Dua - Become: the 5 critical conversational practices that shift who you be as a leader

SAMEER DUA

With Contributions by
Bob Dunham,
Umang Bedi and Sheeja Shaju

This book is dedicated to my first leader and coach, my father,

Dr Giri Dua.

Bob Dunham,

Thank you for being such an inspiration, for your generous
contributions to this book, and to my learning. It is an honour
to call you my teacher and my coach.

This book is for those leaders and managers who are interested in learning the leadership conversational skills required to generate results.

Contents

Over more than thirty years as an executive coach, I have been fortunate to work with many powerful leaders whose influence shaped the world we live in. The assumption many people make is that, given these leaders remarkable accomplishments and sterling reputations, their problems must be very complex.

And yet, leadership doesnt only happen in the realm of the complex the big decisions, visions and strategies that get the most attention (although all of those things are unquestionably important). It also takes place in regular, daily interactions. The simple conversations we have every day can be incredibly powerful if we know how to harness them. In my view, any leader who wants to do that will find Become an invaluable tool.

Thats because Sameer Dua is a talented coach and leadership expert who realizes that the way we talk to each other either sets the stage for our success or dooms us to failure. The five conversational strategies outlined in these pages contain key insights for anyone who wants to find that click of connection with co-workers and teams, and enable great results and innovation.

Not only that, this book is deeply practical. Sameer knows that intellectually understanding what to do is only the first step. Conversation is an art that must be practised in the real world, not just understood in theory. I agree wholeheartedly when he writes: Executive coaching is not a profession; it is a set of conversational practices, and You need to understand these conversations first, and then practise these conversations to gain mastery. In some ways, leadership is a bit like learning a sport or playing an instrument. You have to practise to get good.

I have certainly found this to be true in my own coaching practice. I will give you an example of one simple technique I use to change the nature of my clients conversations. I have observed that starting a conversation with two words stops the flow of conversation and ends any hope for productive discourse. Those words? No and but.

These words dont say, Lets discuss this or Id love to hear what you think about this to people. They say, unequivocally, You are wrong and I am right. If your conversation companion is also dedicated to his need to win at any cost, you will have a potential battle on your hands. The result? Nothing productive.

I advise you to start listening to colleagues and to yourself! How many times a day do you start a sentence with no or but? You will likely be shocked at how common it is. If you drill a little deeper, youll see patterns emerge. For instance, some people use these words to gain power. Youll see how much people resent it, consciously or not, and how it stifles rather than opens up discussions.

I use this technique with my clients, by keeping count of their use of these two little words. Its such an important indicator! If the numbers pile up in an initial meeting with a client, Ill interrupt him or her and say, Weve been talking for almost an hour now, and do you realize that you have responded seventeen times with either no or but? This is the moment when a serious talk about changing behaviour begins.

In this book and in his coaching work, Sameer brings his own forms of awareness to coaching conversations and leaders at all levels would do well to pay attention. His techniques are non-judgemental, akin to his earlier work on declaring breakdowns. The powerful theme running through all of this work is to banish shame, accept that failure is part of life and walk with others in empathy. This is powerful stuff, and Sameer makes it accessible to anyone.
I suggest you try it for the sake of your colleagues, your family, your friends and yourself.

Marshall Goldsmith

Thinkers 50 #1 Leadership Thinker and #1 Executive Coach in the World; #1 New York Times bestselling author of Triggers, MOJO and What Got You Here Wont Get You There.

All results come from prior conversations. All of them: the good ones, the bad ones, and the so-so ones. They come from the conversations we have and the conversations we dont have; from the conversations we do well, and the conversations we do poorly. Our conversations dont just describe, they generate.

BOB DUNHAM

AN INVITATION

B ecome is an invitation to choose a powerful posture in your leadership and in life. By posture I am referring to you taking a perspective and shaping yourself to see and acting in a way that fulfils your purpose.

It is an invitation to a posture:

• that we are responsible for generating any result we want in areas that matter to us.
• that the path from where we are to where we want to be is a path of conversations (these missing conversations could be conversations that we have with ourselves, or with others).
• that if a few conversations do not generate the desired results, we will continue to search further for the right conversations. History is witness to the fact that the genesis of any result is prior conversations that shape its possibility, action and outcome.
• of responsibility rather than that of a victim. I will go one step further and state what I call a law: If we feel disempowered or de-energized with regard to a person or a situation, then we are being victims and are not taking responsibility with regard to that person or that situation.

The empowering view I have taken in this book is, If people around us are not delivering results, we are probably not having the requisite conversations with them. The focus in this book is always on us on what conversation we can have next, so that others can generate results that matter.

If you feel you are ready to live your life at this high level of leadership where we are the source of results in our life, this book is for you! This book will help us identify the missing elements in five critical conversational domains and become that impactful leader you have always wanted to be.

What is our choice?

From the way I see it, either we adopt a strategy to have the required conversations to generate results that matter to us, or we face the consequences of not having those conversations.

The most likely consequence? We become victims in areas we care about. The other choice is to give up on the results that matter to us.

However, if we give up on one set of results, by default we have another set of results that we want to generate. So, we are back to square one.

I invite you to a mood of playful wonder. Here, the way we see the world is from the prism that states:

I dont know what is going to show up next irrespective of what shows up, I will enjoy myself.

This invitation of being in the mood of wonder is not only while you are reading this book it is also a great mood to live life in. In this mood, irrespective of what life throws at you, and what events take place, you remain ready to deal with them in a manner that still takes care of what matters to you.