Timestamps

00:00:00: Introduction
00:01:21: Some common scenarios...
00:01:42: ... 1: being interrupted
00:06:20: ... 2: avoiding conflict
00:09:08: ... 3: constructive challenge
00:14:47: ... 4: people-pleasers
00:16:56: ... 5: repeating the same conversation
00:22:11: ... 6: indirect vs direct
00:24:51: ... 7: reading a situation incorrectly
00:27:14: Stand-out ideas
00:31:11: People love to disagree
00:32:27: Jefferson's career advice
00:33:12: Final thoughts

Interview Transcription

Sarah Ellis: Hi everyone, my name's Sarah and this is the Squiggly Careers podcast.  This week is one of our Ask the Expert episodes where I'll be talking to Jefferson Fisher, who's the author of a book called The Next Conversation.  And you might also know him from his very popular YouTube and Instagram videos, where he talks all about how we can communicate better.  He's a lawyer, he still is a lawyer in Texas, and he's just created all of these incredibly useful short videos to help with some of those challenges that I think we can all appreciate, things like small talk, what to do when someone disagrees with you, what about when somebody's very different to you, and I think you're going to really find this conversation useful.  It's very practical.  Jefferson is an absolute pro and he was a real pleasure to spend time with.  Every situation or scenario that I threw his way, he had an action or an idea that felt really relevant and that I could put into practice really quickly.  So, I hope you find this conversation as useful as I did and I'll be back at the end to say bye. 

So, Jefferson, thank you so much for joining us on the Squiggly Careers podcast.  I'm really looking forward to our conversation today.

Jefferson Fisher: Thank you so much for having me.  I'm honoured to be here.

Sarah Ellis: We are going to dive straight in with some common situations I think lots of our listeners will recognise and probably need some help with.  And from watching lots of your videos on Instagram, and if you've not watched those, I'd really recommend them, and reading your book, you've got really practical ideas.  So, that's where I think we can be most helpful for our listeners today.  So, we're going to start off with scenario one.  Imagine you are in conversations with someone more senior than you, so a manager or a leader, could be your manager, could be someone from a different department, and you are trying really hard to be assertive, to share your thoughts and your point of view and your perspective, but you're getting interrupted.  Where could somebody start if they were like, "Oh, I'm just coming away from those conversations feeling a bit maybe a bit disheartened and probably a bit demotivated"?

Jefferson Fisher: When you're in the workplace, somebody who's senior than you, it can become disheartening when somebody is interrupting you because you feel like you're getting stepped on, you feel like your thoughts, your questions, your voice is getting stepped on.  This is what I recommend.  Anytime that somebody interrupts you, number one, let them interrupt you.  The first time, you're going to just let them interrupt.  That means you're going to stop what you're saying immediately and let them keep going.  Why?  Several reasons.  One, because they weren't listening to you anyway. 

Sarah Ellis: Yeah, I thought of that!  Okay, yeah. 

Jefferson Fisher: They weren't going to listen to you anyway.  They were already planning their first opening act.  So, just let it go.  Pop the seal, let them talk.  Eventually, they're going to stop.  Another reason why I like to let them interrupt is because some people are neurodivergent.  Some people don't have the emotional fluency to understand the politeness and typical procedure of conversation.  And so, when you can give just a little bit of grace for somebody who possibly can't help but interrupt, or have to get that thought out or they're going to lose it, it's going to be a whole lot better because we've seen the downside of it when somebody interrupts you and you might have this snarky reply where you're going, "Excuse me, I'm still talking".  What does everybody do?  They go, "Whoa, whoa, whoa, okay, go ahead.  All right, excuse me, somebody's got something to say", and all of the spotlight goes on you because it feels very desperate, like you're, "No, no, no, I'm the one who's talking, I'm the one that has control", and typically it's not a very good look.  So, let them talk the first time. 

