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Claim two. Once you’ve created your upset emotions, you have only two options: You can act on them or be acted on by them.
The best at dialogue do something completely different. They aren’t held hostage by their emotions, nor do they try to hide or suppress them. Instead, they act on their emotions. That is, when they have strong feelings, they influence (and often change) their emotions by thinking them out. As a result, they choose their emotions, and by so doing, make it possible to choose behaviors that create better results.
Consider Maria. She’s feeling hurt but is worried that if she says something to Louis, she’ll look too emotional, so she alternates between holding her feelings inside (avoiding) and taking cheap shots (masking).
As it turns out, there is an intermediate step between what others do and how we feel. There’s always an intermediate step because actions themselves can’t and don’t cause emotional reactions. That’s why, when faced with the exact same circumstances, ten people may have ten different emotional responses.
What is this intermediate step? Just after we observe what others do and just before we feel some emotion about it, we tell ourselves a story. We add meaning to the action we observed. We make a guess at the motive driving the behavior. Why were they doing that? We also add judgment—is that good or bad? And then, based on these thoughts or stories, our body responds with an emotion.
you make me mad. the intermediate step that makes the emotion.
Since we and only we are telling the story, we can take back control of our own emotions by telling a different story. We now have a point of leverage or control.
If we can find a way to control the stories we tell, by rethinking or retelling them, we can master our emotions and, therefore, master our crucial conversations.
master our emotions and conversations by telling ourselves a different story.
our emotions are directly linked to our judgments of right/wrong, good/bad, kind/selfish, fair/unfair, etc.
Storytelling typically happens blindingly fast. When we believe we’re at risk, we tell ourselves a story so quickly that we don’t even know we’re doing it.
If we take control of our stories, they won’t control us. People who excel at dialogue are able to influence their emotions during crucial conversations.
They recognize that while it’s true that at first we are in control of the stories we tell—after all, we do make them up of our own accord—once they’re told, the stories control us. They first control how we feel and then how we act. And as a result, they control the results we get from our crucial conversations.
But it doesn’t have to be this way. We can tell different stories and break the loop. In fact, until we tell different ...
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If you want improved results from your crucial conversations, change the stories you tell yourself—even while y...
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What’s the most effective way to come up with different stories? The best at dialogue find a way to first slow down and then take charge of their Path to Action.
[Act] Notice your behavior. Ask: Am I in some form of silence or violence? • [Feel] Get in touch with your feelings. What emotions are encouraging me to act this way? • [Tell story] Analyze your stories. What story is creating these emotions? • [See/hear] Get back to the facts. What evidence do I have to support this story?
Not only do those who are best at crucial conversations notice when they’re slipping into silence or violence, but they’re also able to admit it. They don’t wallow in self-doubt, of course, but they do recognize the problem and begin to take corrective action.
The moment they realize that they’re killing dialogue, they review their own Path to Action.
Knowing what you’re really feeling helps you take a more accurate look at what is going on and why.
How about you? When experiencing strong emotions, do you stop and think about your feelings? If so, do you use a rich vocabulary, or do you mostly draw from terms such as “bummed out” and “furious”? Second, do you talk openly with others about how you feel? Do you willingly talk with loved ones about what’s going on inside of you? Third, in so doing, is your vocabulary robust and accurate?
The first step to regaining emotional control is to challenge the illusion that what you’re feeling is the only right emotion under the circumstances. This may be the hardest step, but it’s also the most important one. By questioning our feelings, we open ourselves up to question our stories. We challenge the comfortable conclusion that our story is right and true.
the most important step.
Don’t confuse stories with facts. Sometimes you fail to question your stories because you see them as immutable facts. When you generate stories in the blink of an eye, you can get so caught up in the moment that you begin to believe your stories are facts. They feel like facts. You confuse subjective conclusions with steel-hard data points.
Separate fact from story by focusing on behavior.
when assessing the facts, you might say, “She scowled at me” or “He made a sarcastic comment.” Words such as “scowl” and “sarcastic” are hot terms. They express judgments and attributions that, in turn, create strong emotions. They are story, not fact.
Either our stories are completely accurate and propel us in healthy directions, or they’re quite inaccurate but justify our current behavior—making us feel good about ourselves and calling for no need to change.
We call these imaginative and self-serving concoctions “clever stories.” They’re clever because they allow us to feel good about behaving badly. Better yet, they allow us to feel good about behaving badly even while achieving abysmal results.
When we feel a need to justify our ineffective behavior or disconnect ourselves from our bad results, we tend to tell our stories in three very predictable ways. Learn what the three are and how to counteract them, and you can take control of your emotional life. Fail to do so and you’ll be a victim to the emotions you’re predisposed to have wash over you at crucial times.
we justify ourselves with stories in three predictable ways.
The first of the clever stories is a Victim Story. Victim Stories, as you might imagine, make us out to be innocent sufferers.
Within most crucial conversations, when you tell a Victim Story, you intentionally ignore the role you have played in the problem.
(This added twist turns you from victim into martyr. What a bonus!)
We impute bad motive, and then we tell everyone about the evils of the other party as if somehow we’re doing the world a huge favor.
In Victim Stories we exaggerate our own innocence. In Villain Stories we overemphasize the other person’s guilt or stupidity.
We automatically assume the worst possible motives or grossest incompetence while ignoring any possible good or neutral intentions or skills a person may have.
Not only do Villain Stories help us blame others for bad results, but they also set us up to then do whatever we want to the “villains.”
Finally come Helpless Stories. In these fabrications we make ourselves out to be powerless to do anything healthy or helpful.
While Villian and Victim Stories look back to explain why we’re in the situation we’re in, Helpless Stories look forward to explain why we can’t do anything to change our situation.
For example, when we decide our colleague is a “control freak” (Villain Story), we are less inclined to give her feedback because, after all, control freaks like her don’t accept feedback (Helpless Story). Nothing we can do will change that fact.
Our need to tell clever stories often starts with our own sellouts. Like it or not, we usually don’t begin telling stories that justify our actions until we have done something that we feel a need to justify.1
Even small sellouts like these get us started telling clever stories. When we don’t admit to our own mistakes, we obsess about others’ faults, our innocence, and our powerlessness to do anything other than what we’re already doing.
We tell a clever story when we want self-justification more than results.
The dialogue-smart recognize that they’re telling clever stories, stop, and then do what it takes to tell a useful story.
A useful story, by definition, creates emotions that lead to healthy action—such as dialogue.
key skill. telling a useful story.
And what transforms a clever story into a useful one? The rest of the story. That’s because clever stories have one characteristic in common: They’re incomplete. Clever stories omit crucial information about us, about others, and about our options. Only by including all of th...
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What’s the best way to fill in the missing details? Quite simply, it’s done by turning victims into actors, villains into hum...
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Am I pretending not to notice my role in the problem?
Instead of being a victim, you were an actor. This doesn’t necessarily mean you had malicious motives. Perhaps your contribution was merely a thoughtless omission. Nonetheless, you contributed.
Why would a reasonable, rational, and decent person do what this person is doing?
Empathy often replaces judgment, and depending upon how we’ve treated others, personal accountability replaces self-justification.
In fact, with experience and maturity we learn to worry less about others’ intent and more about the effect others’ actions are having on us.
When we reflect on alternative motives, not only do we soften our emotions, but equally important, we relax our absolute certainty long enough to allow for dialogue— the only reliable way of discovering others’ genuine motives.
What do I really want? For me? For others? For the relationship?
