Concept
The learning stance
The learning stance enters a difficult conversation to find out rather than to deliver: what did they see, what was their story, what do I not know. Its opening is the third story, the description a neutral observer would give, from which both people look at the same thing from the same side.
Stone, Patton and Heen contrast it with the message-delivery stance, which casts the other person as the audience for a verdict and fails even when the verdict is right, because the other person holds half the information and will not surrender it to a judge. The learning stance is not softer; it is more accurate. It is set in the opening line. 'You have been missing deadlines' starts a defence; 'we have different pictures of how the last two deadlines went, and I would like to understand yours before I tell you mine' starts an exchange. The test before entering: is there something I genuinely do not know and want to? If not, you are delivering a message, and the conversation will go the way those go.
A real-life example
A team lead's first draft opens a one-to-one with 'that was not acceptable'. Her third-story opening, 'we have different views on how yesterday's review went', gets an explanation that the design would have broken the payments flow, which was true, and an admission about tone, which was also true.
How to use it
- 1Write your opening from the third story, the sentence a neutral observer would say.
- 2Enter with one question you do not know the answer to.
- 3Ask for their story before you tell yours.