Number two, if they interrupt again, meaning you're going to continue as soon as they're done talking, you're going to pick back up exactly where you left off.  Keep on talking, and that's going to signal to them that they're already interrupting.  If they do again, what I want you to use is first their name.  Use their name.  Why?  Because names get people's attention.  There's not a greater word in the universe to them than the sound of their own name.  So, whenever you can use their name and use this phrase, say, "I can't hear you when you interrupt me".  So, if you're talking to somebody and it's, "Greg", I don't know, that sounds like a very UK name!

Sarah Ellis: Let's go with Greg, I like it!

Jefferson Fisher: Yeah, and you say, "Greg, I can't hear you when you interrupt me".  And if that feels too direct, say, "I lose my train of thought". 

Sarah Ellis: Yeah, I think I couldn't do number one.  I'd find number one too direct for my own personality. 

Jefferson Fisher: Exactly, yeah.

Sarah Ellis: I could do number two.

Jefferson Fisher: Right, there you go.  Well, it's important to use their name, "Greg, I can't hear you, I'm starting to lose my train of thought".  That thing sounds a little bit softer.  So, we'll talk about this, the engagement of very direct versus more of the indirect, very polite, subtle, softer side.  Each one has their strengths.  

Then, three, let's say they continually interrupt, they're not at all interested in this conversation.  One very easy, simple solution to that is ask the question, "Is this a conversation?"  That typically will relate to them, "I'm not engaging in this, I'm just listening here".  Really, you're just attending a lecture if they're the ones going to be talking all of the time.  Now, you go, "Well, that feels a little bit too direct for me, Jefferson", it has a lot to do with your tone.  If you get in the habit of turning your statements into questions, that goes a lot softer.  It doesn't feel nearly as direct.  Instead of the, "I guess my opinion's not helpful", instead of that, that's very direct, I would switch that, turn it into a question, "Would it help to have my opinion?"

Sarah Ellis: Yeah.

Jefferson Fisher: That's a little bit softer.  Or, "Would my opinion be helpful?" also a little bit softer.  So, you get in the habit of turning statements that feel really direct into a question, and it softens the blow and says the same thing.

Sarah Ellis: What if you are someone like me who doesn't like conflict?  So, I don't like arguing, I don't like conflict, and often when I say that to lots of our community, you get lots of people nodding along.  What could I do to prepare? 

Jefferson Fisher: When you feel like you are getting nervous or worked up or you are conflict-avoidant, there's nothing wrong with that.  In fact, I would say to anybody listening who's conflict avoidant, "That means you really love your peace", and that's a good sign.  If you're hearing that, that's a strength, congratulations, you have some emotional intelligence there.  Number two, if you want to feel less nervous, a lot of it has to do with your breath.  When you're listening to conflict, a lot of the times you will hold your breath.  When you are in conflict, you will hold your breath.  Probably even right now, us talking without thinking, we will hold our breath.  Why?  Because our body is getting us ready for the fight or flight.  We are feeling the tension in our muscles.  That's why we might clench our fists or we might clench our jaw in some way, because our body's going, "I don't know what's happening, but I need to protect myself in some way".  Or we need to run from it.  Some people might hang up the phone if it starts to get into an argument, or they want to leave the room, slam the door, anything like that.  Your breath, the reason why your breath is so important is that it gives you time.  So, using that is a wonderful tool. 

Three, when it comes to being able to avoid the conflict, there's nothing wrong with avoiding the conflict.  What you need to think in your mind is, "What is the takeaway and what's my value that I'm here?"  If they don't match with where you're at, then you know that you're not in the right spot, and then you can feel guilt-free to leave that conflict.  You might be in a conflict and all of a sudden, you feel incredibly uncomfortable.  Most of the time, it's because, one, you don't know the takeaway, what's the point?  Why are we talking about this?  So, you don't know the end goal and that's very confusing.  Two is, you don't know the value of why you're there.  So, what's the value space you're holding, is what the therapist was saying, right?  What's my value?  Am I here for justice?  Am I here to stand up for X, Y, and Z?  Is this a value that is a part of my core?  And so, a lot of times, it's not so much that you avoid the conflict, you're avoiding the lack of clarity in the confrontation, because you're not seeing the point. 

