The Conversation Is The Relationship...

Author David Whyte suggested that in the typical marriage, the young man, newly married, is often frustrated that this person with whom he intends to enjoy the rest of his life seemingly needs to talk, yet again, about the same thing they talked about last weekend.  And it often has something to do with their relationship.  He wonders, "Why are we talking about this again?  I thought we settled this. Couldn't we just have one huge conversation about our relationship and then coast for a year or two?"


Apparently not, because here she did it again.  Eventually, if he is paying attention, it occurs to him that this ongoing, robust conversation he has been having with his wife is not about the relationship.  The conversation is the relationship.


[Fierce Conversations]

...Always Connect One's Voice and One's Touch

[One of the best descriptions of authentic, well-intentioned communications, influence, and ultimately, leadership comes from this true story written by Max Dupree in Leadership Jazz]

Esther, my wife, and I have a granddaugher named Zoe, the Greek word for "life." She was born prematurely and weighed one pound, seven ounces, so small that my wedding ring could slide up her arm to her shoulder. The neonatologist who first examined her told us that she had a 5 to 10 percent chance of living three days. When Esther and I scrubbed up for our first visit and saw Zoe in her isolette in the neonatal intensive care unit, she had two IVs in her navel, one in her foot, a monitor on each side of her chest, and a respirator tube and a feeding tube in her mouth.

To complicate matters, Zoe's biological father had jumped ship the month before Zoe was born. Realizing this, a wise and caring nurse named Ruth gave me my instructions. "For the next several months, at least, you're the surrogate father. I want you to come to the hospital every day to visit Zoe, and when you come, I would like you to rub her body and her legs and arms with the tip of her finger. While you're caressing her, you should tell her over and over how much you love her, because she has to be able to connect your voice to your touch."


Ruth was doing exactly the right thing on Zoe's behalf (and, of course, on my behalf as well), and without realizing it she was giving me one of the best possible descriptions of leader is the need always to connect one's voice and one's touch.

On Courage

"Do not fear death so much, but rather an inadequate life." 

Courage is vital for survival and requires acts of bravery in some form. A great act of courage is to step up and repair fragile, important relationships.

Too often people take pride in holding grudges, expending wasteful energy on further polarizing even the most significant relationships.

Be the brave one to re-open conversations by initiating and keeping the dialogue open. Have the conversation that you are afraid of having. Chances are it is long overdo and it will be easier than you think.

Talking To God

"So far today, God, I've done alright.  I haven't been grumpy, nasty or self-centered.  I'm really glad about that.  But in a few minutes, God, I'm going to get out of bed and then I'm going to need a lot of help. Thank-you."

"Bossiness" doesn't work...

Positional Power–influence based in your job description-is the weakest form of influence.  You can use your “title” to force people to do things, but there is no respect or loyalty, only building hostilities.

Relationship Power-influence based in who you are and what you represent-is the strongest form of influence.  People will listen out of loyalty and devotion.

Common sense?
Did you ever notice that common sense isn't commonly practiced.

We live in a society very different than twenty years ago. The continual barrage of information has left people smarter, skeptical, and angry.  It's harder to influence anyone to do anything because our society is filled with messages affirming entitlement and a "we don't HAVE to" attitude.

Building relationships--building trust one conversation at a time--is the only strategy for building sustaining influence necessary for a productive environment, whether talking about a classroom or a workgroup. 

What Is Your Intention?

Your intention behind your actions is an important place to begin to understand your level of authenticity. Integrity based communication not only matches your spoken words to your intended message, but it also matches your intentions to moral principles of integrity, empathy, fairness, compassion.

Truthfulness should be filtered through the skill of making choices on "how you choose to say it."  Trivial matters that have no benefits to your "honesty"(benefits:  i.e. making the situation better in some way), it's what's left unsaid that is the integrity-based choice.

Through years of training and consulting, I've come across many individuals who proudly announce, "I have no trouble being honest!  I tell it like it is!"  I instantly know they are the aggressors who take pride in bullying others and who have no more self-awareness than someone who never owned a mirror.  Their effectiveness is minimal and they take a sadistic pride in their "directness" and veiled "honesty."

Telling your elderly aunt that her hair is thinning...or to mention to your uncle that he has bad breath...serves no purpose to the greater good outcome of relationship building in communications.


Truthfulness without the skill of tact and diplomacy leads to brashness and rudeness. It takes developed wisdom to discern situations and realize that it's most important to keep your own integrity in check by keeping the integrity of the other person a priority.