Review: Conscious Business by Fred Kofman

A wonderful book on improving communication, that applies not just to business, but to all aspects of life. Here’s a summary of my main takeaways:

1. Put yourself at the center of things you care about

The book makes a distinction between seeing yourself as a “victim” versus a “player.” I’m not a fan of using either of these terms, as they have many other (not particularly positive) connotations, but the definitions the book uses are roughly:

• Victim: things happen to you, and you have no control over anything.
• Player: you take an active role in every aspect of your life and assert control where possible.

The advice in the book: be a player, not a victim. This is a shift in mindset.

Example: you show up late for a meeting and someone asks you why. The way a victim might respond is, “There was just so much traffic.” Note how there’s no subject in this sentence: the traffic just exists, and there’s nothing you can do about it. The way a player might respond is, “I didn’t take the traffic into account when planning my trip over here.” Note how there’s a clear subject—”I”.

Here’s why this is so important: you can’t change the world around you, but you can change yourself. E.g., You can’t change the fact that there’s traffic in the world, but you can change your planning to to take traffic into account.

If you always think like a victim, you’ll often fail, and feel helpless to do anything about it. But if you make the mindset shift to think like a player—if you consciously put yourself at the center of things you care about—you will have the ability to affect the outcome.

It’s a small change in language—a small change in how you speak—but it can have a profound impact on your thinking.

2. Sharing truth effectively

In any given situation, there are many “truths.” E.g., if someone asks you what you had for lunch, one way to answer that question is to vomit your lunch all over the person. While that certainly answers the question, and presents the raw truth, it’s probably not what the person was looking for, and won’t help your relationship with them.

With any topic, there are many truths—many ways to answer the question. But not all of those truths are equally useful in every situation. Sharing the raw truth, for example, can be hurtful. But if you try to hide the truth, then you probably won’t get what you want, and the other person can often tell you’re hiding something anyway.

So how do you share the truth in a way that helps you without hurting the other person? The next several sections talk about some of the ingredients to doing this.

2a. Separate facts from opinions

We tend to assume everything we think is a fact, and everything someone else thinks is an opinion. The difference can be subtle. For example, a husband and wife are lying down to go to sleep, and the wife says, “it’s cold.” The husband responds, “it’s hot.” Now they start to argue.

Why? Well, both the husband and wife think that “it’s hot” or “it’s cold” are facts, but these are actually opinions. Here’s an actual fact: it’s 68 degrees. Here are two more facts: at 68 degrees, the wife feels cold, while the husband feels hot. But “it is cold” or “it is hot” are just opinions.

Instead of arguing about these opinions, if you separate out the facts (the wife is cold at 68 and the husband is hot at 68), then you can start working together to come up with solutions: e.g,. find a warmer blanket for the wife.

2b. Use first person instead of third person

For example, instead of saying, “it’s cold,” say “I’m feeling cold.” This has several benefits:

• This puts you at the center of the situation, which, as per (1), gives you the power to change that situation. For example, consider the statement “this is hard” vs “I don’t know how to do this.” The former feels final, as if you’re just not good enough, and never will be; the latter makes it clear what actions you can take—spend time learning!
• It turns an opinion (“it’s cold”) into a fact (“I’m feeling cold”), which as per (2a), makes it possible to think of solutions, rather than arguing.
• It can make your claims easier for the other person to accept. For example, compare, “this report is bad” to “I’m concerned with the report.” If you wrote that report, hearing the former sounds like there’s something wrong with you and your work, and you’re likely to argue with it. On the other hand, you can’t really argue with the latter—that is, with how someone feels—and it doesn’t necessarily imply there’s anything wrong with you, so it’s easier to accept.

Note that adding “I think” to a statement isn’t enough: e.g., “I think you’re stupid” isn’t any different than “you’re stupid.” This is still an opinion; there’s some deeper truth or fact that you need to present instead.

2c. Show your work

While you should separate facts from opinions, you will of course still have opinions, and it’s OK to share those. The key to doing this effectively is:

• Present. Start with your opinion, using the first person. This way you take responsibility, showing it is an opinion of yours and not a fact of the world.
• Past. Show how you arrived at that opinion. Show the source of information (typically: facts!) and the deductions you drew from that. Explain your reasoning.
• Future. Show the implications of your opinions so the person knows why this all matters. Tell the person what you want to see happen.
• Inquiry. Check in with the other person to see what they think. You want to make it clear that this is your current thinking, and that you’re open to discussion.

For example, instead of saying, “this meeting is a waste of time,” a better way to phrase this may be: “I’m feeling uncomfortable about amount of time we are spending on this topic. We spent 15 min already, have only 15 min left, and I’m worried we won’t get to this other topic I think is important. What do you think we should do?”

2d: Diffusing toxic comments

Not everyone will know how to share truth effectively, so you’ll have to know how to deal with people who, lacking the proper communication skills, make toxic comments. For example, someone might blurt out, “this meeting is a waste of time.”

