Establishing Contracts For Purpose, continued
1.Preparation
Basic Steps:
- Gather your thoughts – rein in emotions.
- Clarify the outcome you’re trying to create, or the outcome you want to achieve.
- Think through how you want that to happen.
- Anticipate probable responses from others.
Action Items:
Develop a broad action plan for how you want to play out the interaction. Make a few bullet point notes for support, if that would be helpful.
2. Contracting For Purpose
Basic Steps:
- Start the conversation by clarifying your agenda with the other person/people involved (or asking the other person to clarify theirs if they initiate the conversation).
- Make sure there is some overlap in your purposes for conversation:
- To acknowledge or recognize someone (using conversation to build and maintain the social connection)
- To give or receive information
- To reach an understanding
- To get the person to do something
- To resolve a conflict
- To think innovatively
- Establish a shared understanding about the agenda.
Action Items:
Work the common agenda with attention to staying focused on the “contract” for this interaction.
3. Talking Within The Contract
Basic Steps:
- Debrief with yourself.
- Did the conversation go the way you expected?
- If it didn’t, how do you reconcile the disparity now?
- What did you learn?
Could you have handled Basic Steps:
- Speak professionally, clearly and without undue emotionality.
- Pause and clarify what the other person heard you say – ensure connections.
- Listen to their response with deliberation – pay attention.
- If you have reached a common understanding - acknowledge it.
- If you haven’t reached a common understanding - clarify the part still misunderstood.
- Pause and clarify what the other person heard you say (repeat this step with each exchange of new information).
- Acknowledge the next steps, and/or clarify expectations for any follow-up.
- Clearly and explicitly express the shared understanding that results from your conversation.
- Ask for feedback and closure from the other person.
- Wherever possible, create an outcome that works for all involved.
Action Items:
During the conversation, remember the point of the conversation – stay focused on the goals. Treat this interaction as a production process – you are trying to produce a specific outcome of effect. Ensure that people walk away with the same understanding about what comes next.
4. Learning From What Happened
- the conversation more effectively?
- What could you do more of?
- What should you do less of?
- Did the other person go away more committed to the success of the enterprise?
Action Items:
If the interaction is important enough to contract for purpose, take a few moments after it’s over to review what happened and see what you can learn. Bottom line, how can you do this better the next time?