“The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place.”

– George Bernard Shaw

We communicate every day – we can’t not communicate.

It’s more important than ever to understand people as we balance the time we give to our friends, to our studies, to our work, and to ourselves.

With so much on our minds and so much potential for confusion, it’s an additional source of stress we don’t need.

So why don’t we transform unknown stress into known potential?

Bestselling author and Senior Lecturer at MIT, Otto Scharmer pioneers Theory U: an approach to personal, academic, and business life focused on understanding the systems we live in, how they work, and how we can transform them.

conformity vs confrontation vs connection vs co-creation

The greatest beauty in the world is to see what has always been there without you knowing.

For many of us, it’s hard to invest the hours to go through Otto’s books, or the half hour to go through a chapter.

Which is why I condensed a chapter down into an article so you can get this transformative, PhD-level understanding.

Invest a few minutes in enriching your world – you’ll be amazed at what you’ll learn from your own experiences.

4 Key Conversations Types to Turn Stress into Potential

1. DOWNLOADING: talking nicely
You got here by speaking from what others want to hear.
To move to the next level, you need to speak from what you believe.

We’ve all been here, haven’t we?

At school, at work, with our friends and family, it’s easy to find ourselves Downloading without knowing – it’s the natural process of conforming.

If we find ourselves following polite routines, speaking empty phrases and generally saying only what others want to hear, then this is where we’ve arrived.

Is Downloading a bad thing? Not necessarily – it prevents conflict in the short term and helps us get along. However, staying here for too long prevents progressive growth, feels inauthentic and creates internal conflict.

We stop Downloading when we voice our thoughts and make OUR feelings heard. Undoubtedly, this catalyses conflict as it opens the path to debating.

 

2. DEBATING: talking differently
You got here by speaking from what you believe.
To move to the next level, you need to open yourself to other points of view.

Some of us fear being here; some of us relish being here.

When we feel passionate, when we have a point to make and when enough is enough, we enter a place of Debating – a place where we’re confronting.

From this space, empty words change to charged words as we share diverging views that embody what we think and what we believe is important.

Debating fuels change and catalyses new thinking. However, staying here for too long makes us appear disagreeable, argumentative and inflexible – you *become* your point of you.

In a Debating space, our point of view is like a jacket that you’re wearing. Despite it being separate, we treat it as a part of us. When somebody insults our “jacket”, it feels like a personal attack. Where have you felt this? Where have you seen people be like this?

Personally identifying with our opinions is harmful: it limits our ability to learn, to grow and to share when new thoughts enter the room.

We stop Debating when we “take off the jacket” and open ourselves to other – conflicting and adhering – ideas. Opening ourselves to this way of thinking opens up dialogue.

 

3. DIALOGUE: talking reflectively
You got here by opening yourself to other points of view.
To move to the next level, you need to sense and share your deepest thoughts, emotions and energy.

Where confrontation drains us, connection energises us.

When we feel curious, stop defending our “jacket”, and open up to a place of enquiry, we open up Dialogue – a place where we’re connecting.

From this space, we see ourselves as part of a larger whole and, in doing so, find converging views that allow us to reflect on what believe and on what we know.

We go from “being” our jacket to “having” a jacket. When we open ourselves to Dialogue, we’re able to take off our jacket, set it on a chair, and walk around it to explore it from new perspectives. When have you “taken off your jacket”? How did it feel? What did you realise?

Dialogue broadens our understanding to reveal complexity, simplicity and possibility. This space is where people, businesses, organisations, and societies grow from. However, there is another level above this – a level where innovation is born.

We move forward from Dialogue when we speak from a place of sharing the thoughts, emotions and energy moving through us. Embracing the present unlocks collective creativity.

 

4. COLLECTIVE CREATIVITY: talking transformatively
You got here by sensing and sharing your deepest thoughts, emotions and energy.

We’ve all experienced this – we just don’t always realise it.

When we’re with our closest friends, our deepest mentors, and the most brilliant souls, we enter Collective Creativity – a place of shared creation; a place of co-creation.

This space – the hardest to put into words – emerges as we bring ourselves to the present moment: a place unpolluted by regrets of the past and anxieties of the future. We are in a place of generative flow, where old thoughts and new ideas combine to form new concepts that can only be catalysed through shared collaboration.

Recall a time when you were in flow (I wrote about it here); when you were in the zone; when things came to you seamlessly, and you dealt with them effortlessly. Now imagine feeling in flow and conversing with another person in their own flow. That is collective creativity.

This is a very abstract idea for some of us to grasp – so how do you know the last time you felt this?

Remember last time you had a conversation and left feeling like something’s “clicked”; like something’s changed; like something’s transformed.

You know when you’ve had a conversation of collective creativity because the version of you that entered is different from the one that leaves.

The Trick to Make It Work

“What got you to here won’t get you to there.”

We must be prepared to let go of – or at least “hold in stasis” – what we presently feel in order to reach the next level.

To begin Debating, we must stop Downloading; to hold Dialogue, we must stop Debating; to achieve Collective Creativity, we must have faith that we don’t need to intensely focus on Dialogue.

The trick to being high-performing is to learn the flexibility to flow between all four levels.

One of the problems is that many of us go from Downloading to Debating and stop there, only halfway up the ladder.

Making It Work, Realistically

You may be thinking, “I can’t use this – I’m in a place where people expect me to conform: I’m expected to only say what others want me to say, regardless of what I think.”

We all have to tackle with this issue is some shape or form. My biggest clash was in high school where I wanted to be outspoken in an environment that required me to conform.

The key is flexible integrity – the ability to be authentic to yourself and others even while moulding to the status quo.

In the next article, I’ll share how you can use levels of conversation discussed in this article to enhance your ability to be authentic in any situation through flexible integrity.

Want to learn more about how to embody authenticity? Check out “The 1 Crucial Thing to Remember When You Walk into University“