PROTECT WHAT MATTERS BY LETTING GO OF WHAT DOESN’T
My niece, Iris, and her best friend, Nina, walk together to kindergarten each morning. The walk is only a few blocks, and they talk the entire way. Their conversations are full of laughter and singing, but my sister tells me that squabbling, misunderstandings, and tears are also not uncommon.
Even in kindergarten, when our lives and our relationships are simpler, all kinds of familiar hazards can happen when we communicate. We lose our train of thought and botch our message. We talk over the other person. We misinterpret a comment, make an incorrect assumption, take words out of context, say something that’s supposed to be funny but isn’t, render an awkward comment, say something half-baked and confusing, or sometimes simply don’t understand what the other person is saying. Communication can bring us some of our most enjoyable moments, but it is fundamentally—and irreparably—imperfect.
The hazards have multiplied with the digital revolution, as we communicate with more people, in more ways, than ever before. Just like quadrupling the length of your daily commute would result in encountering more road hazards, more communication results in more imperfect (and often irritating) communication issues.
Furthermore, the increase of asynchronous communication in the digital age creates additional trouble. When we decrease our nonverbal conversational cues like tone of voice, body positioning, and gesturing (signals that are all absent in asynchronous communication), we increase the potential for misunderstandings and confusion. And we also receive less timely feedback about the effectiveness of our communication due to the lag between our message and a response.
Without protective measures, conversational hazards can easily escalate into damaging relational incidents. We may criticize someone for being unprepared when a part of his presentation just came out wrong. We might misconstrue an awkward conversation as a harbinger of trouble and overcompensate during the next interaction. We sometimes misinterpret a confusing e-mail and fire off a harsh response.
Since we can’t completely eliminate communication hazards no matter how hard we try, we need to create a buffer—what we’ll call relational shock absorbers—to dampen the impact of inevitable hazards and smooth out some of the rough spots in everyday communication. Without shock absorbers, we are in for a long and teeth-rattling ride on the communication superhighway.
There are four shock-absorbing communication behaviors that smooth out the majority of common interpersonal hazards.
Have you ever been able to work with someone when it seemed no one else could? Or talk to a relative who drives everyone else in your family crazy? Do you have close friends at work or at home who seriously irritate other people, but not you? If so, this success is almost certainly because you can ignore behaviors that other people can’t. You allow a do-over where other people insist on keeping score. That’s letting go, and it’s also the difference between my niece’s walks to school that end in laughter and the ones that end in tears.
When we let go of all but the most serious transgressions that touch us, we preempt damaging escalations and provide a chance for people to self-correct. You shouldn’t let serious breaches go, but most interpersonal hazards aren’t major. Letting go is communication’s equivalent of golf’s Mulligan—an errant stroke that doesn’t count against a golfer’s score. If you let people take a Mulligan when they need one, they’ll probably return the favor. In light of communication’s imperfectability (and human fallibility), you’ll both find that interpersonal do-overs come in handy.
And don’t worry that extending Mulligans will perpetuate bad behavior. In the unlikely event that someone seems to take advantage of your willingness to overlook the occasional mistake, you can always stop ignoring the behavior or have a direct conversation about the issue.
Although asynchronous communication makes conversational hazards more likely because of the lack of cues and delayed feedback, the good news is that it’s often easier to let go of asynchronous communication hazards. You can use the lag inherent in asynchronous communication between receiving a message and responding to avoid a knee-jerk reaction and to reply more thoughtfully. And when people can’t see you receiving a message, there is always a little uncertainty about whether it went through or whether you’ve seen it yet, which makes it easier to ignore. So whenever possible, let asynchronous conversational hazards die on the digital vine—take an e-Mulligan—by ignoring the mildly irritating e-mail, text message, or social media post.
You can also proactively use digital devices to insert shock-absorbing space between you and your conversational partner when it might be beneficial. A friend of mine, who acknowledges he has a temper, has an agreement with his wife to only communicate via text message when he’s upset. This keeps a line of communication open between them, but it gives him an asynchronous channel to constrain and delay his responses, the hope being to prevent him from saying something he’ll regret later. When he’s cooled off enough, they can continue their discussion face-to-face or by phone.
This example also provides a good opportunity to repeat an important point: our new communication devices don’t degrade our interactions; we do. It’s entirely possible—indeed, it’s the great promise of the digital communication revolution—to use digital devices in ways that improve our communication and strengthen (or prevent damage to) our most important relationships. Our devices are remarkable communication tools. How we use our tools is in our hands.
A few years ago, my wife and I were at a gas station, and I used my fingers to count up how much a few items would cost. The clerk, trying to be funny, fumbled a joke and essentially implied that I was stupid. I laughed along with him. When we got outside, my wife wanted to know why I was laughing with someone who had insulted me.
