Joseph Grenny Quotes - 170 quotes

Joseph Grenny is a renowned author, speaker, and social scientist known for his work in business performance and leadership development. He co-founded VitalSmarts in 1990, which is a company specializing in corporate training and organizational development. VitalSmarts has served 300 of the Fortune... show more

 When you want to address someone’s behavior, your first task is to diagnose. You must try to determine whether their current behavior represents a motivation problem, an ability problem, or a mix of the two.

- Joseph Grenny

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 Crucial Conversations require both diligence and humility. We must be diligent in recovering the facts that supported our judgment, and we must be humble enough to acknowledge their paucity if our evidence is light.

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 Resentment is a sign you aren’t holding boundaries.

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 Human beings have a hardwired expectation of reciprocity. It’s part of what makes us cooperative creatures.

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 Any time I try to “get my loved one to change” I employ some form of compulsion.

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 By taking responsibility for a relationship between two other people, you put yourself in the role of a manipulator.

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 The inescapable ingredients of relationships are vulnerability, humility, selflessness, self-honesty, time and trust. You’ll note that nothing on that list can be installed by a third party.

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 My first bit of advice is for you to get out of the way.

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 No one can get someone to open up to them any more than they can get a kernel of corn to grow into a green healthy stalk. You can’t work on the kernel, you can only work on the soil. You can create a safe and nourishing environment in which the kernel will do what kernels naturally do: open up and grow.

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 Leadership is intentional influence. It isn’t the vacuous or mystical thing that so many writers claim. It is a systematic process of influencing human beings to achieve important results. It’s about mobilizing behavior in the service of valued goals. At the end of the day, if behavior isn’t changing, you aren’t leading.

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 The most important problems you and I face—as leaders, as family members, as citizens and as human beings—are influence problems.

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 True accountability is the fruit of emotional connection. Anything less is little more than compulsion.

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 Healthy influence happens when children are fundamentally convinced your only intent is to help them accomplish their own worthy goals, not to impose your own.

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 Frequently, rather than impose consequences, we yell, cry, guilt-trip or nag. Nagging is a form of control. It is a way of taking responsibility away from the other person. It puts the burden on the nagger to monitor and motivate the other person.

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 They say that ‘sunlight is the best disinfectant.’ Moral compromises can’t stand the light of day.

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 Never forget: the prodigal son was not welcomed home with drugs in his pocket or porn in his backpack.

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 Had Moroni not inflicted the legal consequences of treason on the Kingmen, he would have been guilty of consenting to their crimes.

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 I suspected his words exceeded his commitment...

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 When we remove natural consequences from those we love, we take control of a process that God ordained. We are assuming our own design of the world is superior to His or that those we love are too fragile to learn in His way.

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 If you have a tendency toward emotional rescue when others are disappointed, you’ll need to surrender that weakness. You are responsible to be honest and fair, not to make everyone like you.

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 When your feelings of rightness turn into feelings of righteousness you’ve almost always crossed the line into self-deception.

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 It’s disingenuous to act as though you want a relationship with someone then reveal later that it was contingent on them becoming someone they aren’t.

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 You can only connect with others if you are willing to be transparent with them. Real love doesn’t compromise truth. And the depth of our connection with others can never be greater than our emotional honesty.

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 The predictor of your success is your ability to come from a place of love, courage, and curiosity.

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 Let’s define addiction as: any habit that reduces agency by trading impulses for blessings. With that definition in mind, what are some of your addictions? What highly impulsive habits do you have? And what price are they exacting in foregone blessings?

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 The only person whose behavior you can control is you. And nothing makes you feel more like a victim than hanging your happiness on making others change. It absolves you of emotional responsibility as your moods become the product of others’ choices. You trade contentment for resentment. Not a great trade.

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 People shut down dialogue when it either seems pointless or scary.

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 When people are unwilling to own their misbehavior, they attempt to shift the blame on others — especially those who are calling them out.

