Fire someone.“[The] people we’ve worked with… 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 to pass up.”
In a nutshell
Difficult conversations carry the chance to transform a relationship, but only if you shift your stance from delivering a message to discovering why the other person is acting as they are.
In a similar vein
Robert Bolton People Skills (p 32)
Robert Cialdini Influence (p 62)
Susan Forward Emotional Blackmail (p 94)
Carl Rogers On Becoming a Person (p 238)
Life is full of difficult conversations, yet we all avoid having them. Is there anything we can do to make them less difficult? Difficult Conversations: How to Discuss What Matters Most grew out of 15 years of work at the Harvard Negotiation Project, which also produced the 4 million-selling negotiation title Getting to YES. As part of the project, authors Stone, Patton, and Heen had a goal to find out how one-on-one communication could be made vastly more effective. They worked with students and professionals on their toughest conversations and encounters to produce new techniques for understanding conflict and interaction.
Although their backgrounds are in negotiation, mediation, and law, the authors of Difficult Conversations based their work on findings in organizational behavior, cognitive therapies, social psychology, and communication theory, particularly as they relate to communication dynamics within families. Psychologists Aaron Beck, David Burns, and Carl Rogers are mentioned among their many influences. The result is a remarkable guide that lets us in on the powerful techniques that have been employed in world troublespots to bring opposing sides together and forge new futures.
Defining their subject as “anything you find it difficult to talk about” and try to avoid, Stone, Patton, and Heen note that for most people there are no simple or easy ways to:
Fire someone.
Break up a relationship.
Confront your mother-in-law.
Raise the issue of prejudice.
Ask for a raise.
They liken a difficult message to throwing a hand grenade, which “Coated with sugar, thrown hard or soft is still going to do damage.” Throwing it “tactfully” is no answer. Neither is it enough to “be diplomatic.” We can’t hope that our niceness will ensure that all goes smoothly. So what is the answer? Instead of throwing hand grenades, or “delivering messages” to people, Stone, Patton, and Heen promise to transform our difficult conversations by replacing them with what they call learning conversations. While this new way of communicating involves work to master it, it can dramatically reduce the stress of our interactions with other people. Learning conversations increase the confidence of all parties involved because the air of blame disappears, to be replaced by listening. This naturally raises trust and confidence all round. Conflict can be transmuted into understanding.
Difficult Conversations is based on the idea that “each difficult conversation is really three conversations.” Above and beyond the actual words that are spoken, these other conversations are mostly internal and involve our perception of the encounter and what it means to us.
This is when we go through our perceptions of the outcome—who said what, who is to blame, who is right. The problem is, we never question our version of who is right or wrong, and neither do we question that difficult conversations are about “getting the facts right” as opposed to what they mean. They are essentially conflicts of perceptions, interpretations, and values.
However, when we shift our attitude from delivering a message to finding out how the other person sees things differently, immediately the conversation becomes less heavy and emotionally barbed. Instead of offering our interpretation of the situation as “the truth,” we offer it as our perception.
How do I feel about what was said? Were the other person’s feelings valid? Are my feelings valid? What should I do if the other person is angry or hurt?
Many strong feelings enter into a difficult conversation, but these are often not expressed. When two people are talking, there is a parallel conversation going on in each of their minds concerning their feelings about the interaction.
Given that feelings cloud judgment and make things uncomfortable, shouldn’t we try to steer clear of feelings altogether? Should we just try to stick to “the facts”? While this is a nice idea, Stone, Patton, and Heen note that leaving feelings out of difficult conversations is like having an opera without music: We may get the plot, but we totally miss the point. They point out that “difficult conversations do not just involve feelings, they are at their very core about feelings.”
Does what we have just said to the other person, or what they have just said to us, shake our sense of who we are? Has the conversation made us suddenly feel we are at heart a bad person, or incompetent, or a traitor? The identity conversation is about self-image or self-esteem.
If we are having a meeting with our boss to request a raise, we get nervous. This is because whether or not we get the raise will involve our boss’s—and our own—consideration of our value. It’s not just about the money, it’s about us. Similarly, if we are the boss and have to fire someone, what does this act say about us as a person: that we are a heartless bastard? Firing someone is only partly about them. Just being aware of the “identity conversation” we have with ourselves can have a great effect on our difficult conversations. If we know it’s also about our self-image, we are less likely to suddenly lose our balance on an emotional level.
When we understand that difficult conversations are actually three conversations going on at once, and when we are aware of the mistakes we can make in each type, Stone, Patton, and Heen believe that we will shift the focus of our conversations. They become less about right or wrong and more about learning what is at issue. Most difficult conversations involve a strong element of pointing the finger, but all this does is create more conflict, denial, and incorrect judgments. Blame can only ever cloud the matter, preventing us from finding out what went wrong.
The alternative to blame is joint contribution. Instead of trying to find out where the finger should be pointed, we work to ascertain what contributed to the problem. This is a subtle shift from the persons to the issues involved. Our stance turns from proving a point or “putting someone in their place” to curiosity and joint problem solving.
