Every year, my team and I attend the leadership summit. This year, there is a shadow hanging over the summit as I outlined here, but I’m still trusting that it will have some incredibly helpful content, just like in past years. To capture what I’m learning and to help you grow as a leader, I always share my notes from each session, so be sure to check back after each session and bookmark them for future use.

The first session of the second day featured a talk by Sheila Heen, who is the Founder of the Triad Consulting Group and on the Faculty of the Harvard Law School. Her talk focused on a process to navigate difficult conversations on our teams.

The following are some takeaways:

1. To the extent that you have difficult conversations as a leader, it says that you care a lot about what you are doing and having the most significant impact you can and that you care a lot about the people you are doing it with.
2. In difficult conversations, we have to look beyond what we’re saying and look at what is in our internal voice and what we’re feeling.
3. Difficult conversations are when our internal voice is turned up too loudly.
4. People’s internal voices are pre-occupied with predictable things every time.
5. Every difficult conversation has the same underlying structure.
6. The story in our head is driven by key questions: who’s right (What feels safe, what I can defend)? Who’s fault is it (the fault tells us who the problem is)? Why is the other person acting this way (what are their intentions, why are they being so difficult)?
7. The more frustrated we are about the other person, the more likely we are to tell a negative story and think that something is wrong with them.
8. By the time something becomes a difficult conversation, we have a business problem and how we each feel treated by the other.
9. The deeper problem (how we treat each other) will come up another time.
10. Identity is the story we tell about who we are and what the situation suggests about us: am I competent, am I worthy of love and respect?
11. The first step to a difficult conversation is changing the story you’re telling in your head.
12. Instead of asking who’s right, ask what we think this conversation is about.
13. Instead of asking who’s fault is it, ask what did we do to contribute to this situation.
14. Contribution can be reasonable things to do, they just didn’t help.
15. Instead of asking why are they acting this way, to separate intentions from the impact.
16. To influence other people, be open to influence yourself.