The Art of Conscious Conversations

INTRODUCTION

Waking Up in Conversations

A bend in the road is not the end of the road. . . .Unless you fail to make the turn.

—HELEN KELLER

As a young architect, I had a front-row seat for many conflicts in the building industry. The arguments were ubiquitous: architects versus engineers, engineers versus contractors, neighbors versus developers, and town officials versus owners. Given the big egos, the hardened positions, and the high stakes, it probably shouldn’t have been surprising that so many of those conversations didn’t go well.

One cold and snowy winter morning in a dank unfinished first-floor space, the construction project manager, a colleague named Seth, and I were facilitating a meeting to discuss the schedule and the monthly spend ...