MOST CONVERSATIONS ARE EXCITING FOR ALL THE WRONG REASONS
On a typically sunny Los Angeles afternoon, I took a stroll around the neighborhood with Felix, my one-year-old nephew who, even by southern California standards, has a laid-back, easygoing disposition. (I sometimes call him Little Dude, after Jeff Bridges’s character in The Big Lebowski.)
Felix and I returned from our long walk to find my four-year-old niece, full of vigor and creativity (and probably missing the center stage), waiting by the door and making loud monster noises. This must have either scared Felix or grated on his nerves, because he let loose with an atypical bout of wailing.
The crying brought in the cavalry. My sister and brother-in-law, also known as Mom and Dad in this house, rushed in and began to argue about the cause of Felix’s crying—loud noise or hunger? By now my niece had entered the racket with some wailing of her own, and when the blame for Felix’s crying landed on me, I seriously considered joining her. I had overextended our walk and messed up his feeding time, my sister informed me. Unable to squirm out of the verdict, I meekly apologized and handed over my nephew.
A few minutes later, peace had been restored. A well-fed Felix went down serenely for a nap. My sister and brother-in-law went outside to do some yard work, and my niece went with them. I took advantage of the calm to make some tea. When I started to follow everyone outside, I stopped in the doorway, struck by what I saw.
While my niece was happily playing in the sandbox, her parents were taking advantage of the moment to talk. They were leaning in closely and communicating in the way that people sometimes do when they feel as if they are the only two people in the whole world.
I turned around and left them alone.
Less than 30 minutes after outright household pandemonium, these two were huddled together, having a conversation so engrossing that I dared not interrupt. That’s real life, and that’s real communication.
It’s tempting to romanticize communication and mistakenly assume that the best conversations are also the most exciting ones. Conversations can be exciting for a variety of reasons: they are intense or high stakes, they bring big news, they are filled with emotions, or they contain something unexpected or novel. But exciting conversations are relatively rare and don’t always go our way. In reality, good, meaningful communication often looks plain, unremarkable, and boring.
Some of our most important and most cherished moments of connection occur without fanfare, interspersed throughout our daily lives. These moments happen frequently because of the inherently social nature of humans, but they are seldom flashy or exciting. The danger is that we overlook these meaningful but commonplace moments because we are anticipating more exhilarating and stimulating interactions.
Excitement is the temptress of the digital age. Left behind—widely derided and profoundly unappreciated—is the temptress’s frumpy and dull stepsister of routine, simple, and unadorned communication.
It’s hard for many of us to imagine something more out of step with the digital era than anything boring. Excitement, novelty, and intensity are wired into the digital age. Showy new devices hit the market constantly. Companies compete to get their sleek, attractive digital communication tools into customers’ hands, rolling their products out at splashy, attention-grabbing events. CEOs of tech companies are treated like celebrities, and the best devices and apps are referred to as cool, hip, and sexy.
That expectation of excitement has crept into our interpersonal communication. We mistakenly embrace the notion that communication should be as flashy, stimulating, and entertaining as the sleek devices that facilitate it. Our interactions should bring something new and improved to the relationship; a situation should resolve itself with a clever line and a witty summary; laughter and inspiration should accompany our text messages; and great news should fill our inboxes. But expecting our communication to be consistently exciting is unrealistic and unsustainable. Exciting, high-intensity conversations are notoriously failure prone.
Exciting conversations frequently fail because high emotional intensity signals our inner Neanderthal that something’s going on, and this puts our quick-acting, club-swinging instincts on high alert. Consequently, escalation happens faster and is more severe during high-intensity conversations.