I also find that people who avoid conflict don't really sweat the small things, they tend to look at the big picture.  They like to understand what's the takeaway, what's the goal, what's the objective, and then they go, "Oh, okay, well then this isn't that big of a deal".  They have a lot of perspective in the conversation, so I would still see it very much as a strength.

Sarah Ellis: Someone once gave me some advice when I was in big organisations, talking about some of the jobs that I wanted to do.  And they did say to me, "You need to get better at constructive challenge, Sarah, if you want to do those jobs, because there's no way people are going to agree all of the time".  And actually, that's also a good thing because we want different points of view and perspectives.  I still don't enjoy it, but at least I can do it.

Jefferson Fisher: Right, yeah.  And I'll even give you a framework that's going to help with that. 

Sarah Ellis: Okay, I'm ready. 

Jefferson Fisher: It's called a frame, a conversational frame.  And there's three steps to it, of course.  So, step one, and for anybody listening or watching, you can apply this for any situation, not just workplace, we're talking the boardroom to the living room.  And if you apply this frame, this structure is what it is, it's a structure for having these conversations, when you actually use this frame, I promise you, you will have a much better conversation. 

So, step one is you tell them what you want to talk about.  You simply talk about the subject, whatever it is.  You want to talk about the budget, you want to talk about the kids' schedule, you want to talk about the upcoming meeting that you have tomorrow.  Whatever it is, you talk about the subject.  So, step number two is you tell them how you want the conversation to end.  That's the main key right there.  A lot of people miss that.  You're telling them what you want to walk away with, you're telling them what the purpose of that conversation is.  Step three, you get their buy-in into the frame.  So, you're getting them to agree to the one, two, three, you're getting them to agree to the picture, all right?  So, the idea is, when you put a frame around a picture, it enhances the art.  I mean, the art changes depending on the frame that you have it in, it looks totally different.  It's the same type of concept. 

So, let's put it in a business context first.  So, it would sound like this.  "Hey, I'd like to talk with you about our budget meeting later this afternoon, and I just want to walk away with this conversation with us being on the same page.  Does that sound good?"  Now you know exactly what we're talking about, rather than me saying, "Hey, do you have five minutes later today?"  You have no idea what we're going to be talking about.  Or, let's say it needs to have some discipline involved.  You'd say, "Hey, I'd like to talk with you about some comments you made at yesterday's meeting, and we need to walk away from that conversation with the understanding that's not acceptable here, all right?"  And they go, "All right".  And you know good and well they're going to agree to it.  Why?  Because you've told them exactly what you need to talk about and exactly when that conversation is ending.  And that reduces anxiety, because what happens typically is we say, "You got five minutes?  Hey, so I've been meaning to tell you and you can totally tell me if you disagree or not.  And I mean, so essentially, basically you made some comments at yesterday's meeting when you had the thing", and it just dissolves and people are going, "What are you talking about?"

Sarah Ellis: And in that first part of the frame, would you ever signal to somebody out loud if it was going to be a difficult conversation?

Jefferson Fisher: Absolutely.  Let's say it's -- I put these in a 'sensitive' category.  So, we have something sensitive to talk about that's maybe personal and private.  Or we have something hard to talk about.  Maybe you have to deliver bad news, or maybe you need to fire someone, let them go. Yes.  Whenever you start with the niceties first and then you end with the difficult, it creates this contrast of --

Sarah Ellis: Yeah, dissonance almost.

Jefferson Fisher: There's a lot of dissonance and a lack of feeling like it was authentic and genuine.  Because this is how these types of conversations go typically, is you sit down, let's say this is our office, and you sit down and I need to have a hard conversation with you.  You might sit down and I go, "So, how's everything?  You good?  Did you check out that new place that was open?  That's crazy.  Yeah, wow.  So, listen", and right there, that's the line right there.  You say, "So, listen", or, "So, anyways", or I might say something wonderful about you.  I'll say, "You've been so good here.  We really enjoy having you.  But", and I use the word but, it just deletes everything ahead of it. 

