Concept
Facts before story
Facts before story is the first move of STATE, Crucial Conversations' five steps for speaking up: open with the specific, observable things anyone in the room would agree happened, and only then say the conclusion you drew from them, labelled as a conclusion.
The authors describe a path to action that runs in a second: you see and hear something, you tell yourself a story about what it means, the story produces a feeling, the feeling produces what you do. Only the first and last steps are visible, so most hard conversations open at the last one, with a verdict, and explode. 'She missed the deadline twice' is a fact; 'she doesn't respect the team' is a story. Facts are hard to argue with and easy to add to; the other person can supply the fact you were missing, which is often the whole conversation. The story then follows, as a story: 'I have started to wonder whether'.
A real-life example
A sales manager has decided that a new hire 'doesn't take clients seriously'. His facts: she joined two client calls ten minutes late this month and sent one proposal without the price page. He opens with those facts and asks what happened. The shared calendar had booked the calls in the wrong time zone, and the client had asked for the scope before the price. The story was wrong; the facts were right.
How to use it
- 1Before the conversation, write two lists: what you observed, what you concluded.
- 2Open with the first list only.
- 3Introduce the second as a conclusion you might have wrong.