Step 2: Describe what you observed. The trick here is to focus on the true facts, again without emotion, interpretation, or generalization. Don’t blurt out phrases like “You let me down” or “You’re no good at . . .”; these statements are debatable, because the other person can say, “That’s not true.” Instead, aim for something that feels more like “What I noticed was [fact, fact, fact].” For example, Simon said: “What I noticed was that when we met two weeks ago to discuss the outline of our proposal, I recall you used the phrase ‘you’re front-runners’—but then we didn’t make the short list.”
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