Instead of all of that, because it creates distrust, is you label the conversation.  You say something as simple as, "This is going to be a difficult conversation", or, "This isn't going to be fun to talk about", or, "I'm not looking forward to this conversation", or, "This might come as a shock to you".  It can be as simple as, "This is going to be a difficult conversation, this is going to be a difficult conversation for us".  Pause, because it allows them to take a moment to ready themselves.  Then deliver what you need to deliver, "The project isn't progressing like it needs to, and I want to walk away at the end of this conversation with a plan of what we need to do to make sure that we continue to be on the same schedule and be aligned in this.  Sound good?" 

Sarah Ellis: Yeah. 

Jefferson Fisher: And then, using that label is a great way to be honest, genuine, and now they're in it with you.  Because otherwise, if you wait till the very end, they're left wondering, "Am I getting fired?  Is this bad?  What's happening?  Because we feel it.  Anytime you email or text, "We need to talk", they just think the worst.

Sarah Ellis: And how about if you are somebody who perhaps gets stuck in people-pleasing?  And this is something that we've heard quite a few times from our community, from our listeners.  What could just give people the confidence?  I feel often it is about the confidence, the confidence to be like, "I know I'm a people-pleaser and I'm still going to have the hard conversation".

Jefferson Fisher: Yes.  I like to teach that it's okay to be a people-pleaser, as long as you make sure you're one of them, as long as you make sure you're also taking care of yourself.  If there's one thing that, if you're listening and you're a people-pleaser, a phrase that I want you to start using more often at the beginning of your sentence, and it's going to feel weird, is using the phrase, "I need".  Even if it's, "I need a little bit more clarity around this X, Y, and Z", or, "I need to let you know that I am at 90% capacity on my workload.  I'll try and get to it as soon as I can.  I need to X, Y, and Z".  Whenever you're saying, "I need", the reason why I encourage that phrase is that it pushes you to state what you personally need, instead of just assuming people will know or expecting that people will just feel it out or that they should know.  Whenever you are able to speak it out, I mean, you are forcing out your own personal values and needs.  And so, when you say that phrase, "I need", it's going to feel probably a little weird, but that is exactly what you need, "I need a little more time with this.  I need some time to think about this.  I need X, Y, and Z".  When you use that phrase, it's going to allow you to share a little bit more of what you personally are feeling like you're not voicing nearly as much. 

So, anytime you're able to say, "I need to better understand, I need more clarity, I need to leave", you see how you're automatically putting in the boundaries?  You're removing the people-pleasing, "I need to say no to that project".

Sarah Ellis: One of the questions that I got from our listeners, which I thought was a good one, because it was a bit trickier than maybe something in the moment, what do you do when you feel like you are having a good conversation?  So, let's imagine for a moment you're very senior, you're not my boss but you're very senior and we work together, and actually I feel like in a conversation, I am asserting myself.  We come away and it feels like a productive conversation.  But then, the next time that we catch up, nothing's changed, or it feels like maybe we're going around in circles.  So, I feel like I'm having to have the same conversation more than once, and maybe that continues to recur, like feels good in the moment but then actually, your confidence of anything actually changing after a conversation is just going down and down and down.  How do we then approach that?  Where could we go now?

Jefferson Fisher: Where you don't want to go is to assume why it's happening, assume they're not listening, assume they don't care, assume that you've done something wrong.  That's a negative dark space; don't go there.  Instead, what I want you to do is become the student in the conversation, meaning have a learner's mindset.  Let's say you and I -- let's put it in context of me and you.  You're my supervisor.  We've had a conversation, which I thought was very productive.  A few weeks later, I realise, "Wait, this is the same discussion".  Instead of me going, "We've already talked about this, did you not listen to me?  Or you don't even really care about my opinion?  What's happening here?" instead of that, become the student.  Why?  Because they will always give you more information if they feel like they're teaching, strategically.  So instead, I would come to you and say, "Help me understand", or, "I need your help.  I need your help understanding something.  I hear us on this X, Y, and Z that we just talked about.  From what I remember, we discussed this, but help me understand, is this a different conversation than the one that we had?  Or maybe, is your mindset different than it was a few weeks ago?  Or help me understand if things have changed".