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 For example, if I have a child who is rude to other kids, they’ll probably shun her. And if in defense of my child I lash out at those peers for their unkindness, I steal her opportunity to learn empathy. If I pay off the debts of a sister who spends foolishly, I keep her from becoming motivated to learn restraint. If I give free rent to a lazy brother, I make it less likely he’ll develop a work ethic. If I pretend to believe someone who has repeatedly lied to me, I help them treat trust as an entitlement. If I replace a car for a loved one who carelessly wrecks it, I weaken his agency and rob him of an invitation to greater responsibility.

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 We can’t learn to become more like God unless we have the opportunity to experience the consequences we create.

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 The Atonement isn’t offered for those who simply want to dodge consequences. Christ’s intervention comes only to those determined to make and keep covenants.

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 The warning is about conspiracy not physiology. The Lord is warning that in the last days men will conspire in various ways to seduce us into surrendering our agency. Substances will be the vehicle of conspiracy.

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 If we define addictions too narrowly, we replace wisdom with smugness. We reason that our “little” habits are nothing like those dirty drug addicts or disgusting porn users. I’ve come to believe that while our various addictions may differ in degree, they exact precisely the same kind of costs.

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 Let’s define addiction as: any habit that reduces agency by trading impulses for blessings. With that definition in mind, what are some of your addictions? What highly impulsive habits do you have? And what price are they exacting in foregone blessings?

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 We often talk about agency as “the power to choose.” But it is far more than that. Agency is not just the freedom to follow our whims. It is the power to create. Specifically, it is the power to create consequences.

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 If I haven’t challenged you, I haven’t helped you.

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 Tee up the right conversation, call out attempts (even unintentional) to divert from it, and you’ll be on the road to better days.

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 Don’t hand your self worth over to the other person. Let them have their own reaction. Usually what dresses up like resentment in others is actually embarrassment. And that is theirs to work through. It’s not a comment on your dignity unless you make it one. Break off eye contact. Don’t make it a standoff. Take a breath. Congratulate yourself for doing the right thing. Then let it go!

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 Our research shows that you are least subject to manipulation when you are most conscious of its attempt.

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 Words matter. A lot. The words you choose to frame a problem powerfully influence the way you and others feel about it.

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 ...family and lending rarely mix. And they NEVER mix when the relationship is already unhealthy.

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 If your relationship is weak, they may find stress rather than comfort in your presumption of intimacy. But if they feel safe with you, if you’ve earned their trust, you should assume nothing less than that. This is when true friends show up.

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 Just because another person gives offense doesn’t mean you need to take it.

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 ...your ability to handle moments of conflict has a massive impact on your success. How you handle conflict determines the amount of trust, respect, and connection you have with your colleagues.

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 Don’t expect him to move through his grief at your pace. You don’t get to decide how much grieving he needs. Likewise, you’re neither responsible for nor capable of fixing his grief. He needs to feel what he needs to feel. Let him do it.

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 Offering help is occasionally good. But it turns into nagging when it’s offered too often.

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 It is ultimately your responsibility to take care of yourself. When someone is abusive to you, if you do not stand up for yourself then the problem is not just them, it's you.

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 Sometimes, all you need to do for someone to feel offended is nothing. Perhaps you failed to smile, failed to call, failed to reciprocate. You won’t understand his behavior until you create enough safety that he is willing to unravel his story for you.

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 So, as you lay out your concerns, strip out any “hot words” that sound accusatory or self-righteous and simply describe what you think is happening...

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 If you find a way to tactfully, respectfully, and directly raise the perceived concern, you will provide others with an opportunity to examine the ethics of the situation. If you do it poorly—accusingly or self-righteously—you will likely provoke defensiveness that will shortcut others’ reflection on the ethical issue.

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 Enron could not have happened had there not been hundreds and even thousands of “good” people who stood by and said nothing when illegal practices were just beginning. It is at these moments that a company’s soul is at risk—not when the later egregious errors emerge. And if the culture is one where no one wants to offend, risk a confrontation, look naive, or seem “holier than thou”—the end result is inevitable. The culture will change—for the worse.

