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We are going to help you 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.
In fact, the people we’ve worked with, who have learned new approaches to dealing with their most challenging conversations, report less anxiety and greater effectiveness in all of their conversations. They find they are less afraid of what others might say. They have a heightened sense of freedom of action in tough situations, more self-confidence, and a stronger sense of integrity and self-respect. They also learn that, more often than not, dealing constructively with tough topics and awkward situations strengthens a relationship. And that’s an opportunity too good
places. At heart, the problem isn’t in your actions, it’s in your thinking. So long as you focus only on what to do differently in difficult conversations, you will fail to break new ground.
That’s typical. In fact, 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. You’re uncertain about what’s okay to share, and what’s better left unsaid. And you know that just saying what you’re thinking would probably not make the conversation any easier.
these conversations. It turns out that 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? Jack and Michael
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? Jack’s and
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. In the conversation between
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.
The error we make in the realm of intentions is simple but profound: we assume we know the intentions of others when we don’t. Worse still, when we are unsure about someone’s intentions, we too often decide they are bad.
But talking about fault is similar to talking about truth — it produces disagreement, denial, and little learning. It evokes fears of punishment and insists on an either/or answer. Nobody wants to be blamed, especially unfairly, so our energy goes into defending ourselves.
is rarely relevant or appropriate. When competent, sensible people do something stupid, the smartest move is to try to figure out, first, what kept them from seeing it coming and, second, how to prevent the problem from happening again.
The problem with this reasoning is that it fails to take account of one simple fact: difficult conversations do not just involve feelings, they are at their very core about feelings. Feelings are not some noisy byproduct of engaging in difficult talk, they are an integral part of the conflict. Engaging in
Changing our stance means inviting the other person into the conversation with us, to help us figure things out. If we’re going to achieve our purposes, we have lots we need to learn from them and lots they need to learn from us. We need to have a learning conversation.
In the normal course of things, we don’t notice the ways in which our story of the world is different from other people’s. But difficult conversations arise at precisely those points where important parts of our story collide with another person’s story. We assume the collision is because of how the other person is; they assume it’s because of how we are. But really the collision
is a result of our stories simply being different, with neither of us realizing it. It’s as if Princess Leia
that they will. This is because people almost never change without first feeling understood.
In difficult conversations, too often we trade only conclusions back and forth, without stepping down to where most of the real action is: the information and interpretations that lead each of us to see the world as we do.
some things and ignoring others. And what we each choose to notice and ignore will be different. Second, we each have access to different information.
There’s nothing wrong with having these rules. In fact, we need them to order our lives. But when you find yourself in conflict, it helps to make your rules explicit and to encourage the other person to do the same. This greatly reduces the chance that you will be caught in an accidental duel of conflicting rules.
There’s only one way to come to understand the other person’s story, and that’s by being curious. Instead of asking yourself, “How can they think that?!” ask yourself, “I wonder what information they have that I don’t?” Instead of asking, “How can
sense. Don’t choose between the stories; embrace both. That’s the And Stance.
it suggests something quite different. Don’t pretend anything. Don’t worry about accepting or rejecting the other person’s story. First work to understand it. The mere act of understanding someone else’s story doesn’t require you to give up your own. The And Stance allows you to recognize that how you each see things matters,
up the same, and that’s all right. Sometimes people have honest disagreements, but even so, the most useful question is not “Who’s right?” but “Now that we really understand each other, what’s a good way to manage this problem?
The question of who intended what is central to our story about what’s happening in a difficult situation. Intentions strongly influence our judgments of others: If someone intended to hurt us, we judge them more harshly than if they hurt us by mistake. We’re willing to be inconvenienced
basic error: we make an attribution about another person’s intentions based on the impact of their actions on us. We feel hurt; therefore they intended to hurt us. We feel slighted; therefore they
Actions: “What did the other person actually say or do?” Impact: “What was the impact of this on me?” Assumption: “Based on this impact, what assumption am I making about what the other person intended?”
three questions listed above to begin the difficult conversation itself: say what the other person did, tell them what its impact was on you, and explain your assumption about their intentions, taking care to label it as a hypothesis that you are checking rather than asserting to be true.
When blame is in play, you can expect defensiveness, strong emotion, interruptions, and arguments about what “good assistants,” “loving spouses,” or “any reasonable person” should or shouldn’t do. When we blame someone, we are offering them the role of “the accused,” so they do what accused people do: they defend themselves any way they can. Given what’s at stake, it’s easy to
Contribution asks a related but different set of questions. The first question is “How did we each contribute to bringing about the current situation?” Or put another way: “What did we each do or not do to get ourselves into this mess?” The second question is “Having identified the contribution system, how can we change it? What can we do about it as we go forward?” In short, contribution is useful when our goal is to understand what actually happened so that we can improve how we work together in the future. In
The blame frame creates a difficult burden. You have to feel confident that others are at fault, and that you aren’t, to feel justified in raising an issue. And since, as we’ve described, there are always ways in which you’ve contributed, you’re likely to end up failing to raise important issues. That would be a shame, because you’ll lose the opportunity to understand why communication between you isn’t working well, and how it might be improved.
own.” This is a mistake. Finding your contribution doesn’t in any way negate the other person’s contribution. It has taken both of you to get into this mess. It will probably take both of you to get out. Recognizing that everyone involved in a situation has contributed to the problem doesn’t mean that everyone has contributed equally. You can be 5 percent responsible or 95 percent responsible — there is still joint contribution. Of course, quantifying contribution is not easy, and in most cases not very helpful. Understanding
emotions. Quite the contrary. As you and the other person look at how you have each contributed to the problem, sharing your feelings is essential.
hurtful?!” Here, you are focusing on blame as a proxy for your feelings. Speaking more directly about your strong feelings — “I feel devastated by what you did” or “My ability to trust you has been shattered” — actually reduces the impulse to blame. Over time, as
What you want the other person to say isn’t “It was my fault,” but rather “I understand that I hurt you and I’m sorry.” The first statement is about judgment, the second about understanding.
By identifying what you are doing to perpetuate a situation, you learn where you have leverage to affect the system. Simply by changing your own behavior, you gain at least some influence over the problem.
have any contribution.” Spotting your own contribution becomes easier with practice. But it helps to be familiar with four common contributions that are often overlooked. 1. Avoiding Until Now One of the most common contributions to a problem, and one of the easiest to overlook, is the simple act of avoiding. You have
people at bay. You contribute by being uninterested, unpredictable, short-tempered, judgmental, punitive, hypersensitive, argumentative, or unfriendly. Of course, whether you are really any of these things or intend this impact is not the point. If someone experiences you this way, they are less likely to raise things with you, and this becomes part of the system of avoidance between you.
Intersections result from a simple difference between two people in background, preferences, communication style, or assumptions about relationships. Consider
A fourth hard-to-spot contribution involves assumptions, often unconscious, about your role in a situation. When your assumptions
Making a specific request for how the other person can change their
contribution in the service of helping you change yours can be a powerful way of helping them understand what they are doing to create and perpetuate the problem. And it goes to the heart of the purpose of understanding the contribution system — to see what you each need to do differently to influence and improve the situation.
The two hardest (and most important) communication tasks in difficult conversations are expressing feelings and listening.
Unexpressed feelings can block the ability to listen.
Why? Because good listening requires an open and honest curiosity about the other person, and a willingness and ability to keep the spotlight on them.
first, you need to sort out just what your feelings are; second, you need to negotiate with your feelings; and third, you need to share your actual feelings, not attributions or judgments about the other person.
When you are more concerned about others’ feelings than your own, you teach others to ignore your feelings too.
