Difficult Conversations
Something that makes me nervous is having difficult conversations. I’m trying to work on it and have the confidence to speak my mind even though it may induce some anxiety. I came across a conversation between Sheila Heen, the author of Difficult Conversations, and Tim Ferris on his podcast. The way she presented her ideas and tactics when approaching a difficult conversation made it seem easier. She helped me put things in perspective and think about both people in the discussion. I thought I’d go over my key takeaways from their conversation.
Often, we tend to approach a conversation or difficult discussion from our point of view. We have a particular story that we tell ourselves about the facts. The facts to us are, what happened, what’s happening and what should happen. We have an opinion about these facts and tend to have made up our minds about them before starting the conversation. A good way to get on the same page for a difficult discussion is to discuss these facts with the other person. Once you establish what the facts are it will make it easier to make progress. If you’re disputing the facts then you’ve already found a disconnect that could be why you’re having the discussion in the first place.
The next three things we need to establish with the other person are, what I’m right about, whose fault it is and what your intentions are. Again, we have a lot of these ideas made up in our minds already and if we feel the need to have this discussion, we normally feel like we are right, but the other person feels that they are. Before it turns into an argument it can be helpful to explain how you came to the conclusions for each of those questions. Explaining why you think you are right can lead to them seeing your point of view more clearly and help them explain their views and why they think they’re right.
There are three levels of conversation and the higher the level the more productive the conversation. It is difficult not to let your emotions take control and keeping your cool and taking the time to hear out the other person can make so much more progress. The three levels of conversation are a what happened conversation, which is self-explanatory it becomes a back-and-forth about what occurred and not much progress is made. The next level is a feeling conversation, this conversation tends to break down barriers because we usually don’t intend to hurt each other’s feelings. But when we find out we have hurt their feelings we can get to the bottom of our intentions and why they feel that way. The highest level is an identity conversation, these make the most progress but are also the most difficult to have. Once we reach this level we can truly grow in our relationships.
Although it may not seem natural at first having these points as a checklist can help keep the conversation on track. Most of the time I’ve persuaded myself that I’m right when coming into a conversation and that’s just not helpful. Having these points as a reminder can really help progress the discussion and hopefully, a real resolution is made. You might be surprised at the outcome, but it’s key that you’re willing to be proven wrong or else you won’t be able to grow.
Below is a summary of the points I mentioned, maybe you could use them to stay on track in your next difficult conversation.
The story we tell ourselves about the facts:
What's happened
What's happening
What should happen
3 components we are each thinking of:
What I'm right about
Whose fault it is
What your intentions are
3 levels of conversation:
What happened conversation
Feelings conversation
Identity conversation