I’ve been reading Fierce Conversations. The preface opens with:

When you think of a fierce conversation, think passion, integrity, authenticity, collaboration. Think cultural transformation.

Think of leadership.

I’ve been slow to post lately, and part of it is because I’ve been trying to put my finger on what exactly I have been learning about working in and with groups. I know the learning is happening, because I’m seeing changes in myself as both a facilitator and a participant. As I read over Susan Scott’s principles for fierce conversation, I thought, “Hmm, maybe that’s it. I am engaging in conversations in a fiercer way [think passion, integrity, authenticity, collaboration].”

Here are, from the book, Scott’s Seven Principles of Fierce Conversations:

1. Master the courage to interrogate reality.
2. Come out from behind yourself into the conversation and make it real.
3. Be here, prepared to be nowhere else.
4. Tackle your toughest challenge today.
5. Obey your instincts.
6. Take responsibility for your emotional wake.
7. Let silence do the heavy lifting.

Reread the above list. Are you ready to incorporate one of those principles – or all of those principles – into some of your conversations today?

In conversations and research, I’ve kept coming across one idea over the last year: that for individuals or organizations to keep developing, or to move on into a greater incarnation of themselves, there comes a point where they have to let go of everything that has come before. For the individual this might mean the patterns and reactions that have served them well as their public face; for the CEO it might mean realizing that the strengths that got you to where you are now won’t be what could take you to the next place; for the organization it might mean letting go of something cherished or central in order to make room for something new.

But there is a huge fear, both for individuals and organizations, in letting go of the familiar.

Jonathan Flaum’s Manifesto “Finding Your Howl” says that the fear that holds us back in our complacent familiarity will prevent us from living into our authentic self:

To find our howl we have to pay a price… we may have to sacrifice everything, spend a significant amount of time alone, do things that we believe we can’t do, and walk away from a life that no longer fits our expanding need for freedom. This process may feel like a death. At its most intense, it may terrify us, and at its least intense, unsettle us. This is the price of finding our howl, our own one-of-a-kind authentic voice, and there is no way around it.

… We have to dig through the accumulation of our stuff, our personal history, our geneology, our culture, our choices, our fears, and our need to feel safe… we have to let everything that we examine go along the way and show up with nothing. And this is terrifying, to let go of all that we think we possess…

…The scariest part is when we are in the air releasing our trapeze and not yet touching the other, because unfortunately, it is only when we release the old completely that the new one appears.