Difficult Conversations: How to Discuss What Matters Most

by Douglas Stone

helped people to break down silos and build up morale, showing the way past a culture of nice to a culture of efficiency, openness, and respect.

people are people. We have perceptions and thoughts and feelings, and we work and play with other human beings who have their own perceptions, thoughts, and feelings:

People are people. It is true today, it was true ten years ago, and it was probably not much different ten thousand years before that: “After all I did to put this hunt together and make it a success, this is my share of the kill? You call that fair?!” We don’t outgrow difficult conversations or get promoted past them. The best workplaces and most effective organizations have them. The family down the street that everyone thinks is perfect has them. Loving couples and lifelong friends have them. In fact, we can make a reasonable argument that engaging (well) in difficult conversations is a sign of health in a relationship.

the long-term success and even survival of many organizations may depend on their ability to master difficult conversations. Why? Because the ability to handle difficult conversations well is a prerequisite to organizational change and adaptation. And because the combination of globalized competition and technological development have made rapid change and adaptation a necessity for organizational survival.

With everyone taking for granted that their own view is right, and readily assuming that others’ opposition is self-interested, progress quickly grinds to a halt. Decisions are delayed,

The ability to manage difficult conversations effectively is foundational, then, to achieving almost any significant change.

the need to be responsive to the market – nimble, flexible, adaptive – has driven many organizations to be less hierarchical and to operate in a matrix that introduces more complexity to decision making and the ability to get things done. This is a recipe for more conflict – and for more difficult conversations. Think about it: Do the people in your organization deal with conflicts directly, routinely, and well? Or does the e-mail and water-cooler chat continue to focus on all the ways the organization is dysfunctional, even as important conversations are avoided?

the only reason some of them survive is because their competition is equally lousy at confronting the things that matter most. And the pressures to work more effectively and efficiently are only going to increase. Businesses have spent the last twenty years focusing on process and technology improvements, and on cost cutting, and by now there’s not much left to cut. For the next ten (or fifty) years, breakthrough performance is going to depend instead on people learning to deal with conflict more effectively and, indeed, leveraging it for competitive advantage. Ideally, conflict and differing perspectives, handled well and efficiently, should become a competitive asset – an engine for rapid learning and innovation. And that’s the upside: companies that nurture these communication skills as a core competence for leaders will leave their competition in the dust.

Sheila received an e-mail from Ali, who wondered how to handle a challenging situation with his eleven-year-old son. His son, he believed, was taking money from him, and when confronted, the boy denied it. What to do? “I understand from your book,” he wrote, “that the blame game is not the correct approach. I agree, but there are times when father and son need to understand the truth.” Sheila was at first tempted to respond with the simple reassurance that yes, at times a parent must confront and/or discipline a child, particularly if a child is stealing and lying about it. And she did offer this, but added a couple further suggestions: that Ali continue to inquire about his son’s feelings and perceptions, and that he remain open to the possibility that he, Ali, doesn’t yet know the whole story.

The Harvard Negotiation Project is best known for a book on negotiation and problem-solving called Getting to YES

The “Harvard Method,” as it is sometimes called, emphasizes the importance of easy two-way communication. Yet in both negotiations and daily life, for good reasons or bad, we often don’t talk to each other, and don’t want to. And sometimes when we do talk, things only get worse. Feelings – anger, guilt, hurt – escalate. We become more and more sure that we are right, and so do those with whom we disagree.

Difficult Conversations,

explores what it is that makes conversations difficult, why we avoid them, and why we...

Difficult Conversations addresses a critical aspect of human interaction. It applies to how we deal with children, parents, landlords, tenants, suppliers, customers, bankers, brokers, neighbors, team members, patients, employees, and colleagues of any kind.

the good things about this book owe a great deal to others while errors and omissions are solely our responsibility.

Asking for a raise. Ending a relationship. Giving a critical performance review. Saying no to someone in need. Confronting disrespectful or hurtful behavior. Disagreeing with the majority in a group. Apologizing. At work, at home, and across the backyard fence, difficult conversations are attempted or avoided every day. A Difficult Conversation Is Anything You Find It Hard to Talk About

The Dilemma: Avoid or Confront, It Seems There Is No Good Path

You want the neighbors to like you; maybe you’re overreacting. Eventually, you come back to thinking it’s better to say nothing, and this calms your nerves. But just as you drop off to sleep, that darn dog howls again, and your cycle of indecision starts anew. There doesn’t seem to be any choice that will allow you to sleep. Why is it so difficult to decide whether to avoid or to confront? Because at some level we know the truth: If we try to avoid the problem, we’ll feel taken advantage of, our feelings will fester, we’ll wonder why we don’t stick up for ourselves, and we’ll rob the other person of the opportunity to improve things. But if we confront the problem, things might get even worse. We may be rejected or attacked ; we might hurt the other person in ways we didn’t intend; and the relationship might suffer.

we wonder if it is possible to be so tactful, so overwhelmingly pleasant that everything ends up fine. Tact is good, but it’s not the answer to difficult conversations.

