Conversational

2017
for Coaches

WBECS recommends

Strengthening Relationships,
Partnerships and Teamwork
Articles

How to Use
Conversational
Intelligence ®

in your Coaching
Practice:
How Great Leaders Build Trust and
Get Extraordinary Results

By Judith E. Glaser
Chairman, Creating WE Institute
A World of Change in Thought Leadership

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How to Use
Conversational
Intelligence®
The book Conversational Intelligence explores how conversa-
tions trigger different parts of our brain, and how they either
catalyze our brains to connect, trust and create new ideas or
“freeze” our brains in protective habit patterns.

When we understand what is happening in our

brains, we can develop conversational skills
that will help us become more successful in all
our relationships.

The concepts and tools in Conversational

Intelligence apply both in looking back at
what happened in the past, and especially
in helping you get in front of the curve, as
you look to create the future with others.
These principles apply to more than just
difficult situations. They open the door to
all relationships — in business; in your
personal life! Conversational Intelligence
will elevate your ability to see and
understand when your connections with
others are not as strong as they need to be
to navigate through challenges or to
This guide refers to Conversational Intelligence by Judith E. Glaser,
achieve goals.
published by Bibliomotion, Inc. 2013. Referenced with permission
of publisher.
Conversational Intelligence can help you
develop the vision to see ahead.

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The Power
of Conversations
As you read the book, you will naturally begin thinking
about how conversations, both good and bad, have
affected your relationships. Perhaps you’ve struggled to
communicate effectively with a colleague, a boss, a friend
or even someone in your own family. Maybe you’ve found
yourself in an escalating argument, where everyone is
fighting for what they see as right and no one is listening
or open to change.

You may be a manager or leader with a strong vision for your department or group, but
find it difficult to get everyone onboard. Or your team may be struggling to achieve a
goal together, because everyone is caught up in their own vision of reality and attachment
to their own priorities, and they are stalled out. Do your conversations often lead to
frustration, distrust and feeling out of sync with those around you?

Conversational IntelligenceTM can help you see your “worst conversations” in new ways
— ways that will help you transform future conversations to strengthen your relationships
with others. Conversational Intelligence can also help you see more clearly what “great
conversations” look like so you can build foresight and learn to shape your conversational
space for mutual success. We are now learning more about how the brain works and
with that, the power of conversations to transform our lives. A simple word is more
than information.

Words contain the power to influence a person’s life –

not just in the moment – for their whole life!

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How You Can

Use this Book
We’ve received emails from people around the globe sharing some of the ways they are using
Conversational Intelligence in their lives. Below are some ideas for how you might use the book
to think differently about relationships in your life, to build better partnerships, and to catalyze
business relationships. Here are some ideas for you to experiment with.

1. Enhancing Existing Relationships

Use the book as a catalyst to enhance relationships at home, in your circle of friends and in
partnerships at work. The book provides ideas for how to use Conversational Intelligence to
move your current relationship to higher levels of trust and integrity.

• Refer to Chapter 2: When We Lose Trust We Lose Our Voice

This chapter provides ideas on how to become more aware about what gets in the way of
building new relationships — and how to use this wisdom to enhance a new relationship.

2. Launching into New Relationships

Use the book to sensitize yourself about what great relationships and great conversations
have in common. Think about the new relationships, partnerships and business endeavors

you are venturing into and read the book to come up with some new ways to prime the new
relationship for higher levels of trust. Specifically read the TRUST sections of the book so you
start out connecting in ways that enhance trust and strengthen relationships before you begin to
launch initiatives.

• Specifically Refer to Chapter 3: How to Move From Distrust to Trust

Read this chapter for ideas on how to re-establish trust in a relationship. Refer to the
Conversational Guide for establishing trust in a new relationship.

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3 Re-setting Relationships that Feel Uncomfortable

Use the book to help you rethink how to get back on track with relationships, partnerships
and initiatives that may be off-track or that cause you to feel distrust or discomfort. You will be
able to identify where you and others are out of sync and how to get back on tract.