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 “My principle for helping others is to always ask, ‘How will my potential help influence their future behavior?’ This question is crucial because if you really want to help, your goal should not just be to alleviate present suffering, but future suffering as well.”

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 The more you amplify your adjectives, the more you erode even the possibility of coming to common views with others.

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 Develop the discipline, when sharing your opinion in any context, of starting with the facts from which you claim to derive your conclusions.

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 But don’t try to steal their problem from them.

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 Surrender the need to manage her emotions. But retain the responsibility to communicate clearly.

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 Leaders must decide which of two values they prize most in establishing their culture: truth or power. In most organizations, the default is power. When power is the highest value, people often avoid speaking truth to power.

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 The best way to handle a crucial conversation is to prevent it.

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 The key to avoiding confrontation is to ensure those issuing reminders do so kindly, and that leaders offer an example of receiving reminders with the utmost grace. The watchwords should be: “It’s kind to remind” and “When reminded, show gratitude not attitude.”

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 Emotions have tempos to them. Anger is fast. Calmness is slow. If you avoid pressing for a fast resolution, you can often find a more peaceful one.

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 Once I learned this, it changed the way I talk with loved ones who are suffering. I no longer make vague offers like, “Please let me know if there is anything I can do to help.” This is a worthless offer. Basically, it says, “Here’s one more thing for you to think about—think about helping me feel helpful!” Instead, I teach them about the arithmetic of stress, then I hand them a pen and paper, and I say, “Write down EVERYTHING that’s on your stress list right now.” I sit with them and encourage them to work all the way down to the nit-picky 1s and 2s. When the list seems complete, I go to work. I don’t ask for permission. I take charge of all the fixable things on the list.

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 Micromanaging is almost always a crucial conversation someone is acting out rather than talking out. A leader is feeling nervous or vulnerable and acts it out through incessant hovering and controlling. The result is that the direct report often feels hurt and resentful and acts it out through withdrawal or other displaced hostility. The solution is to talk it out. Unless and until you can have a conversation about trust and autonomy, this game will get worse and worse.

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 Moral decline doesn’t come from individuals selling out to overwhelming temptation. It comes from the thousands of moments when people witness small compromises but say nothing.

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 If there is meaning to be mined in the work you do, and if you are willing to put the interests of your people on par with the interest of the company, you have every possibility of retaining your morality while engaging your people in the work you do.

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 If you can say please convincingly, you’re probably in a good place.

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 I told him—as we always did—that we would only help if we believed what we were doing would truly help. We were unwilling to rob him of the consequences of his choices. I explained we did not believe it was loving to keep someone from learning.

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 Parents in our situation often lament their lack of influence. We wonder how we can help our loved ones “want to change.” I learned from Moroni that this is the wrong question. The right question is, “What am I doing that is keeping my child from wanting to change?” The most potent lesson Moroni offers parents is that when we stand between our child and justice, we often stand between our child and God.

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 No matter how uncomfortable it makes you, your primary consideration must be the effect your actions will have on the spiritual condition of your loved one.

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 When you stop trying to control others, you gain influence.

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 The problem is, our brains are designed for efficiency. So we tend not to store all the source data that shapes our stories and feelings. We tend to remember what we think or feel about things. But we don’t remember all the facts and observations that generated those stories or feelings. Thus, we are terrible at revising our views but great at arguing for their rightness. Knowing this, we can be more patient both with ourselves and others.

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 For example, few of us would equate our relationship to technology with an addict’s connection to opium. And yet, modern neuroscience shows they are precisely the same. When we open a social media app and see 30 likes on the vacation photo we just posted, our brain releases a surge of dopamine-the body’s pleasure chemical.

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 I think most of us miss the main point of the Word of Wisdom...The warning is about conspiracy not physiology. The Lord is warning that in the last days men will conspire in various ways to seduce us into surrendering our agency. Substances will be the vehicle of conspiracy.

