Three Levels of Conversational Intelligence: Glaser

The three levels of conversational intelligence in Judith Glaser’s framework describe different purposes in an exchange: communicating information, advocating a position and discovering possibilities together. The practical question is which purpose the work needs, and whether the people involved understand what they can influence.

A leader can explain a fact clearly and still mishandle a decision. Equally, a generous invitation to explore can waste time when nobody has authority to change the answer. This guide develops the distinctions, then follows a complete fictional museum case from competing proposals to the customer’s actual choice.

Coachful is our #1 recommendation for organizing the client’s preparation, chosen action and subsequent coaching review. This is our editorial recommendation for that workflow, without a market-ranking claim or a guarantee of trust, agreement or business results.

Understand the model before choosing a conversational task

Glaser’s 2013 article, Build Trust Through Conversational Intelligence, names Level I as transactional, Level II as positional and Level III as transformational. Its distinctions concern telling, advocating and sharing or discovering, alongside the quality of listening and openness to influence. These are the originator’s categories, not three independently measured brain states.

In her original interview published by Mindtools, Glaser also says all three levels matter. She distinguishes confirming information, presenting a committed viewpoint and discovering something together. Constant exploration is not the aim. The interview’s page carries a 2024 posting date; it is an interview with the late author, not evidence of a new 2024 conversation.

The coaching applications below are original practice suggestions. They do not reproduce Glaser’s proprietary dashboard, assessment or training exercises. For the wider framework and its limits, see our Conversational Intelligence coaching guide.

Level I: make information usable

Use information exchange when the immediate task is to establish a fact, explain a requirement or confirm a next step. Accuracy matters before elegance. State the relevant version, what the information means for the recipient and any uncertainty that would change its use.

For example, “The booked visit starts at ten” identifies an existing arrangement. “We could offer half past ten if staffing is approved” identifies a possibility. Combining these into “The visit is moving later” would create a commitment that neither statement establishes.

Checking understanding is part of this work. Ask the recipient to explain the practical consequence where an error would matter. Their question may reveal an ambiguous instruction, inaccessible document or missing condition. It does not prove they are resisting information or operating at an inferior conversational level.

The boundary is whether the exchange really is informational. If colleagues need to contribute facts before a decision, presenting the answer as an update excludes their knowledge. Correct the purpose of the conversation rather than telling the predetermined answer more patiently.

Level II: advocate a position that can be examined

Advocacy is useful when someone has a recommendation and reasons for it. A client does not need to pretend to be neutral. They can state their preference, show the evidence, identify the trade-off and say what would change their judgment.

A sound recommendation separates the desired outcome from its proposed method. “Customers need a reliable answer” does not automatically establish that every scheduling question must go through a director. Another method might achieve reliability at less cost, or it might introduce a risk the advocate has not considered.

Listen for the strongest objection rather than collecting superficial assent. A colleague who challenges the staffing assumption may be helping the proposal become feasible. Ask what the objection concerns: the evidence, decision criterion, resource requirement or authority. Different objections require different responses.

Advocacy becomes less useful when every question is an attempt to win. A client may acknowledge the other view while retaining their own recommendation. Honest disagreement with a clear decision route can be more responsible than manufacturing consensus.

Level III: explore an answer that is genuinely open

Joint exploration is useful when participants can develop or change the answer together. Establish the open question and the boundaries before inviting ideas. A leader might retain responsibility for prices while genuinely opening the process used to check availability.

The distinctive practical test is whether another contribution can alter the proposal. Asking “How can we make my plan work?” may produce useful implementation advice, but it does not open the plan itself. Name that narrower task accurately. If alternatives are welcome, explain how they will be compared and who will decide.

Exploration also requires contributions people can actually make. A written response may reveal a constraint absent from the live meeting. Someone can decline to disclose personal experiences and still offer relevant operational knowledge. Personal vulnerability is not an entry requirement for a scheduling decision.

A new option is an output, not an authorization. Check its resources, relevant rights and receiving commitments. The group may produce a promising alternative and still decide against using it. That is compatible with a useful exploratory conversation.

Keep the science and the practical observation separate

Glaser’s accounts include broad claims about conversation, hormones and brain activity. A coach observing a meeting cannot infer that a particular sentence increased oxytocin, reduced cortisol or opened a named brain region. Neither agreement nor a calm appearance supplies those measurements.

A relevant 2020 registered replication on oxytocin and trust used a double-blind, placebo-controlled design. Its abstract reports no oxytocin effect on trusting behavior in the minimal-social-contact condition. A possible effect among less trusting individuals without social contact emerged in exploratory analyses and required confirmation. This was a trust-game experiment with intranasal administration, not a test of executive conversation coaching.

The result does not establish that conversation has no biological effects. It does show why a simple hormone-to-trust story should not be presented as settled justification for this coaching method. Evaluate what participants understood, what changed in the proposal and what actually happened. These observations also have limits: one improved exchange does not prove the framework caused improved organizational performance.