The clerk, I replied, didn’t intend to insult me. He tried to be funny, but he failed because humor is an incredibly difficult communication behavior to pull off. By laughing, I responded to the intended joke, not the unintentional insult. When I walked out of the store laughing, the clerk remained inside with a smile on his face.
That’s how a shock absorber works, smoothing the negative potential in an encounter and eliminating damage before it has a chance to occur. On the other hand, being hypervigilant and ready to correct every mistake—the opposite of assuming good intentions—will mentally exhaust you, degrade your conversations, and keep you busy reacting to communication’s innumerable hazards. If you go looking for errors, imperfect communication will deliver, and meaningful communication will become ever more elusive.
We’re too quick to blame people for conversational errors even when there are often situational factors—like routine conversational hazards—that reduce or eliminate their culpability. This bias to discount situational explanations is so prevalent that it’s known to social scientists as the fundamental attribution error.1 Assuming good intentions is an effective countermeasure against the fundamental attribution error. Besides, if another person’s intentions are less than honorable, you’ll have plenty of opportunities to figure that out.
In 2006, Academy Award–winning actor Mel Gibson was driving drunk when a deputy from the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department pulled him over. Instead of trying to contain the damage, Gibson converted a bad situation into a horrendous one by letting loose with a string of eye-watering, reputation-shattering, anti-Semitic remarks and profanities that rapidly surged around the Internet.
Gibson suffered a profound blow to his reputation; even devoted fans were appalled by his fiery remarks. He eventually apologized, but not before irrevocable damage was done to his reputation and his career. The court of public opinion would most likely have forgiven Mel Gibson’s DUI charge—he certainly wouldn’t be the first celebrity with a police record—but his inflammatory words created a hole that was just too deep.
Some words are so explosive that apologies won’t make a significant difference in reducing the harm. But these are not the kind of errors most people make. Spectacular blow-ups get the press, but most errors are accidental, only mildly offensive, and eminently recoverable.
There’s often a brief period of time just after an error—what we call a period of conversational amnesty—when all but the most serious transgressions are usually easily forgiven. If you’ve said something inappropriate or insensitive, a quick apology can reduce the harm.2
Mel Gibson’s mistake—escalating the transgression phase instead of stopping it—cost him dearly, and he’s not alone. Research suggests that after making an initial mistake, people will often continue digging a hole instead of putting down the shovel. Even though it’s self-defeating behavior, reversing course feels inconsistent.3
If you find yourself with ill-chosen words hanging in the air and a shovel in your hand, stop digging deeper and start patching the hole. Apologize as soon as you realize you need to do so—ideally during the shock-absorbing amnesty period.
There are four elements to apologies: (1) taking responsibility, (2) expressing remorse, (3) promising not to repeat the offense, and (4) offering to redress the wrong.4 You can remember them as the four Rs:
Responsibility
Remorse
(won’t) Repeat
Redress
Studies of apology effectiveness indicate that you only need to use one or two of the four Rs.5 So consider some variant of “I’m sorry, this mistake is my fault.” That sentence alone covers two Rs—remorse and responsibility—making it a very good way to apologize.
Look around the next time you’re at a wedding reception, and you’ll probably see that the dancers are having more fun than the wallflowers. Indeed, there’s evidence to suggest that dancing in groups is a reliable way to boost happiness.6
Even though I know this is true, I often have to talk myself onto the dance floor. When I dance, I spend a disproportionate share of time worrying that I’m making a fool of myself. My wife assures me that no one cares how I look. Besides, she points out, it’s impossible to look elegant when moving to “Who Let the Dogs Out,” a song that, for some reason, is a favorite at family weddings.
The awkwardness I feel on the dance floor is similar to the awkwardness that we sometimes encounter in conversations. We know there’s a rhythm, but we can’t seem to find it. What keeps people glued to their chairs at wedding receptions, and what makes people avoid conversations, is the perception that we’re just not moving to the right beat.
Conversational hazards—a misunderstanding, a joke that fails, a pause that feels too long—often start a negative cycle by introducing that feeling of awkwardness, which in turn triggers distracting thoughts (Why aren’t they laughing? Why does this conversation feel so jerky? Ugh, I’m so terrible at small talk … I’ll never get this job/land this client/get this date), which invariably lead to more conversational mistakes and more awkwardness. At some point, the situation becomes unbearable, and someone ejects from the interaction, nerve-racked and embarrassed.
As I get older, I’m ignoring my inner dance critic and learning a few moves instead. I usually find a rhythm after a minute or so, and then I can relax and enjoy myself. The same solution applies to your communication; you can smooth your conversational moves with the shock absorbers we’ve already discussed, topped off with the 60-second rule.
