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The Look & Sound of Leadership

Agreeable Disagreement

The Look & Sound of Leadership

Essential Communications - Tom Henschel

Education, Executive Presence, Management, Careers, Executive Coaching, Self-improvement, Business

4.81.2K Ratings

🗓️ 10 October 2019

⏱️ 18 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

This month’s coaching conversation follows an executive’s journey from a bulldozer, rolling over people and their ideas, to a thoughtful seeker of ways to get his ideas heard while also building positive relationships.

Related episodes are:
Assertion versus Aggression
Be Impeccable With Your Word
Disagree Agreeably – yes, that was an episode long ago!
Don’t Take It Personally
The Conflict Conversation
Sorting & Labeling

This Tip is in four categories in the archive:
Communication Skills
Executive Presence
For Women
Relationship Building

The archive is at:
https://essentialcomm.com/podcast/

Get the HTML transcript:
https://essentialcomm.com/subscribe/

Be in touch with Tom at:
https://essentialcomm.com/contact/

From all of us, thanks!

See you next month!

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

Welcome back to the Look and Sound of Leadership, an ongoing series of executive

0:07.8

coaching tips designed to help you be perceived in the workplace the way you

0:12.2

want to be perceived.

0:14.3

I'm Tom Henschel, your executive coach, and today we're talking about

0:18.5

agreeable disagreement. Marshall, a television executive, was facing open rebellion from the writers he supervised.

0:31.1

Marshall had been supervising television a long time and was completely comfortable stopping

0:36.2

conversations with a forceful no.

0:39.1

The writers viewed Marshall as harsh and uncaring. When I asked Marshall what he thought the writers

0:45.3

were upset about, his first response was that they were overly sensitive. He said

0:50.4

everything they write is precious to them.

0:53.7

Every scene, every word is like their baby.

0:56.2

I'm the guy who has to tell them their baby's ugly.

0:58.8

Nobody likes what I have to say.

1:01.6

I ventured, well even if they don't like the message, is there a way you could

1:05.8

deliver it that wouldn't strain the relationship so much? Ha! Fat chance! he laughed.

1:19.0

I told Marshall I felt differently. I told him I felt it was possible to get your message heard and attend to the relationship.

1:24.7

My friend and colleague Lois Frankel quotes Churchill all the time saying,

1:29.0

Tacked is the ability to tell someone to go to hell in such a way that they look forward to the trip.

1:35.0

Diplomacy is the art of telling people to go to hell in such a way that they ask for directions.

1:42.0

He laughed again. for directions.

1:43.3

He laughed again, if you can show me how, I'll do it.

1:49.0

Over the six months of our coaching, Marshall explored different behaviors. He was looking for ones that would allow him

...

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