“How are your parents doing?” Chris Slabbinck asks the woman serving him this Friday afternoon. Her eyes twinkle as she starts chatting away. Chris was born and raised in Zedelgem. At the local restaurant, everyone seems to have known him for years. Even the building itself turns out to be part of the Slabbinck family history.

At the age of 22, Chris (47) started a transportation company in his hometown. He took over the business from his father, which had two employees. He wanted to grow and expand the operations, but his father was opposed to the idea. He tried in every way possible to change Chris’s mind. Nevertheless, Chris managed to strike a deal with him. If he paid his father’s bills every Saturday, he was allowed to sell some decorative gravel to customers. That deal grew into his second business: Gravelart. Specializing in gravel, stone, and landscaping. Today, he also owns ECCO Products, De Witte, and Jatu. Under the umbrella of: Chris Slabbinck Group.

Two thousand conversations
Chris has an average of forty conversations a week. He spends most of his day talking with people. “No matter who it is,” Chris begins. “Make sure the conversation was worthwhile. That’s always my intention. Of course, that’s hard to prove with numbers. But I have forty conversations a week, so about two thousand a year. Suppose I make every conversation ten percent more impactful. That would make a huge difference, wouldn’t it?”

The steaming bowls of stew are placed on the table. “There’s no standard recipe for effective language,” says Chris. He argues that you should always tailor your words to the outcome you have in mind and to the person sitting across from you—with the finesse of a chef seasoning a dish. “A sentence that is incredibly valuable to you might mean nothing to me,” he continues. “That’s what I find so fascinating about it. It’s all about the right words at the right moment.”

The most important thing in communication
Before he can choose the right words, the entrepreneur must first take a step back—a step that many overlook. Chris: “For a long time, I was missing the most important aspect of communication: listening first. Through Straight-Line Leadership, I learned to truly listen. To see where people are coming from. When a coach first told me that, I understood the words. But I had absolutely no idea what he meant. It took a while before the penny dropped.” Listening deeply to others and using their language from that perspective has often helped Chris achieve his goals. Sometimes against all odds.

One Big Lie
On the outskirts of Zedelgem, he is developing a fully self-sufficient housing project: Project Z. It features 33 spacious apartments and a shared garden. “We’re building with nature in mind, featuring a shared garden and shared cars. It’s being designed the way we think all construction projects will look within the next ten years.” In addition to the technical challenges of Project Z, there was a human aspect that demanded his attention.

“One of the neighbors was completely against it,” said Chris. “He had bought a house there. Made everything just the way he wanted it. A little house, a little family, a little garden. A picture-perfect scene. Suddenly, I was going to put an entire building right around it. I could imagine he’d have some resistance to that.” The neighbor had mobilized an army of people to revolt against Project Z. Chris then sought advice from a lawyer. “That man was very technical about the law. He laid out various options for me. But I thought: this will only pit people against each other. There’s only one thing I can do: talk to them.”

Chris decided to confront him head-on. He showed up at his neighbor’s door, construction plans in hand. “But at that moment, it was as if Putin had rung Zelensky’s doorbell. I can still picture his shocked face. I said to him, ‘I’ve read what you wrote in your objections. You have good reasons to oppose my plan. But I wanted to speak with you to be one hundred percent sure that I understood you correctly.”

He didn’t appreciate that. The man reacted very aggressively toward Chris. “He said I was trying to get people to buy into one big lie. For instance, I wrote in my proposal to the city that I would have the community garden maintained by a foundation that helps people with mental disabilities find work. According to him, none of that was true. It was just a marketing stunt. At a moment like that, you really have to keep a cool head.”

Breaking Down the Arguments
“Looking back, that was my first successful ‘Straight-Line conversation’. In which I let the old Chris die and entered the conversation as a new Chris. As a result, three months later I was talking to that person every week. I think at some point he just got tired of me,” he laughs. “But in the end, he convinced the 28 people who were backing him to withdraw all their objections. Pretty unique.”

All Chris had done was listen actively. Even though that wasn’t always comfortable. “By being curious and asking questions, the neighbor eventually undermined his own arguments. Because the things he said weren’t factual. I didn’t put those words in his mouth. At some point, he realized that himself.”

An Unfair Advantage
“Sometimes I have conversations that are especially important. What I do in those situations can make or break everything,” says Chris. “These are conversations with key people on crucial projects. At moments like that, I feel like having these tools gives me an almost unfair advantage. Because I’m able to have a real conversation.” In the past, Chris would take a stand, dig in his heels, and focus solely on what he wanted to get out of it. “If you have a very strong negotiating position, it’s easy to dig in your heels. In all other cases: listen to the person across from you. Really listen. And let him or her feel that, too.”

The entrepreneur doesn’t have any tips or tricks for that. After all, you don’t need to show that you’re listening if you’re actually listening. “Most people learn to have conversations by memorizing the right questions. But those aren’t the right questions, no matter how intelligent they sound. One of my salespeople said recently: ‘Chris, I now realize that I’ve never done anything other than memorize intelligent questions. And use those questions at moments I thought were appropriate.’ So he wasn’t really listening. He was trying to make a good impression, to look good as a salesperson.” You have to make sure your conversation partner participates, according to Chris. “With your questions, you force people to participate in the conversation. You ask questions that don’t let them get away with small talk.”

Lost Flemish
Chris and his team use language deliberately to shape the future of their organizations. “It starts as early as the job interview. ECCO’s goal, for example, is very specific,” says Chris. ECCO Products is a manufacturer of permeable solutions for outdoor spaces. “By 2025, we at ECCO will have made twenty million square meters of land permeable. And we’ll double that by 2030. That’s one of the first things job applicants hear. We ask, ‘Are you willing to help make that happen?’ Of course, everyone says yes, even if they’re thinking no. But the seed has been planted. And we keep repeating that.”

In an effective conversation, something is always created. Within Chris’s companies, they’ve even coined a term for conversations that don’t lead to anything. “We say, ‘That was a waste of time.’ It’s even written in a company document: no wasted time.”

Vigorous, but not very effective
In September 2019, Chris was in the South of France with his wife. In his suitcase: the book *Straight-Line Leadership*. “I said to her, ‘I’d really like to do this. What do you think?’ So she read the first five chapters. Gosh, I can still picture her sitting there,” he laughs. “She came back, with fear written all over her face, and said, ‘You know I’m absolutely not going to stop you. But you’re already so binary. So black and white. That scares me.’ But in hindsight, her analysis wasn’t correct. I wasn’t binary. I was just a big kid who stamped his feet when he didn’t get what he wanted.

The funny thing was that my wife wondered: does he really have to do that Straight-Line Leadership thing? It seems pretty harsh. But the exact opposite is true. I’m a much more pleasant person to her now. I’m much clearer, more effective, and I go straight for my goal. But I’m also much more appropriate in my interactions. Before, I used to be intense in my communication, but not very effective. If something came my way that I hadn’t anticipated, I would react inappropriately.”

Chris’s newfound tact in communication is also paying off in business. For example, two months ago, a potential buyer came to view the homes at Project Z. While there, he ran into the neighbor, who was working in his garden. Chris: “That potential buyer asked, ‘Are you the neighbor here?’, and started digging for information. This week I found out that the neighbor promoted the project from start to finish. Isn’t that wonderful?”