Delivering a difficult message is like throwing a hand grenade. Coated with sugar, thrown hard or soft, a hand grenade is still going to do damage.

And keeping it to yourself is no better. Choosing not to deliver a difficult message is like hanging on to a hand grenade once you’ve pulled the pin.

So we feel...

A way to deal creatively with tough problems while treating people with decency and integrity. An approach that is helpful to your peace of mind,

get out of the hand grenade business altogether, by getting you out of the business of delivering (and receiving) messages. We will show you how to turn the damaging battle of warring messages into the more constructive approach we call a learning conversation. The Rewards Are Worth the Effort

breaking out of your comfort zone is rarely easy and is never risk-free.

we have discovered that, regardless of context, the things that make difficult conversations difficult, and the errors in thinking and acting that compound those difficulties, are the same. We all share the same fears and fall into the same few traps.

However, for every case that is truly hopeless, there are a thousand that appear hopeless but are not.

We Need to Look in New Places

it makes sense to shift from a “message delivery stance” to a “learning stance.”

Difficult Conversations Are a Normal Part of Life No matter how good you get, difficult conversations will always challenge you.

even with the best of intentions, human relationships can corrode or become tangled, and, if we are honest, we also know that we don’t always have the best of intentions. We know just how fragile are the heart and the soul. So it is best to keep your goals realistic. Eliminating fear and anxiety is an unrealistic goal. Reducing fear and anxiety and learning how to manage that which remains are more obtainable. Achieving perfect results with no risk will not happen. Getting better results in the face of tolerable odds might.

The Problem

Sort Out the Three Conversations

Decoding the Structure of Difficult Conversations Surprisingly, despite what appear to be infinite variations, all difficult conversations share a common structure.

There’s More Here Than Meets the Ear In the conversation between Jack and Michael recounted above, the words reveal only the surface of what is really going on. To make the structure of a difficult conversation visible, we need to understand not only what is said, but also what is not said. We need to understand what the people involved are thinking and feeling but not saying to each other. In a difficult conversation, this is usually where the real action is.

the gap between what you’re really thinking and what you’re saying is part of what makes a conversation difficult. You’re distracted by all that’s going on inside.

Each Difficult Conversation Is Really Three Conversations

there is an underlying structure to what’s going on,

no matter what the subject, our thoughts and feelings fall into the same three categories, or “conversations.” And in each of these conversations we make predictable errors that distort our thoughts and feelings, and get us into trouble.

1. The “What Happened?” Conversation. Most difficult conversations involve disagreement about what has happened or what should happen. Who said what and who did what? Who’s right, who meant what, and who’s to blame?

2. The Feelings Conversation. Every difficult conversation also asks and answers questions about feelings. Are my feelings valid? Appropriate? Should I acknowledge or deny them, put them on the table or check them at the door? What do I do about the other person’s feelings? What if they are angry or hurt?

3. The Identity Conversation. This is the conversation we each have with ourselves about what this situation means to us.

We conduct an internal debate over whether this means we are competent or incompetent, a good person or bad, worthy of love or unlovable. What impact might it have on our self-image and self-esteem, our future and our well-being? Our answers to these questions determine in large part whether we feel “balanced” during the conversation, or whether we feel off-center and anxious.

What We Can’t Change, and What We Can

What we can change is the way we respond to each of these challenges. Typically, instead of exploring what information the other person might have that we don’t, we assume we know all we need to know to understand and explain things. Instead of working to manage our feelings constructively, we either try to hide them or let loose in ways that we later regret.

The “What Happened?” Conversation: What’s the Story Here? The “What Happened?” Conversation is where we spend much of our time in difficult conversations as we struggle with our different stories about who’s right, who meant what, and who’s to blame. On each of these three fronts – truth, intentions, and blame – we make a common but crippling assumption.

The Truth Assumption As we argue vociferously for our view, we often fail to question one crucial assumption upon which our whole stance in the conversation is built: I am right, you are wrong. This simple assumption causes endless grief.

The point is this: difficult conversations are almost never about getting the facts right. They are about conflicting perceptions, interpretations, and values.

They are not about what is true, they are about what is important.

Interpretations and judgments are important to explore. In contrast, the quest to determine who is right and who is wrong is a dead end.