Fierce Conversations

Excerpted from
Fierce Conversations; Achieving Success at Work& in Life, One Conversation at a Time
By Susan Scott

Trouble Paying Attention

Phillip and I had met monthly for a year, usually on Monday mornings. Phillip is sociable, shares my macabre sense of humor, laughs easily, and is wonderfully candid concerning his shortcomings as a leader. During the second year of our relationship, I couldn't help noticing the increasingly visible veins in Phillip's nose and cheeks. He often looked sleep-deprived, his eyes red-rimmed and puffy.

Occasionally, I ventured a comment. "You look a little ragged this morning."

"Yeah, party last night. Got to bed around two. Great time."

And so it went.

In subsequent meetings, I became more and more distracted by my concerns over Phillips appearance. It was difficult for me to pay attention to his comments about the issues in his company when I found myself wondering if he was becoming an alcoholic. I was stuck. Should I bring it up? How could I bring it up? How do you ask someone, "Do you have a drinking problem?" That's not the kind of thing one brings up out of the blue. Or is it? And who am I to venture a guess? I don't know beans about alcoholism. And sotto voce, my left-hand column asked, "Susan, what are you pretending not to know?"

As I got into my car following another session with Phillip, I sat for a moment, confronted by my cowardice. You say you care for this person. Do you really? If he is an alcoholic, it's not only affecting his health, it's affecting his marriage and his ability to be the great leader he aspires to be. You've got to say something. You've got to ask him about this. I resolved to share my concern when it seemed appropriate. I didn't have to wait long.

As soon as I walked into Phillips office for our next meeting, I knew it would be impossible to concentrate on anything he had to say. He looked decidedly hung over.

"Bad night?" I asked.

"What? Oh, yeah. I got together with some friends this weekend."

The moment of truth. I screwed my courage to the sticking place.

"Phillip, it's going to be difficult for me to focus on business issues today unless I share with you a growing concern of mine."

Phillip paused, smiling quizzically. "Okay, shoot."

"It's not that easy. I'm worried that you'll be put off by what I want to ask you, so I want you to know that I'm prepared to be dead wrong about this."

Phillip's smile faded.

"It's this, Phillip. We always meet on Monday mornings, after the weekend, and, well, frankly, you usually look like hell." Phillip frowned. I took a deep breath and continued, "A couple of times I've asked you about it, and you tell me about another party with your friends, staying up late. You always laugh it off."

By this time, neither of us was eager to hear the next words I would speak out loud. The brief silence between us was hard at work, and my heart was in my throat. I spoke as gently as I knew how. "I may be way off base, and I know you'll tell me if I am. It's just that I find myself wondering if the way you look on Monday mornings is about more than good times with your friends. I worry that perhaps you have a drinking problem, that perhaps you are an alcoholic."

Phillip had lost his sleepy look. His face flushed. He snorted. "I can't believe it! I tell you about my friends, a few parties, and you take it to this."

I barely resisted the impulse to apologize, withdraw my observation, discount my concern. Instead, I waited. Phillip pushed his chair away from his desk. I could virtually hear the tension in the room - an electric whine. I was in the electric chair and was about to become toast.

Phillip's words were measured, his jaw clenched. He looked me squarely in the face and said, "One. I do not have a drinking problem. Two. I will never mention my friends and our parties again." He took a long breath. "Now can we get on with our meeting? I have some things I want to run by you."

Again, I fought off the impulse to apologize and instead said, "Yes, okay, let's move on."

At a meeting with Phillip six months later, I began with the first question from Mineral Rights: "What is the most important thing you and I should be talking about today?"

Phillip sat quietly a moment, then said, "My drinking problem."

Finding Out What You Know

A careful conversation is a failed conversation. When we enter the conversation with a goal of being poised, clever, instructive, we are inhibited, and all possibilities of intimacy are held at bay.

If we approach a conversation with the assumption that we know where it is going and what we need to say, we assume that logic is running the show. Things are not that simple. A fierce conversation is more original and varied in its choices. The heart, the guardian of intuition with its unsettling intentions, is the boss; its commands are ours to obey. At least, they are mine to obey.

It still comes as a shock to realize that I don't speak about what I know. I speak in order to find out what I know. Often the real trouble is that the conversation hasn't been allowed to find its subject; it isn't yet about what it wants to be about. But everything shifts when we entertain private thoughts that drop clues like bread crumbs along the conversational path. After countless fierce conversations, I am still touched to realize that the person with whom I am talking wishes to be discovered by a reflective self who is listening carefully in order to understand and make sense of this maze of words concealing the heart of the story.

Obeying our instincts and offering them up to a colleague or loved one allows both of us to know things we could not know otherwise. Together, we begin to see what this conversation wants to be about, and where it wants to go, and how to make it pulsingly real. One disclosure, one offering from our left-hand column at a time.

We select something to bring into the public conversation. We put something forth, then something else, and so on, to the conclusion of the conversation. What we select is not necessarily the truth, not even a truth sometimes. However, the thoughts or questions we dare to share may assist the conversation in going where it needs to go. The function of our left-hand column is intensely personal and surprisingly revelatory. As you will learn in chapter 6, the conversation isn't over just because the conversation is over. The conversation with Phillip, for example, was continued over the course of many conversations ... each one memorable.