Whenever you say, "Help me understand", instead of it being me across from you, it's like me grabbing, getting your chair and you sitting beside me, and then pointing it out together, and that now we're teammates, instead of looking at it together.  And then that way, you're not getting defensive, you're going to feel a whole lot more open and say, "Oh, let me teach him my thought process".  Or even if I say, "Help me understand your thought process.  That is a lot more picking up the vibe of like indirect, a little bit more indirect, soft communication. 

Sarah Ellis: Me personally, but not everyone listening!

Jefferson Fisher: Not everyone, yeah, and there's nothing wrong with that.  If you're interested in their thought process and your understanding, you're interested in learning, "I'd like to learn where your head is here.  I'd like to learn what your thought process is on this conversation compared to last week's conversation".  You see how I'm not trying to push blame of, "I don't know why we're talking about this because we talked about this last week".  That comes across as they're incompetent, you're getting defensive, you're trying to get difficult. 

Sarah Ellis: Blame-y, yeah. 

Jefferson Fisher: Exactly, and there's the dissonance.  Instead, if I say, "I need your help with me understanding your thought process on why or how this conversation is different from the one last week", that's going to be a whole lot better for you.  So, takeaway is, when in positions of somebody's more senior than you, turn them into learning conversations, they're the teacher, you're the student.  Why?  Because they will tell you more.  Often, they will tell you stories.  So, let's say, even for example, I need to talk about something that's been important to me that maybe I need a raise, maybe I complain, maybe there's something I'm not liking.  There's a difference in me coming to sit down with you and I have the anxiety of, "Okay, so I have something to talk with you about and it's not that big of a deal, I promise, but this is just whatever", and you're going, "What's happening here?"  The manager thinks you're leaving, and so immediately they're thinking, "What's happening?  Are you leaving?  I don't know, you're creating anxiety".

Instead, when you can say, "Can you help me understand when you were in my shoes, what did you do to X Y & Z?  What did you do to get a promotion or continue to improve?  Or how did you handle this situation?"  And all of a sudden, they don't take it personally, even though you're directing it at them.  They go, "Oh, when I was in your position, you know what I had", and they begin to tell a story, and they start to give little nuggets of what they found was the most important thing.  Or you can ask, "What did you find to be the biggest leverage point or the biggest move-maker for you?  So, anytime you can turn those moments into student learning, it's going to happen.

And what about with, as you were describing that then, and you were saying, "Oh, I feel like you're probably a bit more indirect", which would be true, what if you are naturally more indirect, but you work with someone who's very direct?  Could be a peer, just could be someone in the same team.  Perhaps it feels quite hard to work together, because you have that in every team, where everybody's styles are slightly different.  And I guess the risk is, you gravitate away from those people because you find it too hard.  But then, I think you miss out on a lot, you miss out on a lot of learning.  So, do you think the student-teacher concept would work quite well there, or is there another build that you'd add?

Jefferson Fisher: The student-teacher definitely could work.

Sarah Ellis: Yeah, I thought that.

Jefferson Fisher: I think also, you have to remove the element of taking things personally.  It's very difficult to not turn everything about us, that they didn't say hi on purpose, they sent this email to sound rude on purpose.  And whenever you start to take things personally, it can weigh you down.  It can create a lot of invisible, unspoken expectations and assumptions.  And that's the key word, the 'unspoken'.  Those things are a quick way to sink any ship in the workplace, is unspoken conversations and expectations. 

So, one would be the learning mindset, the student learning mindset.  Two would be not taking things personally.  One phrase you can use is, "Did you mean?"  I love this phrase because you can use it in a lot of different contexts, but it was, "Did you mean to leave my name off of this report?  Did you mean for that to sound short?"  When you ever say, "Did you mean?" it's giving them the chance to clarify what they said.  Three is to recognize that each has their strength.  I find that people that tend to be indirect in their conversations are much more emotionally intelligent.  They pay attention more to the soft skills, the soft cues, they're more in tune with the energy and frequency of the room than people who I'd say might be a little bit more confident, a little bit more assured of themselves.  That assurance can sometimes blind them to the frequency of feelings of other people.  It is necessary.  There's a reason why your eyes work differently than your hands.  They don't take it personally.  It's just they have different skillsets.  So, see it as it's more complimentary than anything, rather than contrasting.