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 We get the full benefit of the Word of Wisdom when we open our eyes to the myriad ways those who seek power and gain invite us into bondage. Chemical addictions are just a small sampling of the pleasing options for servitude available in our day. We deceive ourselves when we limit our definition to things you inject, smoke, drink or swallow.

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 We cannot protect our loved ones from a bondage they yearn for.

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 When we compel our kids into rehab, push away their pushers, or in other ways fight their battles for them we will always fail. But when we consider first how our actions affect the spiritual condition of our loved ones, we are assured of eventual success. And the first consideration for supporting the spiritual health of others is refusing to weaken their sense of responsibility for their own welfare.

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 Moroni understood that sin is always social. No one’s vices affect only them, and no one’s weaknesses can be sustained without accomplices.

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 Often our claims that we are offering an addict mercy are just our way of dressing up our own weakness.  It makes us feel badly to see a loved one suffer—even if their suffering is precisely what they might need in order to motivate change. So, we intervene. We clean up messes. We subsidize sin. And we harbor evil.

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 The first consideration for helping is refusing to take responsibility from those you’re trying to help.

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 A content conversation is one in which you discuss the immediate presenting problem. ... But content isn’t your real issue. Your issue is a “Pattern.” It’s not the weaknesses themselves that frustrate you most, but the pattern of behavior you see when discussing those weaknesses.

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 When God evicted Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden, He said He was sending them into the world ‘to learn by their own experience.’ He designed a system where they could create and experience consequences. He seemed to think it was a pretty good system. He had confidence that when the consequences were painful, we would learn. When the consequences were joyful, we would also learn. Over time we would gain greater ability to create better consequences.

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 The central task of life, in my view, is to learn to live happily with imperfect people. There are times when I conclude that a person’s weaknesses are so habitual that the amount of energy I am willing to invest is unlikely to produce change. In these instances, I can still choose to stay connected to them, weaknesses and all. I can learn to focus on the virtues I search for in them. But let me warm you: If you take this approach, you must do it honestly. This means that any time your resentments flare again, you will have to remind yourself that you chose to accept this. Choosing this route means you surrender the option of fuming about the weaknesses you chose to accept.

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 The truth is you and I are doomed for all of our existence to live around imperfect people.

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 What I am suggesting is that as you and I sort out our opinions, there are things we and others do that cloud and confuse the moral calculation. If you want to stay connected to your conscience, the best course is to learn to spot these manipulations—both self imposed and external— and reframe the choice in an honest way.

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 My principle for helping others is to always ask, “How will my potential help influence their future behavior?” This question is crucial because if you really want to help, your goal should not just be to alleviate present suffering, but future suffering as well.

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 ...we developed a consulting model that focused on finding vital behaviors. Our thesis was that there are some behaviors that matter more than others. We reasoned that if you could find behaviors that disproportionately affect performance, you’d have the key to creating profound, positive, and lasting change. Time after time, project after project, we found that the issues that undermined performance the most were not the problems companies had, it was their inability to confront, discuss, and resolve those problems.

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 Your compassion should direct you not just to immediate relief, but to total pain. Otherwise, you might act in a way that makes you and them feel good now, but produces much more pain in the long term.

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 Leadership is intentional influence. It is a systematic process of influencing the behavior of others in order to achieve important results. If at the end of your “leadership” people aren’t behaving differently, then you didn’t lead.

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 The Lord designed this earth such that problems of mortality exist separate from the resources to solve them. Do you ever wonder why this life’s resources are so unfairly divided? Resources are unfairly divided to require us to become one—or perish! God created an earth where some places have food when others are in famine. Some are under attack while others have arms to help. Some are members of the Church while others know nothing of it. Some are sick when others are well. He hides riches in the soil in some areas that are lacking in others. A tornado hits one neighborhood but spares another. Why? So that those who have and those who struggle can learn to be saviors for one another.

