What Is a Fierce Conversation?

If you have read Coaching Conversations or some of the other Meta-Coach materials, you know that one of the distinguishing characteristics of a truly transformative coaching experience is that it involves a fierce conversation. Recently, several people have written to know more about what this means and how it works.

A fierce conversation is fierce in focus. It is fierce because it invites us into "the heart of the matter" ---whatever that matter is for us. And as such, it puts us in touch with our inner essence, with our uniqueness, with our particular vision and values, and as such creates a moment of existential awareness. It gets to the heart of the meanings that we have absorbed or created for ourselves or that we want to create.

I picked up this terminology several years ago from Susan Scott who wrote a powerful book (Fierce Conversations, Viking 2002) which described the kind of conversations that enable us to take our competencies in life and succeed to a new level.

The fierceness is not in being hard, harsh, mean, or cruel. It is not in style. Of course, this is where the art comes in. Normally, when we confront or are confronted, there are strong emotions and intensity of our energies. The fierceness is in focus because it enables us to experience reality in a more direct and raw form. It is fierce because we are not let off the hook but have to face the mirror of our reflections.

What enables such a conversation? A safe place where you know that you are more than your behaviors, where you know that you worth and dignity and value is unconditionally given, and where you feel safe to be open and vulnerable to the eyes of another. In Neuro-Semantics, we call that a Crucible. There you can be ruthlessly compassionate as Graham Richardson calls it. There you can speak the raw truth in love and facilitate the unleashing of hidden potentials.