Managing Sticky Situations at Work

192 Managing Sticky Situations at Workdimensional, that is, the individual takes them alone. If, however, weadminister a 360 assessment, whereby not only the individual but alsopeople close to that person—subordinates, peers, boss, and others—rate the person, the data are more reliable. Some organizations use360 assessments to help members understand each other’s behaviorsand to help leaders learn more about how others see them in comparisonto how they see themselves. As Daniel Goleman points out, 360assessments are excellent self-awareness tools and can enable leadersto learn how to improve their EI, emotional intelligence, as well aslearn ways to get to their ‘‘ideal selves.’’ 1 Ifyoudonothaveaccessto these kinds of instruments, your best choice is to look at behaviors.Embedded in each SIJR Conversation we found the Three C’s. Thefirst C is the orientation of change, namely, the person initiating theconversation does so knowing that change happens only if the otherperson is willing to make it happen. Even after a very good conversationthat leads to resolving the problem, there is no guarantee the person’sbehavior will change. When we go into the conversationknowing that change depends on the other person, we are more realisticabout the outcome.The second C is compassion. No matter how contentious the conversationmight be, if the speaker goes into that conversation with asense of empathy, the chance for a positive outcome increases. Thesticky situations we looked at demonstrated some instances where itwas harder to feel compassion toward the other person than in othersituations. Nonetheless, each time the speaker listened to the otherperson, invited that person to share, and attempted to understandthe other person’s point of view.The third C is curiosity. In each SIJR Conversation, the speakercame from an orientation of curiosity. We wanted to learn what theother person was thinking. We were curious to understand their sideof the issue. This sense of curiosity or a desire to learn more helpeddiminish defensiveness on both sides of the table. It did not eliminatedefensiveness altogether, but defensive behaviors did not escalate it.Finally, in applying the SIJR Conversation, we saw our speakersdoing four things:• Specify the Problem. Usually the problem was specified early in theconversation, but in some instances the speaker decided to wait. Thisdecision often depended on the personality type of the other person.We also saw instances where the speaker had to respecify the problemlater in the conversation or where speakers redefined the problem at