A good way to diffuse this sort of comment is to respond, “I understand that you see this as a waste of time. What do you see here as unproductive?” Perhaps they say something like, “we’ve already discussed this topic in the past and decided …” Now, you can accept what they said or push back and debate it a bit. After that, you might ask, “OK, well, what do you recommend we do instead?”

In other words, you’re subtly guiding the person, step by step, through the “show your work” approach from (2c)!

• Present. The first step is to acknowledge that person’s belief as their belief—as an opinion. You need to make it clear to the person that you heard, accept, and understood their opinion. Note that you can accept someone’s opinion without adopting that opinion as your own. The key thing is you are making it clear to that person that you’ve understood their opinion—people won’t make progress unless they feel heard and understood. Note that you are also subtly (a) making it clear it’s an opinion, not a fact and (b) forcing them to take responsibility for their opinion.
• Past. Next, you prompt the person to show how they arrived at their opinion. Hopefully, they’ll show the facts they used and the deductions they made from those. Guide them along with inquiry.
• Future. After that, you are asking the person what the implications are of that opinion and what they would like to see happen. Once they’ve explained what they want, you can either accept it or push back. If you push back, you have a conflict. Dealing with conflicts is described next.

3. Dealing with conflict

When you have a conflict—some sort of debate or argument—there are several ingredients on how to deal with it effectively, as described in the next sections.

3a. Demonstrate understanding

In a conflict, the first step is for each party to (a) present their point of view, which everyone tends to do anyway but just as importantly, (b) demonstrate you have understood the other party’s point of view. Acknowleding the other person’s point of view is essential in moving a conflict forward: if you show you’ve understood the other person’s point of view—which you can do without adopting that view as your own—then the person will feel heard and the discussion can move forward; if you don’t show that, then the discussion will stall as the other person just keeps pushing their viewpoint forward in the hope of being acknolwedged.

One way to accomplish this is to ask each party to present the other party’s argument. Have each person present the other person’s point of view and then check if they understood it correctly; keep working on it until the other person has agreed that you have fully understood their viewpoint. Then, switch sides. Do not move on until both sides feel that their views have fully been understood.

3b. Move from positions to needs

The next step is to move from positions to needs. In many arguments, it’s common for people to just toss out positions: one person says, “I want to go skiing,” while the other says, “I want to go to the beach.” Negotiating positions is not effective: e.g., trying to find some compromise that’s a midway point between a ski slop and a beach, such as a moderately warm, moderately flat place, is unlikely to make either party happy.

The key to resolving conflicts effectively is to understand the underlying needs. Ask the person what they are trying to get that is beyond the position itself? For example, perhaps the underlying needs for the person who wants to go skiing are to get exercise and feel a sense of speed, whereas the underlying needs for the person who wants to go to the beach are to feel warm and to relax. Once you understand these needs, you can think of ideas that meet as many of those needs as possible: for example, perhaps you can both go to a beach, and the person looking for exercise and a sense of speed can try water skiing; or perhaps you can both go to a ski slope, but one that has some sort of resort with hot tubs, saunas, massages, and other ways to feel warm and relax.

4. Working with managers effectively

It’s common to have conflicts with your manager: e.g., they ask you to do two things that are contradictory, such as “keep quality super high” but also “ship as quickly as possible.” Saying “no” to a manager is hard, so what do you do? The effective way to discuss this sort of thing with a manager is:

• Here’s what you asked me to do: X, Y, Z.
• I’m totally and board and want to get this done.
• However, you asked for both X and Y, and these seem contradictory.
• I don’t know how to do both.
• Could you help me?

The key point here is to take full responsibility for the work (put yourself at the center of things). Instead of complaining or just saying no, you are doing your best to get done what the manager has asked, and are looking for ways to improve yourself and your understanding to make it happen.

5. Feedback

Presenting and receiving feedback, whether positive or negative, is hard. The next few sections have several tips.

5a. How to present negative feedback

• Start with a phrase like, “when I see” and then state a fact.
• Next, state your concerns.
• Then, state the conclusion you’ve drawn based on those facts and concerns.
• After that, ask the other person how they see the situation.
• Next, listen. Really listen and check your understanding.
• Next make a clear request. Note that you are expressing a desire, NOT a command. More on requests later.
• Finally, listen.

Example:

• When I see three severe outages in a span of a couple weeks…
• I get worried that customers are going to start thinking of our product as unreliable and stop trusting our business.
• It seems like our technical debt is really catching up to us, and if we don’t do something about it soon, we’re going to be in trouble.
• What are your thoughts on this?
• (listen)
• Here’s my request: let’s start measuring our uptime, and set a goal of 99.9% (three nines). Do you think that’s something you and the team can do?
• (listen)

5b. How to receive negative feedback

If you get negative feedback:

• First, take a few deep breaths. Deep breaths are an “emotional surgebreaker.” They give you a bit of time and space to not feel overwhelmed by emotions, and help you avoid reacting in a way you might regret.
• Next, instead of getting mad, get curious. Inquire to understand what the person is thinking.
• After that, check your understanding. If it’s still unclear, inquire some more.

