This document discusses communication and building trust. It provides advice on being honest, being nice, and taking responsibility. Some key points include: - Vulnerability-based trust is built when people are honest about weaknesses and don't engage in political behavior. - Kindergarten students tend to outperform business students and lawyers on collaborative tasks because they participate without politicking and are not afraid to try things. - People reciprocate kindness and malice, so it's best to "catch more flies with honey" and start conversations on a positive note. - We tend to attribute others' behaviors to fixed traits but make excuses for our own behaviors, so we should take responsibility for how we communicate

1. Communication
Dr. Daniel Crosby
www.doctordanielcrosby.com
daniel@doctordanielcrosby.com

2. About Daniel
Married to Katrina and father to Charlotte (16 mos.). Huntsville
native recently returned. Baseball fanatic and mediocre guitar
player. Interested in why people do what they do and how
businesses can get them to do more of what is good for
business in a way that is personally meaningful.

3. Who Cares?
Average salary - $5,000
Benefits/Overhead ( x2) - $10,000
Days in a month (/20) - $500
Hours per day (/8) - $62.50
Minutes per hour (/60) - $1.04

4. Who Cares?
ATL Memo - $1.04 x 5 x 175 = $910
GT USA - $1.04 x 5 x 5,000 = $26,050
How does GT mis-communicate?
What’s the cost of mis-communicating an idea?
Gossiping? Misunderstanding? Stress?
Don’t forget the cost of big mistakes!

5. Communication 101
Be
Honest
Be
Nice
Be
Responsib
le

6. Be Honest

7. The Five Dysfunctions of a
Team
Results
Accountability
Achieving
Commitment
Unfiltered Dialogue
Lack of Trust

8. Building Trust
No characteristic is more important, or more rare
Predictive Trust - ability to predict one another’s
behavior given history of interaction
Vulnerability-based Trust - comfort being as
open about failures, weaknesses, and fears, as
strengths and successes

9. Vulnerability-Who Cares?
“Vulnerability-based trust is predicated on the
simple-and practical-idea that people who aren’t
afraid to admit the truth about themselves are not
going to engage in the kind of political behavior
that wastes everyone’s time and energy, and
more importantly, makes the accomplishment of
results an unlikely scenario.”
– Patrick Lencioni

10. Marshmallow Challenge
Choose a team name based on a shared
experience, belief, or value (no cheating with
obvious things like gender or location)
Design a coat of arms
Choose a team motto

11. Marshmallow Challenge
Tools: 20 sticks of spaghetti, tape, string,
marshmallow
Goal: Build the tallest free-standing structure
possible
Trick: Marshmallow must go on top
Time: 18 minutes
Remember, practice total trust and honesty in
your communication and participation.

12. Marshmallow Challenge
Results
Who’s the best? B-school students, lawyers, CEO’s,
CEO’s with assistants, architects, kindergarten
students
Average height=20 inches
B-school – 10 inches
Lawyers – 15 inches
CEO’s – 21 inches; 30 inches w/ assistants
Kindergarteners- 28 inches
Architects – 39 inches

13. Trust and Marshmallows
What accounts for these seemingly odd results?
Why are K-students so skilled?
Why are B-school students so bad?
What accounts for the drastic uptick in CEO
performance when assistants are present?

14. Business School Approach
Orient
Politick
Jockey for Power
Build
TA-DA!
Uh oh…
Crisis

15. Kindergarten Approach
Orient
Participation without
politicking
No time spent posturing
Lots of prototypes-not
afraid to try and fail
Build
TA-DA!
Taller AND more creative!

16. Be Nice

17. Prisoner’s Dilemma
What is the best
communal outcome?
How does this play
out over time?
…if the other initially
confesses?
…if the other initially
remains silent?

18. RECIPROCATION
People return
kindness for
kindness, and malice
for malice
Transcends cultures,
allows us to build
societies

19. Mom was right…
You do “catch more flies with honey.”
Reciprocation is identified as one of the six
things most predictive of whether or not someone
will be persuaded to do things your way.
The variable that best predicts the ultimate
outcome of a conversation is how it starts.
Visualize the end from the beginning.

20. Be Responsible

21. Why are Atlantans
such bad drivers?
Why do you drive poorly?

22. Observer Bias
Fundamental Attribution Error – we account
for others’ behavior in terms of fixed, immovable
traits and account for our own behavior with
greater context.
Us to Them – “(S)he’s a bad driver because he’s
an idiot.
Us to Us – “I’m not a bad driver, I just had a long
day at work.”

23. FAE at Work
Why are you sometimes late for work? What
about your colleagues?
Why do you receive praise and recognition? Your
coworkers?
How do you communicate with someone who
messes everything up and chances into every
good thing that happens to them?

24. Self-Deception
Generous
Thought
RationalizationScapegoating
Mistreatment

25. Self-Deception
To whom are you “in the box”?
Know anyone who could really use this
information?
How do we get “out of the box”? – accept
personal responsibility, allow others to be
different than we have seen them previously
(confirmation bias), act on generous feelings,
fake generous feelings in the meantime
Power of Labels – Rosenhan study, school
study

26. Lived Learning
Engage in “unfiltered dialogue” at work on a topic
around which you might normally hesitate to
contribute.
Monitor the starting point of your next heated
conversation. Make an effort to begin or return it to a
point conducive to a positive outcome.
Identify a personal weakness that you may project
onto others at work. What might you do to work on
this?
Determine a person at work to whom you are “in the
box.” How might your perception of them negatively
impact your communication. How might treating them
better provide a better outcome?