Authored by Randy Emelo and Glenn Hughes

Mentoring Dialogues Series Introduction
The Mentoring Dialogues: How to Have Productive Conversations series will explore twelve distinct conversations that help create a productive and engaging mentoring relationship. This series will include six issues: an introduction to the Mentoring Conversations Model, no confidence conversations, topical confidence conversations, relational confidence conversations, partial confidence conversations, and complete confidence conversations. This installment in the series explains complete confidence conversations.

For a more in-depth look at the Mentoring Conversations Model, please see our September 2009 issue of Masterful Mentoring.

Complete Confidence Conversations
Have you ever engaged in a conversation with someone and realized that you knew a lot about the situation and people involved? At that moment, you were in the Complete Confidence zone.

The Complete Confidence zone can be applied to instances in which you have a high amount of understanding of both the people and the situation under consideration. Take advantage of these circumstances to set direction, share your truth, and gain commitment to necessary actions. To accomplish this, we suggest that you have selling, confronting, or decision making conversations.

The objective of Complete Confidence conversations is to bring your dialogue to its conclusion and gain agreement on possibilities, determinations, or final stance. These conversations may signal the end point for this particular topic, or they may lead you to the path of a new topic; regardless, the path forward will be clear.

Failure to make conclusions and final determinations can lead to the following:

• Lack of Understanding – This occurs when personal positions, opinions, and conclusions are not expressly stated. This leads others to guess where they think you are coming from, what they should believe, or what they should consider important. Highly effective mentoring relationships are ones where there is clarity regarding view points, understandings, and conclusions. Lack of understanding leads to inaccurate or incomplete insights.
• Lack of Progress – This occurs when dialogues fail to deliver contradictions, opposition, or comparisons. Learning often springs from being challenged to see or think of things differently. Dialogues that do not draw conclusions or challenge the status quo will lack the power to inspire transformation.
• Loss of Credibility – This occurs when conclusions or determinations are never voiced in ways that enable change to take place. Being present and active in mentoring relationships necessitates sharing your perceptions and determinations. By avoiding opposition or decisive communication, you risk appearing as though you lack character or personal resolve. 

Productive Conclusive Conversations
The overarching objective of conversations within the Complete Confidence zone is to speak your truth, persuade others to take the appropriate action, or state possible solutions. Not all dialogues need to end in a definitive conclusion, but if the intent of the dialogue is to determine a distinct course of action, then you will need to bring it to an end. Once you have a full and confident grasp of the situation under discussion and the people involved, it is advisable to conclude the dialogue. Productive concluding dialogues are supported by selling, confronting, and decision making conversations. We have outlined all three for you here.

Selling Conversations - persuading others to accept, approve, or adopt an idea or course of action

Leading indicators for use:

• When you need to express your bias.
• When you have been asked to give a reason for your belief.
• When you need to avoid (warn about) obvious disaster.
• When you need immediate results.
• When you have an alternative that is a clear winner.

How to use:
Think It Through
Start by first considering the magnitude of your proposed solution and the way it will affect others. There are always risks and tradeoffs to be considered before proposing a course of action or new concept. Upon thinking it through, decide if the solution or idea that you are considering is worth convincing others of before presenting it.

Make Your Pitch
In order to persuade others that your idea or course of action has merit, it needs to connect closely to what others want from the dialogue. Your pitch should be delivered with the appropriate amount of detail, urgency, and priority to match the importance and impact of the problem (or issue) being addressed. If you are absolutely certain that your solution is the correct one, then make your conviction be known. If you are not thoroughly convinced of the correctness of your solution, then present it in a conditional manner.

Remain Flexible
In mentoring relationships, it is important not to get too rigid about how others respond or conform to our will. Strive to remain open to changes or opposition to your ideas and propositions. Remember that there is your way, their way, and quite possibly another way to get your objectives met. In mentoring relationships, it’s important that you encourage experimentation and discovery. When others contradict your advice or direction, stay open to the possibilities and discoveries that are sure to follow.

Useful questions:
In general, selling questions focus attention on uncovering and proposing solutions to dilemmas and problems.

Sample questions include:

• Can I share a recommendation?
• Are you open to another concept?
• What action would you recommend?
• Can you sell me on that idea?
• How does your idea compare to mine?
• What would convince you?
• What is the most important aspect of…?
• What do you see as a necessary next step?

Confronting Conversations – helping others see alternative perspectives

Leading indicators for use:

• When you sense certain failure.
• When you notice non-productive patterns.
• When others are avoiding responsibility or reality.
• When you want to draw focused attention to a particular issue.
• When you doubt the ability of others to get results.

How to use:
Observe
Tactful disagreement is a very valuable aspect of mentoring, but you must be careful that it is done in a timely and respectful manner. Stay alert and tuned in to the motivations, attitudes, and behavior of others in order to see areas of possible contradiction emerge. This will allow you to cite specific instances where they have given you cause for concern.

Articulate
When openly voicing your disagreement or opposition to a mentoring partner, it is best to be as clear and direct as possible. Avoid condemnation, disapproval, or personal judgments. Stay solution-focused and positive about possible outcomes. It usually helps to clarify your position or reason for addressing the issue of concern at the onset of the conversation. If you don’t do this, you risk raising suspicion or mistrust regarding your motives.

Validate
When you confront, you need to be willing to listen to your partners’ responses and help them process your comments. Check to ensure that you delivered your message in a way that was correctly understood by your partners. While you should not take ownership of what they do with your advice, you can own the proper interpretation of your intent and meaning and clarify yourself if needed.