Your personal happiness and your career success depend in large part on one thing, your ability to have difficult conversations. In the past, I didn’t have the ability to have difficult conversations. I would resort to silence. In some cases, I was waiting for the other person to realise that I was angry and talk to me. In other cases, I had decided that the other person was not worth having a relationship with, and without seeking any clarifications, I would stop talking to them to finish the relationship. In both cases the outcome was the same, the relationship was damaged by the silence and eventually finished.
In Episode 18 of Beautiful Ghosts Podcast (listen on YouTube, website, or your favourite podcast app) we had a conversation about difficult conversations. We discussed different aspects including why they are difficult, how to prepare for them, what to do and what not to do.
Why Difficult Conversations are Difficult
How about you? How do you approach situations in which someone does something that upsets you or you want them to change? Most likely you resort to silence, or you get angry and you give them a piece of your mind, you resort to violence. If you do, don’t feel bad about it. They are the normal responses.
In fact, in the book that inspired the podcast episode and this post, “Crucial Conversations: Tools for talking when stakes are high” the authors explain that silence or violence are the two typical responses to situations in which we are upset by someone else. These two responses are related to the flight or fight response of our physiology.
According to the book, we are born with the ability to flight or fight, we are not born with the ability to have difficult conversations. This is an ability which is learned and improved. The ability to calmly say “I’m angry” doesn’t come naturally to most people when walking away or screaming are the instinctive responses.
That is why difficult conversations are difficult. They require years of experience to be able to stop our instinctive response, remain calm, and express how we feel intelligently.
How to Prepare for Difficult Conversations
The first thing is to realise how important it is to open the communication with the other person. I used to think that it was obvious that the other person was doing something wrong, so why did I need to communicate? If they are doing it is because they are a bad person or just want to upset me. But that is usually not the case.
Very often what we perceive to be true, or many assumptions we make, end up not being real. My thoughts may convince me that this person is trying to do this or that, and after a conversation I realise that my perception and assumptions were incorrect. It doesn’t matter how convinced I was that my interpretation was correct.
Also, believe it or not, most times other people do not know that they are doing something that upsets you. Mariana told the story when she had the courage to tell her boyfriend that she didn’t like something he was doing. She thought he was going to react but he was surprised by how she felt and had no problem changing his behaviour. Mariana went from being ready to finish the relationship to finding out that her boyfriend didn’t know and was totally fine to change.
Mariana also realised the importance of being assertive. Your needs are as important as other people’s needs. Sometimes we feel that if we communicate our needs, this may damage the relationship or the other person may react. What matters is communicating our needs while being calm. That is why Mariana will often take one week to prepare before having a difficult conversation.
Having a Difficult Conversation
When is the right time to have a difficult conversation? The answer is as soon as possible, once you know you will be able to remain calm. Ideally, immediately after the behaviour you want changed. But if you feel you are going to get angry and not able to remain calm, then take time to think and make sure you can articulate how you feel.
Because that is exactly what a difficult conversation is. It is our ability to communicate how we feel in a calm way, without blaming the other person and without getting too emotional. When you are in real danger, for example when someone is trying to steal something from you, yelling and screaming is a good idea. But when you are trying to change the behaviour of someone in your family or work colleague, yelling and screaming will likely damage the relationship.
Nico commented that when having a difficult conversation, you are becoming vulnerable as you open up and tell others how you feel about something in particular. He experienced this in a management position when having difficult conversations with employees. It is better to start with “I” statements and talk about how you feel rather than using “you” statements that will have a blaming connotation.
What Happens Next?
In my experience, having a difficult conversation usually helps the relationship improve, while silence or violence damage it. We usually find out that many of our assumptions were wrong or the person didn’t even know they were doing something that bothered us.
Remember, our instinctive responses of silence or violence do not serve us well. These responses will damage the relationship, not the difficult conversation. Take some time to prepare if you need to, realise that your needs are as important as the needs of other people, gather the courage, and calmly explain how you feel and what you would like changed. Listen to what the other person has to say. Then pat yourself on the back, you’ve just done something that will help you and others be happier and more successful. You’ve just had a difficult conversation.
Make an impact,
Pablo
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This post was originally published on Beautiful Ghosts.
Image by Kristin Baldeschwiler from Pixabay