Hazards can happen throughout conversations, but they’re especially prevalent at the beginning, when everyone is trying to find a rhythm. The 60-second rule requires that for the first minute of any interaction, you ignore all but the most serious or offensive transgressions as two people try to find a conversational rhythm. During a one-minute grace period, you choose to forgive and not draw attention to any silly or ham-handed remark that the person says. You also go easy on yourself.
The 60-second rule is liberating because it prevents many types of interactions from ever escalating and causing damage. So much of our communication comes in quick bursts from passing encounters, text messages, e-mails, or social media postings that the 60-second rule shock absorber will apply to large swaths of our day-today life. Talking to a sales clerk or a customer-service agent, asking a colleague a quick question, or engaging in a brief exchange with a stranger are almost always covered in their entirety by the 60-second rule. This means that you don’t ever need to worry about an escalation when you leave the house to run an errand, walk to the water cooler, or pick up a to-go order.
In addition to reducing the chance of conversational escalation and relational damage, shock absorbers provide two other important benefits: they protect your goodwill account, and they facilitate positive reciprocal behaviors.
As you get to know people, you accumulate psychological credits (or debits) according to how someone perceives your words and deeds. Generally, when you say or do good things, you get credits, and when you say or do bad things, you draw down some of the credits. The result creates a goodwill account balance for each of your relationships, which rises and falls over time.
A positive goodwill balance has a major influence on how someone perceives you. When you have a goodwill surplus, the other person is more likely to give you the benefit of the doubt when things go wrong and full credit when things go right. He gives you a break when you need it, and he knows that you earned your successes. It’s like an interpersonal heaven. But when you are in deficit, it’s nothing but pitchforks. Your successes are discounted, and your failures are magnified. When things go wrong, it’s your fault. When you succeed, it’s because you got lucky. A goodwill account deficit is relational purgatory.
Naturally, we want to stay in interpersonal heaven (maintaining a positive goodwill balance) and keep out of interpersonal purgatory (avoiding a goodwill account deficit) so our successes and failures are seen in the best possible context. But we also want to maintain a positive balance, because every now and then we really mess up and cause a major jolt in a relationship.
You might lose an important client because you miss a delivery date. You might deeply upset your boss or a family member by crossing a personal boundary. Your big project might flop, to great embarrassment and cost. When big disruptions like this happen, you need a substantial goodwill surplus to draw on. Shock absorbers protect your vital store of relational goodwill by reducing or eliminating withdrawals from your account for common interpersonal hazards.
Applying shock absorbers to the multitude of smaller jolts and hazards that come up day to day means that when that larger shock comes along, your goodwill bank account will be in the best position to handle the large withdrawal. There’s no guarantee that a positive goodwill balance will prevent relational dissolution after major shocks, but having plenty of goodwill in the bank increases the likelihood that you’ll recover.
Finally, although many ideas in this book suggest that not saying something is often the smart communication move, your positive goodwill account gives you the opportunity—the obligation perhaps—to tackle sensitive issues when necessary. For example, you might need to spend a little of your goodwill reserve to initiate a discussion with a colleague whose behavior has changed so dramatically that you’re concerned for her well-being. You might have a frank discussion with a good friend who’s making an obvious mistake. You might raise an ethical objection to something your boss is doing.
These are all high-risk conversations that you’ll probably only have a few times in your entire life. Pragmatically, you can only intervene so many times before people start dreading your presence, and that’s not a good long-term career or relational strategy.
In high-risk conversations, by definition, the odds are against you. Your colleague will probably be depressed but not suicidal. Your friend will probably marry his fiancée no matter what you say. And your boss will, to say the least, probably not appreciate your intervention. But sometimes you may decide to take major risks against terrible odds, because you feel that the alternative—inaction—is unacceptable.
The point is that communication is for something. One reason to build positive goodwill balances is so we can go out on a limb for really important things and not worry that we are going to ruin a relationship. A healthy goodwill account gives you the ability—and the confidence—to take risks against the odds when it matters.
Protect, but don’t hoard, your positive goodwill balance. You’ll know when you need to use it.
A second benefit of shock absorbers is that they encourage a cascade of helpful relationship behaviors by activating reciprocity. Good behavior begets good and bad begets bad. Your shock-absorbing behaviors—letting go, assuming good intentions, apologizing quickly, and adhering to the 60-second rule—are likely to stimulate the same protective behaviors from your conversational partners, amplifying the cushioning ability and resilience in your relationships.
Shock absorbers reduce the potential for interpersonal harm and allow our most important relationships to thrive in spite of the minor jolts and irritating transgressions that are normal byproducts of communication. They give us the confidence to get out on the conversational dance floor and enjoy the kinds of enriching, exhilarating, and meaningful connections that communication can provide.
Even with a good set of shock absorbers, communicating with a small number of difficult people is still a jolting experience. Don’t worry, though; we have a strategy just for them. It’s quitting time.