• Specifically Refer to Chapters 6, 7 and 8

These chapters will give you ideas for how to get back on track in your relationships. Refer to
pages 63-67 on Blind spots, and also the FORCES Model on pages 102-104, and page 119 for
insights about what triggers us to feel discomfort and fear in an existing relationship.

Examples Using Conversational Intelligence ®

Tips • From Geoff Grenert, MBA:

Coaches can use the book with coaching clients. Ask the client to read the book
and identify the relationships in their life they want to enhance, launch or reset.
Use the book to catalyze Conversational Intelligence strategies.

• From Leadership Solutions and Bob Adams, Vision Room Curator,

AUXANO:

Bob used the book to help him better understand his mother who was 91 and
going through life changes. Reading the book brought out higher levels of Bob’s
empathy for his mother and transformed his conversations with her.

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Conversational Intelligence®

Catalyst
For Relationships and Partnerships
(One-to-One)

Identify one person with whom you want to have a powerful conversation. Next, write down
what gets in the way for you.

Now read Conversational Intelligence, with yourself and the other person in mind. The concepts
and science of conversation will take on deeper meaning as you insert yourself and this person
into the scenarios presented in Parts I and II of the book.

• Refer to the Conversational Dashboard on page 69.

Identify where you are in your relationship with that person. Are you feeling resistance and
feeling you need to protect yourself — or are you feeling high levels of trust and feel they are
someone you can partner with? Reflect on where you would like to be with them. Ask yourself
the question: what would it take for me to move into higher levels of trust with this person.
Experiment!

• Refer to the Conversational Matrix on page 71.

Identify what conversational levels you are operating from with this person: Transactional,
Positional or Transformational. Reflect on what conversational levels you are not using — such
as Level III. Read Part III of the book for ideas on how to get there.

• Refer to Chapter 12: Changing the Game Through Conversational Intelligence on page 183.

Envision the ways in which you can see yourself making changes to relationships, projects,
partnerships and other initiatives in your life — both business and personal. When you have
finished reading the book and applying what you learned to that particular person, you can
then do the same with other people and other conversations in your life. What you will find is
that this book is talking to you, and if you listen and learn, you become a master of higher-level
conversations.

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Conversational Intelligence®

Catalyst
For Business

Conversational Intelligence is not just a guide to activate better conversations; it’s also a catalyst
to empower better business results. Here are a few ideas to start with.

1. Prime a Team to Enhance Productivity:

A particularly effective way to use Conversational Intelligence is with teams, departments and
groups looking to strengthening their team’s level of productivity, ability to tackle difficult
challenges together and to add higher levels of value to the organization.

2. Prime a Team to Elevate Trust:

Every major business challenge starts with building or elevating trust so people can ensure that
conversations are put on the table, all issues are discussed in a transparent way and people feel
they are part of the solution not the problem. Use Conversational Intelligence to enhance trust
with teams, departments and groups — especially when there are high levels of uncertainty and
risk and when the stakes are high.

3. Prime for Cross-functional Trust Building:

Many organizations are seeking to create more WE-centric activities in their organization. Use
Conversational Intelligence to facilitate cross-functional and cross-business conversations. Here
are some ways to use chapters in the book as a catalyst for teams, partnerships, transformations
and other organizational “we-centric” activities — healthy conversations are the catalyst for
success!

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• Getting on the Same Page

Use Conversational Intelligence® to help teams build trust, get on the same page and become
“higher performing” teams.

• Have the team read the book to prime themselves for self-awareness and self-reflection.
Use it to “self assess” where the team is now and define where you’d like the team to move to
for greater success.

• When the team gets together, set rules of engagement. Look at how the team wants to
create a safe conversational space to talk about what is working and what they would like to
improve to
strengthen their levels of trust and enhance their Conversational Intelligence with each other.

• Pay particular attention to Chapter 11: Teaming Up Through Conversational Intelligence.

