine your lead-

ership conversations and provides concrete suggestions for dealing with typical conversation

problems.

THE FOUR LEVELS OF UNDERSTANDING

There are four levels of understanding to every conversation:

1. the data you hear,


2. information you glean from the data,


3. your interpretations of the information, and


4. your conclusions from the total conversation.

232 SECTION 8 TOOLS FORCOMMUNICATION

What you actually hear. Also

what you sense, see, and feel

as the other person is

communicating.

Of all the data available in

the conversation, this is the

data that you actually attend

to and take into

consciousness.

You need to interpret the data

that you have chosen to focus

on. In this way you make

sense of what is being

discussed.

After interpreting the data,

you draw your own

conclusions about the

conversation as a whole.

Too much data is available during a conversation. The

bandwidth of all sensory perception is over 10 million bits per

second, while the bandwidth of consciousness is about 100 bits

per second. Each individual tends to hear or focus on different

data, all the while being unconscious of the entire field of data

being communicated.

The data you sense is filtered through very personal filters, like

past life experiences, male or female conditioning, your personal

values, how you feel about people in general, what is okay or

not okay for you, and so on. As a leader, you need to be aware

of your personal filters in order to check your interpretations of

conversations.

Now you try to make sense of the data. This, again, is filtered

through your personal interpretation rules. As you get farther

away from the actual conversation—with the passage of time,

for example—the information you glean and the interpretations

you make often become less accurate.

Your conclusions typically reflect your self-interest. People tend

to look for information and use interpretations that produce

positive conclusions if they like the person or ideas, and

negative conclusions if they don’t.

1. Data
   (the data you hear
   during the
   conversation)


2. Information
   (the data you extract
   from what you hear)


3. Interpretations
   (how you make sense
   of the data you have
   extracted from the
   conversation)


4. Conclusions/
   evaluation
   (your evaluation of
   the total
   conversation)

Level of What happens at

understanding this level Issues with this level