It also takes an enormous amount of energy to maintain an intense conversation. Think back to interactions that have left you physically drained, like an emergency discussion about a serious work problem, an argument with a colleague, or a critical sales meeting. Those high-intensity conversations consumed a great deal of energy and probably required you to take a recovery break afterward. Most people can’t—and shouldn’t—maintain high-intensity conversations for long periods of time, because as the cognitive load of the discussion saps our energy and depletes our willpower, our restraint is weakened and damaging words are more likely to slip out.1
On the other hand, routine interpersonal communication is sustainable day after day. We build bonds with our coworkers and clients as we work through regular processes and issues; we develop trust with our bosses over a series of mostly unremarkable interactions; and we build our families, marriages, and friendships in the regular interactions that, over time, shape, sustain, and strengthen our relationships.
It’s not really excitement and intensity that we want from our conversations; we want bosses, coworkers, family, and friends we can count on. And they want the same from us. Relationships are built through thousands of routine and unremarkable interactions. That’s how people come to trust us and see that we’re consistent. Boring is dependable. Bland is steady. Over time, what seems unremarkable turns out to be quite remarkable after all.
Not long ago I was facilitating a conference call between Jim and Sarah, who were negotiating an amicable divorce agreement. The call was boring but efficient, until the end. They had resolved most of the major financial and custody issues, and we were close to finalizing the whole agreement when Sarah unexpectedly became upset at Jim’s recommendation for splitting the carpooling duties. Before I could do anything to stop it, Sarah lambasted Jim for being “selfish, controlling, and pathetic.” And for good measure she added that he was going to end up “broken-down and lonely, just like his father.”
The conversation was no longer boring. I could hear Jim gather his breath for what I assumed to be an equally potent response. Additional damage was imminent, so I jumped in and told Jim that I needed to talk to Sarah alone and that I’d follow up with him later.
After Jim hung up, Sarah and I talked for a while, and she agreed to apologize for her outburst. The three of us ultimately finalized the agreement, but Jim was never the same on our future calls. After that, Jim was silent for long periods of time, he contributed very little, and he focused all his energy on getting off the phone at the earliest opportunity. Sarah’s criticism was like the single grain of sand that finally shifted the whole pile. Her harsh outburst changed something in their relationship. No doubt they were having trouble before—they were getting a divorce, after all—but Sarah’s pointed criticism demonstrated how easily thoughtless communication can make a bad situation worse. Don’t make the mistake of thinking that a dismal relationship can’t deteriorate further. A worse relationship is only one hasty sentence away.
When I’m consulting with clients in conflict, I advise them to keep their conversations as bland as possible. Boring conversations reduce the chance of relational damage, because negative emotions lurk around every corner in a conflict. Boring conversations allow people to interact in a subdued way that minimizes unnecessary drama and protects the underlying relationship against further damage.
When there’s a great deal of negative emotional energy just beneath the surface (like there is in most conflicts), it’s not a good idea to unnecessarily put feelings into words. People often find it difficult to express feelings because emotions aren’t always straightforward (Am I angry or just frustrated? Is something else making me feel this way? Am I overreacting? Am I underreacting?) and because emotions can change frequently, even within a single interaction. Don’t force anyone, including yourself, to convert unspoken confusion and uncertainty into actual confusion and uncertainty by feeling that you need to vocalize everything you’re feeling in a conflict-laden conversation. Spare, boring conversations reduce the chance for harm.
Research suggests that conflict-laden interactions are especially problematic when one or both parties are under outside stress.2 Many of your most damaging interactions probably happened when you were wrestling with something else, and all of a sudden an unexpected conversation was dropped into your lap. So if you are experiencing chronic or acute stress caused by, say, illness, caregiving, or a period of job or relational uncertainty—or if you know that your conversational partner is in a similarly stressful situation—tread lightly, and remember that a high-intensity conversation carries additional dangers in these cases.
All relationships—even our strongest ones—are sensitive to words, and when a conversation escalates, damaging words are more likely to come out. The principle of asymmetry bears repeating here: connections can only be built slowly, one solid, dependable, and usually boring interaction at a time. But we can dismantle these relationships in a single exciting conversation. That’s communication’s asymmetry. And when we take our relationships apart, like Humpty Dumpty, they might not go back together again.
