Posted on April 5, 2011 by Tom Patterson

In my last post, I talked about how dishonesty breeds distrust. This is so basic to human relationships as to be almost too elementary to highlight. However, just because it’s obvious, doesn’t mean people always practice its opposite.

Telling the truth can be scary!

Let’s face it: it’s hard to be honest in a setting where someone has positional power over your future, whether it be keeping your job, getting a raise, moving up in the organization, or just experiencing an encouraging work environment. At the same time, if you’re the one with positional power, you might find truth telling to your direct reports a little scary—especially if you want them to like you—or if you have never learned how to have honest, measured, difficult conversations with people.

What can you do?

Assuming you’ve already done the reflective work to make sure you have a legitimate concern (the subject of another post), there are all kinds of ways to learn how to be a better truth teller to bosses, peers, or direct reports. Susan Scott’s books (Fierce Conversations and Fierce Leadership) are two of my favorites, and—though their titles sound a little…”fierce”—they are definitely worth the price of admission.

Rather than list every way I know of to be better at having honest conversations that are timely, accurate, and fair, I’m going to suggest an exercise that you consider trying. This exercise is designed to help you become more adept at being “immediate and transparent” in your workplace interactions (and, as you’ll likely discover, in other contexts as well).

Here’s how it works:

Think of one person with whom you have difficulty interacting. Perhaps they are intimidating, critical, distractingly talkative, super sensitive, highly competitive with you, etc. For a few days, interact as you normally would, but in the privacy of your own head, consider this question: “If my ‘gut’ were given a voice right now, what would it be saying?” Practice in your mind different ways of verbalizing it.

It may be, of course, that your gut might want to cry out with something that’s not really socially appropriate, or G rated. (Better to keep it in the privacy of your head for the time being!) As you silently think about the above question, add a few others to it. Ask yourself:

• “If I were to ask this person a calm question based on what my ‘gut’ is curious about, what would I ask them?”
• “If I were to make an observation about what my ‘gut’ notices, what kind of calm observation would I make?”
• “If I asked such a question, or made such an observation, how would my choice of words and tone of voice register genuine curiosity, but not be too threatening?”

Go Live!

Once you’ve practiced (internally) for a few days, take it for a spin in the real world. On your “go live” day, begin practicing “immediacy and transparency” in moderation, but for real. Immediacy is about registering curiosity about another person’s behavior right then and there (rather than storing it up for later), and transparency is about making sure that your curiosity is a genuine, honest, even vulnerable expression of what you’re really wondering about.

The beauty of coaching is that when we work on practicing this immediacy and transparency, we also have the opportunity to reflect on how it’s going, and adjust it accordingly—week by week. Talk about a recipe for forward progress!

Tell us about your experiences with attempting to be a fair, level-headed, intuition-driven truth teller in your context.