How to Coach Yourself and Others Influencing, Inter Personal and Leadership Skills | Page 82

2. Explain your reservations.
For example, you might say, “What concerns me is -,” or “These are the things that
would need to be overcome.” Make sure you’re specific and clear. And avoid the
tendency to jump prematurely to your reservations. Express the value first!
3. Discuss alternatives.
Talk about ways to retain the value while eliminating reservations. The goal is to modify
the original idea so that it is acceptable to both of you. The modifications can come from
you or from the other person (i.e., either ask for or offer suggestions). If you offer a
sug gestion, ask the other person for his or her reaction to it. This keeps the conversation
as a two-way dialogue.
 Building on Ideas
When your reaction to someone’s suggestion is that it stimulates your thinking about the
idea and ways to enhance it, you have an opportunity to build on ideas - to add value to
the original idea. This does not mean just offering a new idea of your own. There are two
steps in this process.
1. Acknowledge the connection.
First, acknowledge the connection between the person’s idea and what you are about to
say. For example, you might begin, “What you said about . . . .” This lets the person
know that you were listening and gives them credit for the initial idea in the building
process.
2. Add value.
Modify the original idea to add value to it (e.g., suggest additional reasons why the idea
is a good one or ways to make the idea even better).
 Fair fighting, or How to Disagree Agreeably
(By Eric Messinger)
Keep the following Rules of Engagement in mind at your next impasse; they might help
you avoid an unproductive argument.
1. Pick your battles.
“You do not have to address every injustice or irritation that comes along,” says Harriet
Lerner, author of The Dance of Anger: A Woman’s Guide to Changing the Patterns of
Intimate Relationships. “But it is a mistake to stay silent when an issue matters and the
cost of silence is feeling bitter, resentful, or disconnected.”
2. Understand the stakes.
Even if you think that you know the other person’s issues, it can’t hurt to pose a direct
question. Ask “ ‘What’s your real concern here?’” (“Why do you ask this?”, “Why is this
issue important to you?”, “ What else is important here?”) says Rebecca Zucker,
cofounder of Next Step Partners, an executive-coaching firm in San Francisco. “Often
people are not really voicing it.”