To get from blame to contribution first involves listening. How does the other person see the situation, and what happened to form that perception?
One of the authors’ rules is: People never change without first feeling understood. Telling someone to do something makes it less likely that they will, while understanding may just break down their wall of resistance. For instance, Trevor is annoyed that Karen is not handing in her paperwork on time. But for her part, Karen will only consider this important if Trevor stops to understand why she might be doing that. When they do actually sit down to talk about it, Trevor finds out that Karen is not doing it because she is lazy or spiteful, but because she has to put her demanding clients first. She in turn hears from Trevor how nonsubmission of the paperwork causes him all sorts of problems. When they are both understood, they are in a position to work something out—but not before. As Stone, Patton, and Heen put it: “To get anywhere in a disagreement, we need to understand the other person’s story well enough to see how their conclusions make sense within it.”
Surely, though, there will be times when we know we are right, and the other person is wrong. Aren’t we right if we try to stop our daughter from smoking? Perhaps, but in many situations being right is not the issue. Our daughter will know smoking is bad for her as much as we do—the conflict may be more about getting rid of her “good girl” image and becoming more independent. Once the daughter feels that her change in identity is understood, she may have no need to continue smoking.
Careful expression of feelings is a vital part of making difficult conversations productive. Stone, Patton, and Heen have many wise things to say on this, including:
If we try to suppress feelings, they tend to come out anyway through change of voice tone, body language, and facial expression.
We shouldn’t confuse being emotional with the clear expression of emotions, such as “I feel hurt” or “I feel angry.” And do not translate feelings into judgments about the other person.
It is very hard for some people to begin a sentence or conversation with the words “I feel,” but saying them may make the other person really listen.
We shouldn’t disavow the feelings we have—they are real. Be aware “that good people can have bad feelings.”.
Our feelings are as important as others’ feelings. Yet when we deny their validity we can sabotage our relationships. For example, if we bury anger for our spouse, we will not be able to love them properly again until we express it.
Difficult conversations, the authors note, are a threat to our identity. Their scariness comes not only from us having to face an issue with another person, but facing up to the truth of “the story we tell ourselves about ourselves.” Self-image is actually hardwired to our adrenal response, which explains why we may feel a rush of anxiety or anger or a sudden desire to flee the scene.
If, for instance, we go to the boss to ask for a raise, and she says no on the basis that she has questions about our performance this year, our horror at being rejected can make us take either of two attitudes: defiance—we want to defend ourselves and our record; or exaggeration—the boss is right, we don’t deserve a raise. Both responses involve “all or nothing” thinking. We are either a saint or the devil, excellent at what we do or incompetent. All or nothing thinking is a weak foundation for our sense of identity and makes us vulnerable to every little criticism. But this debilitating type of thinking, which particularly comes into play in difficult conversations, is not based on reality. Rarely are we one extreme or the other. These reactions oversimplify the world.
The answer is to “complexify” our identity—appreciate that while we may have come up short on some projects this year, on several others we were outstanding, and overall our performance is such that we believe we deserve a raise. Remember that difficult conversations are a fantastic opportunity to get closer to the truth, to become learning experiences without the usual emotional charge. Instead of going in there to deliver our message, “I want a raise,” in the context of the interview with our boss we can say, “I wonder if it would make sense if my salary was increased?” It’s not a demand, so the boss does not become defensive, and we are not vulnerable to rejection either. We are both exploring, getting information about the situation, so whatever is the outcome neither will feel hijacked and at the very least we will have learnt something.
We have only touched on some of the issues and techniques raised in Difficult Conversations. It is a book to keep and refer to often whenever you have an important matter to raise with someone. Given that it was written by three people it flows well, and there are plenty of real examples to keep things interesting. One omission is the lack of a bibliography, even though the authors are clearly influenced by many thinkers who have gone before them.
The most refreshing aspect of Difficult Conversations is the absence of any manipulative techniques. Its aim is not to teach us how to psychologically trick people into agreeing to what we want, but to change the whole atmosphere of important encounters so that curiosity about each party’s needs and desires leads to new appreciation and understanding. As wrong assumptions and blame are taken out of the equation, what is left is the truth.
Stone is a lecturer on law at Harvard Law School and is a partner in Triad, a consulting firm specializing in leadership, negotiation, and communication. He has worked as a mediator in South Africa, Cyprus, Colombia, and Ethiopia, and consulted to the World Health Organization.
Patton is deputy director of the Harvard Negotiation Project and founder of Vantage, a consulting firm. He has also played key roles in international negotiation efforts, including the process leading up to the dismantling of apartheid in South Africa, and talks between the United States and Iran during the 1980 hostage crisis. He co-wrote with Roger Fisher and William Ury the second edition of Getting to Yes: Negotiating Agreement Without Giving In (1991).
Heen is a lecturer on law at Harvard Law School and, as well as consulting work with corporate clients, has helped in resolving conflicts between Greek and Turkish Cypriots, and mediated in industrial disputes.