Podcast Episode interview

Juan discusses the importance of communication and the challenges he faced in a disagreement with his grandmother. He introduces the concept of crucial conversations, which involve listening and resolving issues by putting yourself in the other person's shoes. Juan's mother, who works in a hospital, shares her experience with crucial conversations and the positive outcomes they can bring. Juan hopes to improve his relationship with his grandmother by practicing these techniques. Overall, the podcast emphasizes the value of effective communication in various settings. Good morning and good afternoon, this is Juan, your host for this week's podcast on how we can communicate with the main focus on information to understand the meaning of what it is to have a crucial conversation. To start off by giving an overview that is dear to my heart because I myself have problems with communication. I recently had a disagreement with my grandmother and because I couldn't communicate with her, we are currently not talking. To give more of an insight into the situation, it all started right after we were coming back from the store. We got to our apartment and I went to go check the mailbox. I was named after my grandfather, so we both have exactly the same name. My grandma is very stubborn and set in her ways. That day, she insisted that I had taken my grandfather's mail. My grandma started yelling and getting angry at me. I had no idea what to do or how to react, so I started getting mad too and even talking back to her, which made the situation even worse. I am hoping that this episode helps you and I to learn how we can communicate better and hopefully get my relationship back with my grandma. Now, here's an overview of what a crucial conversation is. A crucial conversation is between two or more people with different opinions and showing compassion by listening to what they have to say and resolving any issue is putting yourself in their shoes first. Sometimes, crucial conversations can go sideways depending on what the subject is and how each person reacts by the questions or remarks being made, but for the most part, having a crucial conversation usually works to solve an issue. Now, here is my mother who is an RN team lead who works in a hospital and has a lot of experience with having crucial conversations with people she works with as well as patients. We have been talking about how hard it is to have a crucial conversation when things come up and you have to be the one leading the conversation. Here, my mom will be giving some examples from her experience of having crucial conversations with people at work. Hi mom. Hello. How are you today? Good, thank you for having me. So, I came up with some questions for my interview in this podcast that I would like to ask you. So, I'm going to talk and then ask you some questions. Okay. So, the first question I want to ask is how long have you been a nurse? I've been a nurse for about 12-13 years. Is there any like past experience in the medical field or anything that you want to give as well? No, I didn't have too much experience, but I did work at Target for many, many years and I was a supervisor there. So, I wish I would have learned more about crucial conversations then so that I could have dealt with some situations a little bit better. Some things to think about when having a crucial conversation is that it can have a huge impact in your life. An example that can be brought up about what it is to have a crucial conversation is confronting your co-worker about his or her behavior. I myself have a hard time giving co-workers feedback when they are not doing something right or I need to have a conversation with my own family. With this being said, I have an example that can be given as an overview of myself having a hard time with communication. The example I want to bring up is when my grandma was thinking I was taking my grandpa's mail, which made me angry and we ended up arguing instead of talking about it. Okay, so this is the next question as I said to this podcast. Have you found any good use after going through crucial conversation training? Yes, so when I started at the hospital where I work about seven years ago, they started making us go through crucial conversation training and so I had to come out of the box or think outside the box, excuse me, on how to speak better and talk better with my co-workers when there was an issue that came up. Okay, I also had a girl who wasn't pulling her weight at work. I knew I needed to talk to her about it so I did some research on crucial conversations and then pulled her to the side and talked. I really practiced what I learned about crucial conversations. I put myself in her shoes and started with explaining that no one is perfect at what they do and tried to be as compassionate as I could. I also tried my hardest to be a good listener and really saw her point of view. She actually opened up to me and turned out that she was having problems at home and she did not realize she wasn't pulling her weight and actually apologized. I have to say it felt good to actually have a good talk and have such a positive outcome. This is what I'm hoping to happen with my grandmother. If you could give yourself a piece of advice mom to someone about your experience after learning how to have a crucial conversation, what would it be? Well, I would say that it to me it seems like it should be mandatory when you start any job regardless of what age because these are very good. It is a very good skill to have with any conflict anywhere really. They teach you to really get into the into the situation or into the problem. Talk about it but also not to be judgmental and put yourself in their shoes like you said and listen. Listen and try to meet that person in the middle. I want everybody to know that you can have a crucial conversation just about anywhere with anyone. It could be at home with family, siblings, at work or even if you're standing in line with a stranger. After learning and practicing how to use crucial conversation techniques, I hope to regain my relationship with my grandma and hope to be able to move back in with her. I have understood the idea of having crucial conversations by the examples given by my mom who has worked in a hospital for Kaiser for about eight years and has used it more often than none. All right, so this is basically me wrapping up so I just want to you know get some more insight about you know about what you experience. You know the only thing I would say to you one is to listen to your grandma, put yourself in her shoes and try to understand where she's coming from, what really is the issue. Understand her and even if you don't agree with her, meet her in the middle and you'll have some good results. Well I do want to thank you for listening and being here with me. I hope it helps you as much as it helps me and I hope that some of these examples can help you and my peers through difficult conversations and obtain good outcomes. So with this I am looking forward to meeting with my grandma and sitting down with her to talk and ready to listen, put myself in her shoes and understand where she's coming from. Now about that much, this is Juan Florera setting off from the beautiful city of Roses in Portland, Oregon. Have a wonderful rest of your day.