The Three-Minute Magic Conversation: Upgrade Your Communication Skills To Inspire Daily
Win The Day
February 17, 2020
Magic Numbers: The Code Of Success
February 17, 2020
“Love and accountability are the two main ingredients of leadership.” Jon Gordon
STEP 1: Catch
- Catch them doing something right (reinforcement of the positive).
- The most important step of the three. If you could ONLY do one of the three steps daily, make it this one.
“There are no rules without relationships.” -Mack Brown
STEP 2: Challenge/Coach
- Option One: Ask, “What is the number one toughest challenge you are facing right now, and what can I do to help?”
- Option Two: Challenge them directly to improve something in a way that inspires them to do better. Ask them “How would you do this different/better in the future?”, or…Teach them how to improve it specifically.
“A team of Stanford, Yale, and Columbia researchers discovered that on particular form of feedback boosted student effort on their written essays so immensely that they deemed it “magical feedback”. It consisted of one simple phrase: I’m giving you these comments because I have very high expectations and I know that you can reach them. When you look more closely at the sentence, it contains three separate cues:
- You are part of this group.
- This group is special; we have high standards here.
- I believe you can reach those standards.
These signals provide a clear message that lights up the unconscious brain: Here is a safe place to give effort.”-Daniel Coyle, The Culture Code
STEP 3: Cross Examine
- Learn something new about them. This will fall into the following 4 categories: What makes them happy? What makes them sad? Where they’ve been? Where they want to go?
- Ask them, “What do you think?” This could be about something specific in the organization. Or something outside the organization.
“You can be unbelievably demanding and challenging on people if they know how much you care.” -James Franklin
Do this EVERY DAY at work with just ONE PERSON.
Schedule one conversation each day.
Write down that day who you spoke to in a notebook or in your phone notepad.
You can have these conversations in as little as 3 minutes a day, so there is no excuse not to do this.
Do this with ONE NEW PERSON EACH DAY. Repeat once you have spoken to every team member.
If you commit to having these conversations every workday for 90 days (if you miss one day, that’s okay…just don’t miss two days in a row), you will be amazed by the dramatic improvement in the happiness and effectiveness of your organization and your team members.
Don’t overthink this.
Just do it.