Prepare a conversation people can enter honestly

1. Define the immediate job. Write whether the next exchange informs, examines a recommendation or develops options. If there are several jobs, put them in order.
2. Separate fixed and open matters. Record who fixed each boundary and where a concern about it can be raised. Do not call a personal preference a legal requirement.
3. Obtain participation rather than allocating it silently. Ask for preparation and meeting time. Accept a shorter contribution or another route where workable.
4. Explain the decision route. Identify who recommends, who checks relevant facts and who can authorize the action. An invitation to contribute is not a promise that every proposal will be adopted.
5. Close with an accurate status. Distinguish an idea, a checked option, an authorized offer and an accepted commitment. Set a review that checks consequences as well as conversational intentions.

These steps are an original preparation aid, not a validated scoring instrument. Our active listening guide develops checking and clarification across different conversational purposes.

Work through a complete fictional museum case

Every person, organization, arrangement and outcome in this case is fictional. Malik manages bookings at a local history museum. Inez leads visitor staffing, Jo is the program director and Ari is Malik’s coach. Beth coordinates a school’s existing visit on 20 October 2036 at 10:00.

Beth has asked whether the visit could start at 11:00. Malik wants bookings staff to handle time changes without repeatedly involving Jo. Inez wants every proposed change checked because a later start may require unavailable staff. Malik has already emailed Inez that her approach is “blocking bookings.” She has read that message.

During their 5 October coaching session, Malik initially wants a persuasive script. Ari asks what a persuasive success would establish. Malik realizes he could obtain verbal agreement without knowing whether staff can support the actual visit. He chooses to prepare a decision process instead. Ari is not facilitating the operational meeting or deciding museum policy.

Jo confirms that existing prices, visit length and headcount limits are outside this small process trial. She retains authority over any time offered. Staff may examine a different checking route for this request, but no one may promise a new time before her approval. Any wider policy change would need a separate decision.

Obtain the contributions and run the shorter meeting

Malik requests a thirty-minute meeting on 7 October. Inez declines that duration: she can spend ten minutes reading and answering written options and twenty minutes meeting, not thirty live minutes. Malik and Jo accept that route. Jo also accepts ten minutes to read and answer the decision brief beforehand. Malik’s fifteen-minute handling allocation includes writing the requests and processing both replies and Inez’s written options.

The actual twenty-minute meeting uses four minutes for facts, six for recommendations, eight for joint option development and two for closing status. These are elapsed meeting minutes. Each of the three participants spends twenty active minutes, so the meeting consumes sixty person-minutes.

In the opening, Malik confirms that 10:00 remains booked and 11:00 is a request. He apologizes for calling Inez obstructive before checking the staffing facts. Inez accepts that he is correcting the statement but says the earlier message has made her more cautious about his promises. That concern is not erased by the apology.

Malik advocates local discretion because repeated approvals can slow an answer. Inez advocates checking every changed time because a later visit can exceed the staffed period. Jo asks both to identify what their proposals assume. Malik has no evidence that an 11:00 start fits current coverage. Inez clarifies that she needs a staffing check, not necessarily a new director-led meeting for every question.

The joint question becomes: “Can we prepare one checked alternative for this visit, while keeping the existing booking until the school accepts a change?” Malik changes his original preference for immediate local authority. Inez accepts preparing an alternative rather than defending the existing time without investigation. Jo authorizes fact-finding only.

Complete the option check and decision brief

On 8 October, Inez spends fifteen minutes checking coverage for the unchanged visit length and headcount. A 10:30 start fits the current roster. An 11:00 start would extend beyond it, and nobody has accepted additional coverage. Jo’s ten-minute authority review rejects offering 11:00 and approves offering 10:30 for this request only. She does not authorize a general discretion policy.

Malik drafts the brief in fifteen minutes. Inez’s five-minute review catches a material omission: the draft says 10:30 is approved but does not say the existing 10:00 booking remains unless Beth accepts the change. Malik spends ten minutes correcting the brief and customer wording before anything is sent. The completed record reads:

The correction matters even though everybody was cooperative. Joint exploration did not prevent Malik from producing an ambiguous draft. A separate quality check found the mistake before it reached the school.

Show the actual customer choice and its confirmation

On 9 October, Malik sends Beth this complete original message:

We checked your request to move the 20 October visit to 11:00. We cannot offer that start within the staffing currently approved. We can offer 10:30 with your existing visit length, headcount limit and price unchanged. Your 10:00 booking remains in place unless you accept 10:30. Please tell me by 12:00 on 10 October whether you would like 10:30 or prefer to keep 10:00.

Beth replies that 10:30 does not solve the transport problem: the later bus would only support 11:00. She declines the alternative and explicitly keeps 10:00. Malik confirms that the booking remains 10:00 with its existing terms. Beth reads the confirmation and acknowledges it on 10 October. No replacement bus or changed visit is invented to make the case end more positively.

