Preparing for Tough Conversations

Jeff Strong worked nearly 30 years in the consumer products industry as a senior executive at Procter & Gamble and global president and chief customer officer at Johnson & Johnson. He then taught in the Marriott School of Business at Brigham Young University and worked as an advisor to the Church before serving as a mission leader in the Arkansas Bentonville Mission.

Jeff has since spent several years doing research on why people are leaving the Church. While not a professional researcher, his career involved a large amount of research and the research he shares in this podcast was done with the help of some of the top Latter-day Saint researchers in the world. Today, Jeff lives in Midway, Utah, and stays busy with a little lavender farm, some business consulting, and enjoying family.

Joseph Grenny is a lifelong student of social science whose writings are references in major universities around the world. He is a New York Times bestselling author of eight books, including leadership, influence and communication classics Crucial Conversations, Influencer, Crucial Accountability, and Change Anything. His books are available in over 30 languages and have sold over six million copies.

Joseph is a co-founder and current board chair of Unitus Labs, an international nonprofit that has helped over 15 million of the world’s poorest to move toward self reliance. In 2015 he and his colleagues started The Other Side Academy, a 2.5-year school for those with long histories of crime, addiction and homelessness. The Other Side Academy is free, requiring only a desire to change for admission. In April 2021, Joseph and the leaders of The Other Side Academy announced their intention to build The Other Side Village, a 400-home community for those who are chronically homeless based on principles of self-reliance and peer accountability.

Joseph is married to the former Celia Marie Waldron. They have six children and eight grandchildren and live in Salt Lake City.

Links

Watch the video and share your thoughts in the Zion Lab community
The Data Behind Church Culture | An Interview with Jeff Strong
Joining Moroni’s War on Addiction | An Interview with Joseph Grenny
Creating Change | Interview with Joseph Grenny
Messy Conversations: When Loved Ones Leave the Faith, by Joseph Grenny
Transcript available with the video in the Zion Lab community

Highlights

Social science expert Joseph Grenny and researcher Jeff Strong discuss the high-stakes nature of “faith transitions” within the Church . The conversation centers on how leaders and family members can navigate these emotionally charged discussions to preserve and strengthen relationships.

00:04:45 – The Importance of High-Stakes Conversations
00:06:17 – The Challenge of Faith Transitions
00:08:31 – The Need for Open Dialogue
00:09:50 – The Emotional Weight of Conversations
00:11:13 – The Impact of Poor Responses
00:12:21 – Preparing for Difficult Conversations
00:13:35 – Research Insights on Conversations
00:15:48 – Identifying Positive Deviants
00:16:29 – Learning from Successful Conversations
00:18:06 – The Role of Fear in Conversations
00:20:06 – Talking Under the Influence of Stress
00:22:40 – The Importance of Taking a Breather
00:25:23 – Three Key Steps for Effective Conversations
00:27:00 – Feeling Your Feelings
00:29:40 – Fixing Your Story
00:31:40 – Finding Your Motive
00:33:13 – The Transformative Power of Relationships
00:35:11 – Embracing the Messiness of Life
00:38:11 – The Role of God in Our Growth
00:40:45 – The Journey of Self-Discovery

Key Insights

• The “Devoutness Paradox”: Research involving 15,000 participants found that the more devout a person is, the less likely a conversation about faith transition is to go well. If the recipient is a church leader, the odds of a negative outcome are 4.5 times higher than average.
• High Intensity of Need: Approximately 83% of individuals going through a faith transition reach out to others, typically contacting four to five people, indicating a deep desire for connection and resolution during the process.
• The Trap of “Problem-Solving”: Many leaders and parents react out of fear and an immediate impulse to “fix” the individual or bring them back to the church. This motive often leads to the other person feeling judged, berated, or suspected.
• The “Positive Deviant” Model: Some leaders and family members manage to maintain their own religious commitment while creating a safe, robust space for dialogue. These “positive deviants” prioritize the relationship over immediate theological conformity.
• Long-Lasting Consequences: The first few seconds of a conversation are pivotal; words spoken in moments of shock or vulnerability can endure for years and dictate the future trajectory of the relationship.

Leadership Applications

• Shifting Motives: Leaders must move from a mindset of “correcting” to one of “listening and processing”. Recognizing that fear often drives the impulse to solve a problem can help leaders stay present and supportive rather than confrontational.
• Validating the Struggle: Leaders should normalize the reality that faith transitions are common and often a healthy part of a person’s individual journey . By acknowledging the difficulty without judgment, they empower the individual to feel heard rather than controlled.

The award-winning Leading Saints Podcast is one of the top independent Latter-day Saints podcasts as part of nonprofit Leading Saints’ mission to help Latter-day Saints be better prepared to lead. Find Leadership Tools, Courses, and Community for Latter-day Saint leaders in the Zion Lab community. Learn more and listen to any of the past episodes for free at LeadingSaints.org.

Past guests include Emily Belle Freeman, David Butler, Hank Smith, John Bytheway, Reyna and Elena Aburto, Liz Wiseman, Stephen M. R. Covey, Benjamin Hardy, Elder Alvin F. Meredith III, Julie Beck, Brad Wilcox, Jody Moore, Tony Overbay, John H. Groberg, Elaine Dalton, Tad R. Callister, Lynn G. Robbins, J. Devn Cornish, Bonnie Oscarson, Dennis B. Neuenschwander, Kirby Heyborne, Taysom Hill, Coaches Jennifer Rockwood and Brandon Doman, Anthony Sweat, John Hilton III, Barbara Morgan Gardner, Blair Hodges, Whitney Johnson, Ryan Gottfredson, Greg McKeown, Ganel-Lyn Condie, Michael Goodman, Wendy Ulrich, Richard Ostler, and many more in over 800 episodes.

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