This approach is especially important when dealing with emotions—whether the other person’s emotions or your own. Never challenge the emotion itself. Instead, inquire to understand the underlying belief that is driving that emotion, and focus the discussion on those beliefs.

Example:

• Your boss blurts out one day, “I’m unhappy with your performance.”
• First, take a few deep breaths. Hearing that feedback is upsetting, and you don’t want to react purely based off emotions.
• Next, inquire: “OK, could you help me understand in exactly what way I didn’t meet expectations?”
• Perhaps the next response is still vague: e.g., “You just haven’t been a great team player.”
• In that case, inquire some more: “Could you give me a concrete example where I could’ve acted differently?”
• As you keep inquiring, you’ll be able to get to the heart of the matter, and have a more productive discussion.

5c. How to give positive feedback

Many people, when delivering praise publicly, phrase it along the lines of, “Joe did a great job on XXX.” It’s delivered almost as if the person isn’t there at all, like a funeral.

A more effective way is to direct the praise at the person. “Joe, I wanted to thank you, in front of everyone, for the great work you did on XXX.” Praising someone directly and personally, in front of everyone else, sends a much more powerful message.

6. Commitments

The world runs on networks of commitments. Trust is built on meeting or not commitments. Here’s a few tips on getting better at commitments.

6a. Commit with integrity

You should take commitments seriously, and only commit with integrity. That means that before you commit to something, you check:

• Intent: do you really mean to do this? Or are you just agreeing to be nice?
• Skills: do you have the ability to deliver on this commitment?
• Resources: do you have the resources—e.g., time, money, etc—to deliver on this commitment?

Only after deeply thinking through each of these items should you commit (or not).

6b. Making requests

There are several ingredients to making requests effectively:

• Separate identity from request. Many people fear making requests because if the request is rejected, they feel like it’s a rejection of them as a person, rather than a rejection of that specific request. Sometimes, people are afraid to make requests because the implication of asking for help is that you can’t do it yourself. If you want to be good at making requests, you need to know how to separate your self esteem and identity from the request itself.

• Request phrasing: “I request that X do Y by date Z.” There are a few key elements in this phrasing:

• It uses the first person, making it clear that you are the person making the request (always put yourself at the center of things).
• Using the first person and the phrase “I request X” makes it clear it’s a request and not an order. You’re asking person X for help, and it is OK for them to say no.
• The item you are asking for (“do Y”) should have clear standards to check when it’s done. In the product management world, these are called acceptance criteria. Defining clear performance standards will allow you to discuss commitments in terms of facts (rather than opinions).

• Every request should have a deadline. Without a deadline, it’s not a real commitment.

• Making a request is not enough. A commitment is a contract between two parties, so you don’t have a commitment until the other person has accepted. However, they may respond to your request in other ways too, as discussed next.

6c. Responding to requests

When someone makes a request, the reasonable responses you can use that lead to productive conversations are:

• Yes I promise: this means you’ve made a commitment.
• No I decline: this means you have explicitly not made a commitment.
• Request for clarification: you need more information to decide.
• Commit to respond: you need more time to decide (e.g., so you can check if you have the resources you need). Here, you’re committing to respond, but not to the original request. Note that this response MUST have a deadline: e.g., “I’ll let you know by next Monday.”
• Counteroffer: you offer to fulfill the underlying desire/need, but through some other mechanism.

Note that, “I’ll try” is NOT a commitment. Similarly, “I’ll let you know,” but without a deadline, is also NOT a commitment. If someone responds this way, follow up to get one of the responses above.

6d. What to do if you can’t fulfill a commitment

Even if you try to commit with integrity, there will still be times when you can’t deliver on your commitment; that’s just life. Here’s what you should do:

• As soon as you know your commitment is at risk, proactively reach out to the relevant stakeholders.
• First, acknowledge the commitment you made.
• Next, explain that you may not be able to deliver. It’s an explanation, not an excuse.
• Then, inquire what problems this may cause the other person.
• Next, make an offer of restitution. A way to make those problems right. The other person may negotiate this.
• Finally, make a commitment to the restitution.

6e. What to do if someone else can’t fulfill a commitment

If someone else doesn’t fulfill their commitment, and they don’t proactively reach out to you, then you should reach out to them. This isn’t about bitching and moaning, but about retaining your relationship.

• First, check if the other person understood the commitment the same way.
• Next, if they did understand it the same way, and admit they broke their promise, explain what the consequences were to you.
• Then, make a request and chheck if the request is acceptable to the other person. Often times, the request is (a) fulfill the original commitment and (b) in the future, proactively let you know if there are problems. In many cases, it’s not the failure that’s the problem, but the lack of a heads up and the lack of an apology.

Rating: 5 stars