Sarah Ellis: I remember really wishing that I had done the, "Did you mean?" when I worked with somebody who was very direct, and I found it really hard.  And I started to definitely take it personally, you know, the amount of headspace that it took up for me.  I don't think I was thinking, "Did he mean?" I was thinking, "He did mean".  I'd convinced myself, and then he offered me a job!  He was like, "I'd love you to come and work in our team, I think you're brilliant".  And you know when you are sitting there just being like --

Jefferson Fisher: "I thought you hated me".

Sarah Ellis: Yeah.  I don't think actually he thought about me at all.  So, I think that's what I actually learnt almost from that conversation, whereas I don't think took up any of his headspace other than, "She does the job that she does". 

Jefferson Fisher: He didn't give it a second thought, yeah.

Sarah Ellis: Yeah, and I had a bit of a reframe.  And you talk about reframing and reversing triggers and stuff in the book, which I found really interesting.  I had an important reframe just in my head that went from when people are different, I think I was saying, "Different equals difficult".  So, I was labelling people as like, "They're different to me and different equals difficult", whereas actually, then I just went, "Oh, they're just different to me". 

Jefferson Fisher: Right.

Sarah Ellis: So, I sometimes think perhaps for people listening, maybe notice what you say to yourself that might stop you from having really assertive and productive conversations, because some of that noticing for me made a really big difference.

Jefferson Fisher: Yeah, I love that, it's well said.  I really like that.  Yeah, I think that there is this whole thought of when people come to me and they say, "I have a really difficult conversation coming up", usually the first question I ask is, "What makes it difficult?"  And they go, "Well…" and they have a hard time articulating it.  "Well, maybe is it the topic that's difficult?  Well, what makes it difficult?"  And it's usually just the label they've placed on it.  They've just chosen to see it as difficult.  The topic itself in a vacuum is not difficult, the person on the other end is not necessarily difficult, it's just there's that sense of uncomfortableness that they have that they've decided that it's already going to be difficult. 

Whenever you can use 'easy, nice, light-hearted, quick, casual', use a different word other than 'difficult'.  And you label it, it naturally makes it feel exactly as you've labelled it, instead of difficult.

Sarah Ellis: From all of the videos that you've done from the process of writing the book, what are the one or two ideas that really stand out, from all the conversations that you've had, that people keep coming back to?

Jefferson Fisher: There's one phrase that I have found people get a lot of value out of, and it's a phrase that's going to help you in disagreements with people, and it's a phrase that's going to remove the defensiveness and going to open up more conversation, and this is the phrase, "I see things differently", instead of saying, "I disagree, I don't agree".

Sarah Ellis: Yeah, I don't think I've ever said that out loud!

Jefferson Fisher: Maybe so!  Anytime you say that, most people, they get very defensive or it feels very uncomfortable to them, it feels too much, typically because you're arguing the point.  If you say, "I see things differently", then you are talking about your perspective.  Maybe you've told me something and I don't really agree with it.  Somebody who's indirect might go, "Well, I mean that's one way of looking at it perhaps, maybe.  I mean, yes, that is something".  Or somebody who's very strong says, "No, I don't agree with that, no, I think that's totally wrong".  Either one causes a little bit of dissonance.  But if I go to perspective, I talk about what I see, what I look at, what I view, using perspective framing words, nobody gets defensive.  So, if I say, "I see things differently", or, "I take another approach", or, "I have a different perspective", or, "I look at it another way", then it becomes a lot more inquisitive over, "How are you seeing it over there?  I wonder what's going on". 