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 The subtle corollary to assuming others are responsible for our sense of psychological safety is that we begin to assume we are responsible for others’ sense of safety. When we aren’t busy playing the role of victim in our own minds, we attempt to rescue those who are.

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 The argument that you are responsible for your own safety might appear to contradict what we teach in Crucial Conversations. We go to great lengths to teach people how to help others feel safe. But at no time do we suggest you are responsible for making them feel safe. There is a difference between taking responsibility for being respectful and taking responsibility for whether someone feels respected.

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 It is the very belief that we can somehow make others feel respected that justifies the silence, sugar-coating, understating and avoidance that corrupt relationships. We tell ourselves it is our job to rescue others from hurt feelings, so we measure how much of our real selves and honest perspectives we should share before it will cause them to crumble. As a result, we commit to a life of calculation and manipulation. The result is relationships of alienation rather than true connection.

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 The Plan was to create a planet full of problems that demand unity for solution. It is problems that bring us together. When you see two people at lunch, talking intently, leaning forward, waving their hands, they’re sharing a problem. At that moment, they are one in heart and if they stick with it, become one in mind. They become unified.

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 People imprisoned in addiction become slaves to impulses. They lose self-respect because they become incapable of maintaining boundaries.

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 Now, let me explain the difference between setting boundaries and punishing. When you set a boundary you are deciding how YOU will behave in order to take care of YOU. Your goal is not to manipulate or punish the other person. You are simply saying, “I deserve to be respected. I deserve a relationship of trust.” And when that boundary is violated, you are enacting a rule to take yourself out of a situation where you are being harmed. Punishment, on the other hand, is about trying to control others. Yelling, screaming, and silent treatments are punishments not boundaries.

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 However, painful as it is, you must honor his boundary. If later evidence emerges that he is engaged in some self-destructive path, you may want to intervene. But otherwise, he is making a choice and it falls to you to reconcile yourself to it.

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 Start now to set boundaries for yourself that will keep you healthy and safe. Boundaries are rules you make for yourself—not the other person.

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 Honor the fact that the other person has agency. Don’t impose feedback on him or her. Don’t argue. Don’t criticize. Simply ask permission to share.

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 When your motives change, your behavior follows naturally.

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 Direct and honest feedback are the immune system of any community. Mischief begins when feedback ends.

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 The health of any relationship, team or organization is a function of the lag time between when people see problems and when they discuss them.

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 And remember rule number one about boundaries: Your boundaries are your job. It is up to you to enforce them.

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 Changing your story is the key to changing your feelings.

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 Communication is life. It is the only vehicle we have for connecting meaningfully with others.

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 A primary reason many of us stay in silence rather than connecting honestly is that we misunderstand our responsibility for others’ emotions. We are responsible to care about how others feel, but we are not responsible for how they feel. Their emotions are their choices. How we act can affect them—and we should always act with compassion and respect. But that is where our duty stops. When you take responsibility for others’ feelings, you begin to live dishonestly. You begin to calculate and manipulate in order to control others’ feelings. And by so doing, you surrender the possibility of both solving problems and connecting deeply.

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 Moroni wasted little time sermonizing to the uncommitted. When you lecture, guilt-trip, and reason with those who don’t care, you become responsible for their motivation.

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 One of the most common mistakes in crucial conversations is talking about the wrong thing.

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 You say you want to maintain contact but it’s painful. Why is it painful? Is it painful because you keep hoping they will be different than your entire life experience has told you they are? If so, this is your problem. Your parent keeps showing you who she/he is, but you are imposing expectations for them to be different. Drop the expectations. Accept them as they are. Then ask yourself, “How much time do I choose to spend with a person who is like this?”

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 Once you’re at peace, you’re ready to speak.

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 I find that there is almost always a kernel of truth in others’ feedback to me. If I reject their assertions because they’re overstated or abrasive, I miss the benefit of gleaning some truth in the weak signal.

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 Because few people will point out your flaws directly, it’s wise to attend to the “weak signals” you receive in unexpected moments or, frankly, from others who are brusque enough to confront you.

