Hello March! We are grateful to be entering into this month with positive energy as TC&A focus’ on building TRUST in conversations.
Also, we are excited to be celebrating International Women’s History Month! TC&A has several events planned to support women in the workplace with our seminar, Know Your Genius / Know Your Worth. If, you are interested in hearing more, click here.
As we introduce the topic for this month, it is a topic that repeatedly comes up in the Leadership Coaching process -
Building TRUST in Conversations
As every business owner and employee is moving fast to keep the flow of pressing work and goals moving forward, all the while trying to keep up with the pace of business growth and development – it is understandable as to “why” we may use a communication style that is mis-understood, ineffective or not productive.
In our reality, we are expected to converse with one another all day long, in a multitude of fashions, we may not be experiencing our desired outcomes, due to a lack of TRUST within our conversations.
Knowing the frequency in which we all have daily conversations, we trust you will be open and willing to look at the quality of your own conversations. It’s valuable to understand the research about where TRUST lives in our brain and how it reacts as we converse, pivot in conversations, avoid certain conversations and choose to assert ourselves in other conversations. We hear and understand all of the complexity within conversations.
Recently, Tess and I were with a client discussing team development and Tess began to describe how TRUST lives in the prefrontal cortex of our brains and fear or distrust lives in the back part of our brain, called the amygdala. This was impactful for them to understand, as people often revert to activating their amygdala with a fight, flight or freeze response when in conversations where emotions are strong, opinions vary and when the stakes are especially high. We have all had the experience where we want to get out of a conversation quickly or when someone is highly assertive or fighting back, which triggers our amygdala to go into full action mode.
The book, Conversational Intelligence communicates:
“We can’t connect to others if our amygdala is overactive.
Fear and distrust close down our brain.”
– Conversational Intelligence
This is a powerful and meaningful statement. The fight, flight or freeze responses are our basic instinct, which was critical at a time when we humans lived in constant survival mode. As humanity has progressed and our brains are more evolved – we no longer need to run from lions, tigers and bears (although, we may feel as if the boss, co-worker or employee is acting like one). This may sound silly and yet, think of the last time you had a challenging conversation? Did your amygdala take flight? Did you choose to fight? Or, did you choose to freeze? However, you chose to respond, did you experience the outcome you were hoping for? Most likely not, if you were leading with your amygdala reactions.
The good news is, your conversations can go better and they can be built upon TRUST. An internal TRUST that builds your own self-awareness to practice and be consistent with how you are going to manage the challenging conversations. The key is to lead yourself with TRUST and model how to have the safe conversations. Deeper understanding and engagement are available to you within the Leadership Coaching process. We are here for you to process the hard conversations that you need and want to have for greater outcomes and success within your workplace and personally. It does require practice and there are rarely overnight successes with challenging conversations.
If you’re struggling with conversations with your team, boss, or co-workers we encourage you to reach out. Building TRUST within yourself and knowing your intentions, is the foundation for healthy and good conversations. We are here for you and always want the best for you.