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Difficult Conversations

difficultConversation

Questions to prepare for a difficult conversation

  • What is the issue I’m trying to resolve?
  • What is my counterpart’s view of the issue?
  • What assumptions are we making about the situation and each other?
  • What underlying interests are at stake for me? For my counterpart?
  • What feelings does the situation trigger for me? For my counterpart?
  • What do I want to achieve from the conversation?
  • How can we break the impasse?

After the difficult conversation

  • Do I feel proud of how I managed the conversation? Do I feel strong? Or do I feel let down, embattled, embarrassed—or just happy it’s over?
  • Did I meet the objectives and cover the topics I outlined for myself?
  • Did I present my perspective in ways that are consistent with my intentions?
  • Did I show respect?
  • Do I feel differently now about the person or the problem?
  • Did I learn anything that changes my view of the problem?

Become a better communicator

  • Who do I want to be?
  • How do I want to behave in this situation?
  • What do I want others to take away about me?

Three ways respect for a difficult conversation

  • We need a simple system to handle tough conversations, and three-way respect is its basis.
  • Self-respect helps us stabilize in the face of our own emotional reactions. It brings us in from the extreme emotional poles at the same time that it expands our choices for handling ourselves well.
  • Respect for our counterpart is a willingness on our side to look at our counterpart’s interests and concerns—not necessarily agreeing with them, and not deferring to them. Respect trades asking about those interests for guessing at them, fighting them, or avoiding them.
  • Self-respect and respect form a synergistic loop. Together they determine our reputation and our relationships.
  • Respect for the problem places all that we’re struggling with into the landscape of the conversation itself. It lets us step back and take a satellite view of the way our tough conversation is playing out. The conversation is no longer a battlefield, but a course of obstacles through which we move.

When we’re better balanced within ourselves, we stop polarizing our own behavior.

When we’re working toward balance with our counterparts, we stop simply reacting to them

If we put our attention on working toward balance—within ourselves, between the two of us in the conversation, and in the landscape of the conversation itself—we stand a good chance of protecting our reputations and our relationships