How to CRAFT a conversation that moves the needle

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Think about all the conversations you had today.

Question: How many of these conversations moved the needle meaningfully?

Now, think about all the conversations you had in the last 7 days

Question: How many of these conversations moved the needle meaningfully?

Lastly, think about all the conversations you had in the last 30 days

Question: How many of these conversations moved the needle meaningfully?

If you are happy with your answers to the above question, you can conveniently skip the rest of the blog post as time is of essence. If you think there is a room for improvement, I am confident that you will enjoy the rest of the article.

Here are some ideas

1. You have to focus on the ROII: If you want to have a conversation that moves the needle meaningfully, it starts with your intention. You should have WANTED to make an impact. Granted, you are investing your time in this conversation but you should be aware that the other person is investing his or her time too and THEY deserve to get a good return for that investment – in other words you need to provide a return on investment for that interaction (ROII)

2. You MUST care as if it’s your own: In other words, empathy has to be sincere. You have to get into their shoes and feel what they are feeling. Once you care as if its your own, you will not dismiss anything prematurely. Honestly, you will not be the judge of whether you care as if it’s your own – they will.

3. Drop your agenda: If there is one thing that will muddy the waters, it will be bringing your own sweet agenda to the mix. It is not to say that you sacrifice your concerns but to keep them to as minimum as possible as the focus is THEM and not YOU.

4. Understand their strengths: Now, before you conclude that we are entering the “cliche zone” remember that all you need to identify their strengths is to observe keenly where they will steer their conversation. That will provide clues to their strengths.

5. Understand their weaknesses and constraints: Just like topics related to their strengths are where they will gravitate towards, topics related to their weaknesses are what they will want to avoid. Not only their weaknesses are against them but also the constraints (e.g.: currency, connections etc.) – it is your job to quickly identify both the weaknesses and constraints.

6. Create magic: What is magic? It is a collection of possibilities to be capitalized through their strengths within the set constraints. I didn’t say this was going to be easy but if you don’t aim to create magic, you just won’t. Once your mind starts working with this framework, sooner than later, you will become very good at it. You have mastered this when you can create magic even in a super short conversation.

7. Get their buy-in for action: The last step is to get their buy-in for what specific action they should take next. The actions might have been outlined by you or them – it doesn’t matter. But they need to buy-in enough to take that action. Why? Because real progress happens only when an action is taken – not when there is a promise to take action.

Now, my humble request to you is to go and CRAFT that conversation that move the needle to someone that matters to you.

Photo Courtesy: dingatx on flickr.