Another mindset that anybody listening can apply to any conversation that they have is this, have something to learn, not something to prove.  When we get into conversations, we often feel like we have to prove our point, they have to understand us, they have to take in exactly what we say.  Instead, have that learning mindset.  Instead of going, "I can't believe they're not agreeing with me.  No, they need to understand this", it's more of a question of, "I wonder why they said that.  I wonder where that's coming from.  I wonder why he or she responded that way".  Rather than looking at the surface of the response, look deeper behind the motivations and intentions of the person.  And one word that's going to help with that is the word 'maybe'.  That helps you just not take things personally.  Maybe they're having a hard day, maybe they didn't see my email, maybe they're feeling overwhelmed, maybe X, Y, and Z.  It helps you give a little bit more benefits of the doubt. 

Then finally, I'd leave one that could help in the workplace.  And this is for if you've ever been at a table and you're giving out ideas, and you feel like people just put down your idea.  Why?  Well, it's because it wasn't their idea, right?  People think their idea is the best idea and they want everybody to agree with their idea.  And unless yours is fully thought-out and tied with a bow, they're going to find some way to poke an arrow into it.  Instead, use a percentage.  Say, "I have roughly 70% of an idea.  I need help with the other 30%", "I have 80% of an idea, I have 50% of an idea".  And what you're inviting is for them to fill up the other percentage.  And now, they'll take it as a competition or now, they're invested in collaborating to complete the 100.  And now they'll go, "Oh, no, what would be cool is…" you're adding on to the language, adding on to the idea, feeling like it's now collaborative rather than, is your idea the perfect spitting image of what everybody needs to agree on right now.  So, just a quick little percentage is a great little trick.

Sarah Ellis: I think that's a very smart thing to do when you're trying to influence and persuade people to make a decision.  I used to do something that was almost the opposite of that but that also works well, where I would say to people, "Here's the idea", but almost, "Tell me all the reasons why this won't work".  But through telling me the reasons why it wouldn't work, they then also come up with the solutions to make sure that it did.  And I did used to find that actually particularly senior people, they loved then stress-testing those challenges and being like, "Oh, yeah, but we could do this.  And what about this idea?"

Jefferson Fisher: You know why that is?

Sarah Ellis: Why?

Jefferson Fisher: Because we love to disagree with people. 

Sarah Ellis: Yeah. 

Jefferson Fisher: And we will find the way to think the converse.  So, if I were to tell you, "Look, I don't mean this rude, but…" and I tell you something, it doesn't matter what I say, you're going to think it's rude. 

Sarah Ellis: Yeah. 

Jefferson Fisher: If I say, "I don't mean this disrespectfully", you naturally think, "No, it's going to be disrespectful".  But if I switch it to say, "You're probably going to think this is rude", and then I tell you, you're naturally going to think, "I don't think it's rude.  I think it's fine".  We love to think the converse of other things.  It's just a part of human nature.  But when you can use that to your advantage strategically in effective communication, it's going to go a lot better.

Sarah Ellis: We always finish our podcast episodes by asking our experts to share just one piece of career advice that you'd like to leave our listeners with today.

Jefferson Fisher: Humility is never a bad move.  I find humility to be such a wonderful trait and asset, no matter where you are.  It doesn't matter the accolade, doesn't matter how efficient or proficient you are, humility is always recognised.

Sarah Ellis: Jefferson, thank you so much for being in the UK.  It's really nice that we were able to have this conversation in person.  And I feel very privileged to have met somebody in real life that so many people have told me has had such a positive impact on their day-to-day communications.  So, thank you.

Jefferson Fisher: Thank you very much, I appreciate it.  Thanks for having me.

Sarah Ellis: So, thank you for listening to the Squiggly Careers podcast today.  I hope you enjoyed our conversation with Jefferson.  So many things that it made me reflect on, in terms of the quality of my own conversations and perhaps some things that I'm going to try to do differently.  If there are other experts that you'd love to hear from, please let us know.  You can always email us, we're helenandsarah@squigglycareers.com.  But that's everything for this week, thank you so much for listening or watching, and we're back with you again soon.  Bye for now.