CIA to CEO: Rupal Patel shares her communication tips from a remarkable career journey
We all put off difficult conversations sometimes. Disagreement often feels like an impasse, and fear of disagreement makes us want to avoid an issue rather than tackling it head on. How can we communicate and negotiate more effectively, ensuring a fully aligned board and turning disharmony into a tool for innovation?
The latest InX Leadership Summit took place at The Groucho Club in London on Wednesday 22nd May. We were joined by best-selling author and international speaker Rupal Patel, who spoke to an audience of C-suite professionals about the art of difficult conversations and the power of disharmony. Discover the key takeaways from the discussion.
How to have difficult conversations
Rupal’s a strong believer that you don’t waste a good crisis. Through a varied career that has seen her work as an analyst and field agent for the CIA, deliver TED Talks, become an author and make a number of media appearances, Rupal has found communication to be a vital part of her journey. Too often, we hold back on communication or overcomplicate it.
Before you have that challenging conversation, you have to have credibility. That allows you to speak the truth powerfully and share your way of thinking with confidence. It’s not enough just to be the boss. So how do you establish credibility? It’s about building relationships and mutual trust.
You need to know what the person cares about. Be genuinely interested in them and they will be more interested in what you have to say. You can come into the conversation armed with all the facts in the world, but you need to know how to communicate with someone in a way that resonates with them so that they take the message on board. It’s about adapting the way you deliver the message.
The power of honesty
Get comfortable with saying “What information do you need? and “I don’t know.” Filling the gap of uncertainty is the elephant in the room you need to address first.
The worst thing you can do is to make up an answer. At the CIA, if Rupal was briefing the president or attorney general and was asked a question she didn’t have the answer to, she was encouraged to be open about that and come back to them with more information.
Be more human! You don’t need to seem like you have it all figured out. It’s more powerful to admit what you know and what you don’t know. When you bring smart people together, everyone will have their areas of expertise and their gaps.
Achieving mutual understanding
“It wasn’t easy, it wasn’t pretty but we did it over and over again until it became an essential part for the servicemen and women on the battlefield.” Rupal Patel
Telling someone that what they’re doing is not working is never easy. Rupal learned this the hard way in her field role at the CIA, briefing a military general on the latest analysis and intelligence to help him make better decisions. A difficult task was made even harder by being a young woman in a male environment. The key was not to deliver the message in its simplest terms and then step back. Merely pointing out the flaws in the current approach was not serving the bigger mission. Delivering the message was an ongoing process of achieving mutual understanding.
She put herself in the general’s shoes, talking to the people on his team to understand what he needed and how he absorbed information. This allowed her to tailor her mode of communication to ensure the message landed. Over time, the general started making battlefield decisions based on her analysis.
Think about who that person is, what they need and educate them throughout. Sometimes you might need to give more detail, sometimes a bigger picture, sometimes you might need to explain your methodologies and conclusions. You’re never going to be perfectly aligned across the board, but you must invest into understanding people to ensure you’re aligned as much as possible. It’s about connecting on where you’re going and why you’re doing this. How can you align to complete the mission?
Destructive harmony vs productive disharmony
There is power in disharmony. Consensus for consensus’ sake can be a barrier to innovation. If you’re disagreeing, why are you disagreeing? Why is there misalignment? What is the disagreement teaching you? Can you explore it and educate your strategy? Growth and innovation can only come from disagreement if you work to make it productive.
Be comfortable asking if anyone disagrees and whether there’s anyone else who needs to be a part of the conversation. That’s how good ideas can come from bad ideas. Get all the bad vibes or dirty laundry out of the way at the start of the meeting. Have your say on why you don’t think something will work. Solicit it, listen to your team’s feedback and build on it.
Don’t just admire the problem. If something’s never been done before, that doesn’t mean it’s impossible. The reaction to COVID – rolling out a vaccine within a year and making wholesale changes to our ways of working – is an example of productive disharmony and doing what can’t be done. It comes from a real need to come up with a different solution. What can’t be done can serve something much bigger and better in the future.
Summary
There are some hard truths about leadership, particularly when it comes to delivering a difficult message. Remember:
Things are going to get uncomfortable.
There’s a trade off between being all knowing (established) and all growing (innovative).
It’s about having a dialogue, not issuing diktats.
Show confident humility in your communications.
Powerful communication means getting to know the people you’re working with, understanding how they process information and tailoring your interactions accordingly. It’s not about being right or wrong – it’s about being aligned in what you’re trying to achieve as a team.
Here are Rupal’s closing tips for those difficult conversations:
Have that difficult conversation you’ve been putting off – and plan for the person on the other side.
Write a script for a conversation you’ve been putting off and then schedule a time to have it.
Think about the one thing you will do next week to leverage any disharmony.
Many thanks to Rupal for sharing her insights and to everyone who attended. If you’re looking to hire an exceptional leader for your organisation or for your next exciting leadership role, please talk to our team now. To hear about our upcoming virtual and in-person events, sign up to our mailing list.
To help our understanding of boardroom dynamics and find out what tech topics are keeping the C-suite awake at night, we commissioned independent research company Censuswide to survey 750 tech and non-tech board members in the UK, US, Germany, and the Netherlands. Read our UNLOCKED: Technology and the Boardroom report here.
Some views from the floor
“Thoroughly enjoyed our InX Summit at The Groucho Club with the inspiring Rupal Patel and all of our special guests. We explored boardroom communication, influence and alignment, and the art of using disharmony to innovate, and so much more during the evening. Best of all, connections were made and relationships cemented.” Natalie Whittlesey, C-suite engagement director, The IN Group
“Many positive takeaways from the fabulous Rupal Patel but the one that really struck a chord with me was that it’s ok to say ‘I don’t know’ – a simple yet powerful and authentic trait to display as a leader.” James Lawson, director, technology, InX