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 Setting boundaries is about taking care of yourself not manipulating someone else into changing.

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 Addictions are attempts to find a shortcut to normal problems of living.

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 There is no shortcut to trust-building.

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 There is no shortcut to trust-building. His very avoidance of you is evidence of how desperately he needs you… a trustworthy you. He wouldn’t be uncomfortable around you if you didn’t matter. Ironically, every day that you patiently honor his desire to avoid you, you rebuild trust. Avoiding you is his attempt to protect himself from repeated hurts of the past. Every time you graciously validate his needs, you rebuild an emotional bank account with him. He witnesses irrefutable evidence that his needs are more important to you than your wants. You want to be with him. You want his affection. You want a connection. But rather than demand what you want, he gets to see you willingly put his desire for emotional safety first. Waiting is working. Patience is powerful.

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 Long experience has shown me that what often looks like a motivation problem is often an ability issue.

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 Captain Moroni is every parent, friend, or loved one who has tried to help someone get out of the bondage they sold themselves into. He is the righteous but imperfect savior figure. Mormon admires him deeply. Mormon wants us to pay very close attention to Moroni because “If all men had been, and were, and ever would be, like unto Moroni, behold, the very powers of hell would have been shaken forever; yea, the devil would never have power over the hearts of the children of men.”

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 Whenever I feel like a victim, I look in myself for where I have given up responsibility and where I need to take it back.

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 If your relationship is weak, they may find stress rather than comfort in your presumption of intimacy.

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 If you want to create awareness and motivation for change—change the language. Create credible measures that align with the fundamental mission of the organization and people will have a hard time resisting their effect.

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 In a commercial enterprise, owners and customers create natural accountability. Organizations that don’t serve them well suffer—sooner or later. Hence, commercial enterprises are generally observant of measuring how they perform for owners and customers.

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 If you don’t have data, you lead by anecdotes.

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 As the saying goes, fortune favors the prepared. The converse is true as well—misfortune favors the misbehaving.

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 The most oft-squandered leadership moment is the first conversation. The purpose of this conversation is not small talk. It isn’t about making friends. It’s not about impressing them. It’s about influencing them.

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 We are often like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz; we’re already wearing the very ruby slippers we need in order to get home. You’ve just got to look down to see them.

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 The biggest impediment to success is rarely a lack of ideas or strategies—it’s an inability to influence people to carry out those ideas or strategies. In others words, it’s a failure of leadership.

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 With addicts, the best thing you can offer is a healthy example of a well-bounded life. Show him what it looks like when you keep your commitments to yourself—and perhaps you will invite him to a higher level of living.

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 Human beings are capable of adapting to remarkably painful and unhealthy situations. Over time they begin to feel “normal.” They no longer seem repulsive or intolerable. In fact, even abusive situations can begin to feel comfortably familiar. The first time someone goes to jail, for example, it’s terrifying. The second time the terror disappears—it is simply unpleasant. By the fifth time, it’s just life. So pause now before you’ve become accustomed to living with someone who is manipulative, dishonest, and unfaithful and then ask, “Is this the future I want for myself?” Decide now what your bottom line is—before his behavior seems familiar.

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 Gathering the facts is the homework required for an effective Crucial Conversation.

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 We often act as though we believe not talking about the fire-breathing dragon in the room is safer/kinder/better than taking a person’s hand, sitting beside them, and staring at the dragon together.

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 One of the reasons we fail to persuade others during crucial conversations is that we’ve spent too much time thinking about our conclusions and too little time laying out the data.

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 If you want to help someone come clean, it’s best to lay out the strongest case you can absent judgments, accusations, and other hot words.

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 The mistake you’re making is that you continue to address content rather than pattern.