Review this chapter and have the team read it. Discuss how they are developing their team
cohesion and trust.

• Focus on Sharing and Discovering New Insights

Sharing and discovering insights helps us get to know others better in a very human and
personal way and activate our trust networks.

• Practice listening to connect. Before sharing, prime the conversational space for safety and
trust so people are willing to be open. Ask people to “listen to connect” — which sends signals to
the brain that they don’t have to be fearful that others will judge them. This builds trust and
creates a safe space for every one to speak.

• Practice asking questions for which you have no answers. Ask everyone to share one
insight they gained from the book. Allow every person in the group the opportunity and time to
share and discover what is on their minds.

• Catalyze Insights for Getting to Level III Conversations

Use Conversational Intelligence® to catalyze insights about how to get to the next level of
greatness in important partnerships.

• Pay particular attention to Chapter 6 and 7. Bringing Conversations to Life and

Priming for Level III Conversations.

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– What are your fears or worries around talking to this person? Simply concentrate on what
happens inside your own head as you imagine having this conversation. What did you discover
about yourself?

– Now think about the other person. Write down your insights. What did you discover about the
other person?

– Now apply your insights. Think about two or three things you can do differently with that
person to enhance your conversation.

• Level Set Conversations In Meetings, Off-sites and for Organizational Transformations

Use Conversational Intelligence to learn how to build trust and “Level Set” conversations
throughout your whole organization. By learning how to move from Level I

– Transactional, to Level II – Positional, and into Level III – Transformational Conversations

(Conversational Matrix on page 71), your organization can become empowered to communicate
more effectively with higher levels of candor and positive influence.

• Pay particular attention to Chapter 9, 10 and 12. Tool Kit for Level III Conversations, Leading
With Trust, Changing the Game Through Conversational Intelligence®.

– Frame up the meeting by talking about “sharing and discovering,” which is when we are open
to listen, open to ask questions for which we have no answers, and when we are curious to
learn more about others and ourselves.

– Make commitments. Ask people to take out of the conversation one experiment they are illing
to do to enhance a relationship they have with someone who is important in their lives.

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Transformational impact

Conversations
Transform History
Conversations and relationships go hand in hand. Conversations are about you and others. The
other can be the “self” you talk to every day when you look in the mirror and have
conversations about you now and you of the future. Conversations can take place between you
and your children or spouse, your business partners or your customers. Learning how to
activate pleasure-inducing neurochemicals during these conversations is a life-long,
mysteriously wonderful journey.

The most powerful insight I’ve learned along the way is that Conversations Transform
History! What you say and how you say it with others can have a transformative impact not just
on the moment — it can impact your whole life.

Experiments that Change Your Life

So think about where you want to go on your journey, and with whom. Then take the time to
read this book and start to experiment with the relationships and conversations in your life.
Conversational Intelligence will help you open your eyes to what’s next — and every
conversation will help you get there. Enjoy the journey!

“To get to the next level of greatness

depends on the quality of the culture,
which depends on the quality of the
relationship, which depends on the
quality of the conversation. Everything
happens through conversations!”

Judith E. Glaser

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For your
coaching practice
There are many ways for Coaches to get into C-IQ frameworks and content. All are right and
valuable– each will give you insights that will ripple throughout your coaching practice. I put
together the ‘How to Use Conversational Intelligence' mini-book to give you an overview of some
of the waysI have used the ‘C-IQ book’ so you will have a deeper understanding of how and why
I wrote the book– it’s foundational to all we will work on together in the program.

This guide gives you specific chapters to read before working with your clients on relationships,
or team issues. It gives you specific pages to reference with tools such as the Conversational
Dashboard and Conversational Matrix. I have had coaches use the book as a roadmap for
running monthly or bi-mnthly sessions with clients so once you dive into this you will see so
many ideas spring into your head - it is like a fountain that never stops flowing…

See you soon!

Conversational Intelligence® for Coaches