Malik’s fifteen-minute communication allocation includes sending the offer, reading Beth’s answer, sending the confirmation and informing Jo and Inez of the closure. Beth spends fifteen minutes on the offer and her decision, then five reading and acknowledging the confirmation. Jo spends five minutes reading the final status. Inez spends five reading it and sending Malik her process feedback; Malik separately spends five reading that feedback.

Inez says the explicit unchanged-booking condition was useful, but she still worries that future requests will arrive as promises. Malik records that concern without reporting restored trust. Jo’s approved alternative was real, Beth’s refusal was real, and the original visit’s eventual delivery remains outside the case cutoff.

Review the work, rather than awarding a conversational grade

In the 12 October fifteen-minute coaching review, Malik identifies the most useful shift: he stopped treating persuasion as a substitute for a checked option. He also names his own draft omission. Ari asks what evidence would distinguish better preparation from a merely agreeable meeting. Malik points to the actual staffing check, corrected offer, school decision and unchanged confirmation.

Ari later sends a private client-conversation comment: “Your record keeps Jo’s permission separate from Beth’s acceptance. The draft omission also shows why your checking step needs to survive a friendly meeting. What will you retain from this single case?” Malik reads and replies: he will explicitly record the existing commitment when proposing a variation. This five-minute receiving-and-reply task is separate from the live review.

The whole active-work account is:

The total is 330 person-minutes. Waiting between messages is not counted as active work. Neither the declined thirty-minute meeting nor the future visit is included. Individual remainders cannot be transferred to someone who has reached their own cap.

Prepare and review the practice in Coachful

Use Coachful to hold the bounded coaching work around the operational exchange. Keep the museum’s authoritative booking record in its appropriate system. A coaching worksheet is not a staff roster, booking amendment or customer approval.

1. Create an optional preparation worksheet. Ask for purpose, existing commitment, open question, preferred recommendation, authority, receiving agreement and review evidence. Use original prompts rather than reproducing a branded conversational assessment.
2. Agree what can enter the coaching record. Summarize the relevant decision without uploading unnecessary school or colleague information. The ICF Code of Ethics addresses agreements and information exchange for ICF professionals; it does not turn a sponsor into the audience for every client reflection.
3. Review the actual submission. In the client profile, use Reflections, then Forms & worksheets. The Coach review section is private to the authorized coach team. Saving it as reviewed does not deliver feedback to Malik or make the school’s decision complete.
4. Return feedback through the agreed conversation. The client-profile message icon opens the one-to-one conversation. Check its actual authorized audience, send the useful comment and allocate the client’s reading/reply time, as Ari and Malik do here.
5. Keep only the chosen next action. Record Malik’s own preparation practice, not tasks assigned to unconsenting colleagues. At the next appropriate review, distinguish his recorded intention from an observed subsequent exchange.

The demonstration screens illustrate preparation and coaching continuity, not a native three-level assessment or the fictional museum’s records. See the Coachful features for the broader workspace.

Troubleshoot a conversation that is not moving

People repeat their positions. Identify the missing decision criterion or fact before requesting more openness. In the museum case, another round of arguments would not establish actual staffing coverage.

The leader has already decided. Name the remaining implementation question honestly. If an external requirement is disputed, identify the appropriate review route rather than implying that collaborative language gives the group authority to waive it.

A participant says the discussion felt closed. Ask what invitation, response or consequence produced that experience. Do not refute it by saying the leader intended Level III. Compare the actual available choices and acknowledge any misleading invitation.

The group agrees but the receiver declines. Preserve the refusal and the existing commitment. Internal agreement does not oblige a customer to accept an alternative. Malik’s accurate closure is useful even though the requested later start is unavailable.

A formal concern emerges. Stop using the levels to interpret everything. Safety issues, complaints and employment concerns may require their appropriate organizational or professional process. Coaching can support the client’s choices within competence without replacing those responsibilities.

Frequently asked questions

What are the three levels of conversational intelligence?

Glaser names transactional, positional and transformational exchanges. They provide a lens for information, advocacy and joint discovery. Use the distinctions to clarify the task rather than classify a colleague’s character.

Should every conversation reach Level III?

No. A confirmed booking time needs accurate communication. A recommendation needs scrutiny. Joint exploration is appropriate where participants can genuinely develop the answer.

Can a coach identify the level from tone alone?

No. A gentle question can conceal a fixed answer, and a direct statement can accurately explain a necessary boundary. Examine purpose, available influence and subsequent action.

Does using the levels prove that trust increased?

No. Ask participants about their experience and review fulfilled commitments, while retaining disagreements. Neither a label nor visible agreement measures hormones or demonstrates durable trust.

What if exploration produces no accepted change?

Record what was learned and the actual decision. A checked option that is declined may still clarify constraints and prevent an inaccurate promise. Do not turn that into a claim that the original practical problem was solved.