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 For example, few of us would equate our relationship to technology with an addict’s connection to opium. And yet, brain research shows they are precisely the same. When we open Instagram and see 30 likes on the vacation photo we just posted, our brain releases a surge of dopamine—the body’s pleasure chemical. This is precisely the same thing that happens when a drug addict takes a hit of crack. Over time our brains learn that this meaningless behavior creates a sense of well-being—so we repeat it. Over and over and over. And an addiction is born. Your brain begins to think of behaviors like checking email or responding compulsively to a text as a need not a choice. If that last sentence rings embarrassingly true, you’re an addict.

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 For example, few of us would equate our relationship to technology with an addict’s connection to opium. And yet, brain research shows they are precisely the same. When we open Instagram and see 30 likes on the vacation photo we just posted, our brain releases a surge of dopamine—the body’s pleasure chemical. This is precisely the same thing that happens when a drug addict takes a hit of crack. Over time our brains learn that this meaningless behavior creates a sense of well-being—so we repeat it. Over and over and over. And an addiction is born. Your brain begins to think of behaviors like checking email or responding compulsively to a text as a need not a choice. If that last sentence rings embarrassingly true, you’re an addict.

- Joseph Grenny

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 When you lecture, guilt-trip, and reason with those who don’t care, you become responsible for their motivation.

- Joseph Grenny

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 The root cause of most violated expectations is unclear expectations. We have conversations and leave drawing different conclusions. Or we remember it differently. Or things change and we assume others are revising their expectations accordingly – and they aren’t!

- Joseph Grenny

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 A group I know that is really good at giving and receiving feedback has a phrase they use after getting a shovelful of criticism: “I will take a look at that.” They don’t agree. They don’t disagree. They simply promise to look sincerely at what they were told on their own timeline.

- Joseph Grenny

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 Relationships work when people understand what is and isn’t their role. For example, consider the parent of an adult child who lives in constant despair because his son isn’t living up to his potential (in the parent’s view). Let’s say the son is a plumber not a prime minister. The problem here isn’t the child, it’s the parent. The parent has a mistaken idea that his emotional needs must be met somehow through the son. He has made the son responsible for satisfying him. The end result of this role confusion is that the parent becomes a manipulative mess. And even worse, he suffers from recurring feelings of resentment, alienation, and powerlessness. Whenever you either take or impose responsibility where it doesn’t belong, you induce these unpleasant emotions in yourself, and embark on scheming projects that rarely bring results.

- Joseph Grenny

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 In today’s workplace few people give each other honest feedback.

- Joseph Grenny

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 Emotion is the root of motivation. If you want to help those who are uncomfortable with change feel motivated to sacrifice their comfort, you’ll need to give them a potent why for doing so. Telling stories is the best way to do that.

- Joseph Grenny

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 If you’re serious about change, at some point the new behavior will need to turn from a request into an expectation. It’s always best to allow people time to absorb the change before imposing it. Share the why.

- Joseph Grenny

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 A loved one who learns to hold boundaries and allow an addict to experience their chosen misery develops faith in God’s Plan of Salvation.

- Joseph Grenny

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 If your relationship is weak, they may find stress rather than comfort in your presumption of intimacy.

- Joseph Grenny

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 With addicts, the best thing you can offer is a healthy example of a well-bounded life. Show him what it looks like when you keep your commitments to yourself—and perhaps you will invite him to a higher level of living.

- Joseph Grenny

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 It’s always easiest to set expectations before they are violated.

- Joseph Grenny

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 We can’t feel differently toward others until we think differently about them and ourselves.

- Joseph Grenny

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 God’s way of teaching is to allow people to experience the consequences of their choices.

- Joseph Grenny

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 I believed it was sometimes better to be vulnerably optimistic than protectively cynical.

- Joseph Grenny

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 They are unlikely to want someone who attempts to beguile them from their obvious predicament with magical homilies. Don’t pressure yourself by assuming you need to fix something. What they will want most from you is for you to sit with them in their predicament.

- Joseph Grenny

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 When you don’t feel safe, it is for one of two reasons: (1) You perceive someone is threatening you physically or materially (“I’m going to fire you” or “I’m going to leave you” or “I’m going to hit you”). (2) You perceive someone is threatening you psychologically (“I don’t care about you” or “I don’t trust you” or “I don’t respect you”).