Communication has consequences.
Intense or exciting conversations fail momentously if they lead to the moment when one person decides that he has finally had enough. In the example of Jim and Sarah, Jim had the option to (further) withdraw from the tarnished relationship following Sarah’s outburst. Most of us can’t withdraw from or discontinue work relationships as easily, so deformed relationships must often limp along, sowing discontent and tension for months or years.
Whether or not you can walk away, the “that’s it” moment fundamentally changes the underlying relationship. There’s nothing in this book, and no amount of counseling or consulting, that can unwind that moment once it happens. Two people move from one relationship (before) to another (after), and the two relationships are not the same. In this case, the best I can do as a consultant is help the parties become familiar with the reality of the altered relationship.
Relational transformations like this are unintentional consequences of intense conversations, which is another reason not to wander around itching to bring some excitement into your everyday communication.
It’s impossible to know when and if a particular conversation might trigger a “that’s it” moment that permanently alters a relationship, but if you’re already feeling tension with a coworker or if your boss is already under pressure about slow revenue growth, an exciting, intense conversation is the last thing you want. Boring and low-key conversations will allow you to conduct the business you need to do while minimizing the likelihood of a transformative relational event.
There’s no need to run away from a high-intensity conversation if it happens—by this point in the book, you have all the tools you need to handle important high-intensity conversations. But to modify some advice from the last chapter, just because you can handle an exciting conversation doesn’t mean that you should race out and start one.
Maintaining a bland, low-intensity conversation is easier for some people than others. There are three types of people you’ll probably encounter at some point—possibly tomorrow—who are addicted to exciting conversations. Drama kings and queens make every conversation a production and turn even the smallest of issues into major problems. Prima donnas have a voracious appetite for attention. And hyperactives have way too much energy and are hard to handle because they bounce around erratically in a conversation.
Drama royals, prima donnas, and hyperactives can make enormous demands on your time and on your conversational energy. If you find yourself in regular contact with these excitement addicts, four tips can help you stabilize your conversations:
1. Stop talking. Excitable people want to talk, want attention, or both, so give them some space to have their say. This is going to happen anyway, so don’t fight it. It’s the path of least resistance, and they might even relax some after they talk.
2. Keep the intensity low when you do talk. Use your conversational turns to drive down the intensity of the interaction. Your understated responses can often reduce some of the drama in the conversation.
3. Redirect to the main point in strategic conversations. Conversations with excitement addicts often bounce from point to point. This usually isn’t a problem in a nonstrategic conversation where there’s no objective; but in a goal-directed (strategic) conversation, this lack of focus is often debilitating. When the conversation matters, avoid tangents and redirect back to the root issue to keep your goal in play.
4. Don’t bring any unnecessary drama to the conversation. The last thing a conversation with an excitable person needs is more excitement. Don’t add additional emotional material to the discussion, and be wary of adding anything substantive. Stick to one modest goal (whatever you are trying to accomplish) in strategic conversations. In nonstrategic conversations, let the person talk himself out.
High-intensity people play a dangerous game that they often lose. It’s usually only a matter of time until prima donnas and drama kings and queens initiate a high-intensity conversation at the wrong time (hyperactives are usually perceived less malevolently). Because their flamboyant and self-centered style makes continuous withdrawals from their interpersonal goodwill accounts, prima donnas and drama royals often get bounced out of their jobs and relationships, with few people sorry to see them go by the time of their final flameout.
Despite the contemporary perception that exciting communication is successful communication, it destroys many more relationships than it builds or improves. Competent, routine, and unremarkable communication leads to meaningful interactions, which, one after another, improve our overall quality of life.
All those boring interactions add up. Over time, that’s how we build relationships that are worth getting excited about.
Now it’s time to discuss something that we’ve been cheering about forever. Gather around—it’s story time.