Received these questions from a manager in a solution-focused leadership workshop.
Question:
A team member has a terrible habit of cutting off people when they’re talking. They’ve done this with people within our office and with customers. I’m not sure if it’s something they’ve received constructive feedback on before. I want to be sensitive to how I address it.
Response:
Cutting people off while talking, I’m guilty of that also.
The formula shared for Current-Applied-Capacity (Complexity-of-Information-Processing + Values + Skilled-Knowledge + Wisdom + (-T) absence of negative temperament = Current-Applied-Capacity) the cutting people off is probably a wisdom piece.
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A solution-focused coaching process that may help:
- Arrange a meeting time, let them know you are going to talk about this problem.
- Prepare a 1min opening statement about the issue and how it affects the team’s work, your work, and their work.
- Share examples of when it has happened. The more specific (date, time, person, impact), the better.
- Let them know this is not disciplinary.
- Ask them if they agree this is a problem—NO agreement on the problem no coaching can take place.
If agreement on the issue, ask them to complete one of the small task assignments below (or something like this) and meet me in 1 week with responses:
Talk Less Listen More
- Talk Less
- Listen More
- While you listen, take notes, and observe the signs that people show when they are done speaking.
- While you listen, take notes, and look for the signs that people show when they are ready to hear others’ responses.
- While listening, ask yourself and write in your notes, “If I was to speak, how would I best enter into this conversation. How would I know that it is appropriate to talk and when to listen.”
- When we meet again, be prepared to share with me in detail. A) what’s different? B) how you made the difference? C) what the other person noticed? D) what will you continue doing? E) how can you update me on what’s working?
Flip a Coin
- For the next 5 days (or however much time between your next meeting), flip a coin when you arrive at work.
- Heads … in as many conversations as you can have when the other person stops talking, you count to 27 inside your head before you say a word
- If the individual speaks before you; smile, nod, and repeat #2
- Tails … you do nothing different.
- When we meet again, be prepared to share with me in detail. A) what’s different? B) how you made the difference? C) what the other person noticed? D) what will you continue doing? E) how can you update me on what’s working?
When you meet them again, ask, “What’s better since we last met?” Reinforce small areas that are working and ask how they made what works happen.