- Joseph Grenny

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 Finally, ask for a commitment and agree on “Who does what by when.”

- Joseph Grenny

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 ...stop focusing on your fears and start focusing on your goals.

- Joseph Grenny

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 When we remove natural consequences from those we love, we take control of a process that God ordained. We are assuming our own design of the world is superior to His or that those we love are too fragile to learn in His way.

- Joseph Grenny

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 When it comes to frustrations, if you don’t talk it out with the person and resolve it, you’ll act it out in unhealthy ways.

- Joseph Grenny

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 Do your best to brainstorm the hurtful stories he might be telling about these incidents. Then reach out one last time demonstrating your willingness to own what you can. ... If ... you are met with more silence, move on. But I find it helpful to periodically send a note that messes with the story he might be telling himself.

- Joseph Grenny

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 The strength of the norms of any organization is a function of the likelihood of someone being confronted when they violate the norm.

- Joseph Grenny

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 I think most of us miss the main point of the Word of Wisdom. While the incident that initiated the revelation may have involved sacred meetings held on spit-stained floors in choking clouds of smoke, the revelation itself doesn’t list warnings about unhealthy substances as the Lord’s primary purpose. He doesn’t immediately dive into the evils of alcohol, hot drinks, or tobacco. Instead, He warns that: “In consequence… of evils and designs which do and will exist in the hearts of conspiring men in the last days, I… forewarn you, by giving unto you this word of wisdom…” The warning is about conspiracy not physiology. The Lord is warning that in the last days men will conspire in various ways to seduce us into surrendering the one thing Satan craves most: our agency. Substances were to be just one of the vehicles of the conspiracy.

- Joseph Grenny

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 Real leaders don’t “give assignments”—they ask for commitments. They understand that the initial conversation is a chance to frame the entire subsequent experience. When people make a commitment—a choice—they feel a far deeper connection to their work. When it is assigned to them—or others sell them on it—a subtle and insidious agreement is made: that the leader is responsible for their motivation. The worker is consenting to this work as a favor to the leader.

- Joseph Grenny

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 The best way to help people feel safe is to make the undiscussable discussable.

- Joseph Grenny

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 I realized that everyone knew what was going on, but no one was willing to talk about it.

- Joseph Grenny

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 I’m sorry you don’t have the parent you want. And I assure you that what’s wearing you out is burning energy hoping for someone to show up the way you want rather than the way they are. Accept reality, make the right decisions, and you’ll be on your way to greater peace.

- Joseph Grenny

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 The speed with which people learn is often a function of our willingness to let them experience the full natural consequences of their bad choices.

- Joseph Grenny

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 But then I read things that made me suspect these chapters were not written primarily for the addict. I concluded they were written for the helper.

- Joseph Grenny

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 Agency is the God-given power to become like God by making choices that create consequences.

- Joseph Grenny

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 Real leaders don’t “give assignments”—they ask for commitments.

- Joseph Grenny

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 Your expectations are your own—and it is your responsibility both to make them clear to others and to take care of yourself when they aren’t met.

- Joseph Grenny

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 People don’t feel embarrassed because they make a mistake. They don’t even feel embarrassed about making a mistake publicly. Embarrassment comes not when we conclude we made a mistake, but when we believe we are a mistake. It is the belief that our identity and worth are threatened that provokes shame.

- Joseph Grenny

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 As you suggested, others will often take offense. Sometimes a little. Sometimes a lot. But remember why. They’re feeling guilt. And they get to decide what they do with their guilt: Own it, or shift it. If they choose to shift it, you’re the most likely target available.

- Joseph Grenny

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 When you find yourself fuming with resentment, it is often because you’ve turned irritants into entitlements. The path to peace is to confront your own entitlement, accept things you can’t change, and be sure the story you’re telling yourself is proportionate to the situation.

- Joseph Grenny

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 Agency is the power to create consequences

- Joseph Grenny

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