The perception of a difficult conversation difficult will vary from person to person but I am sure you have experienced the lost sleep, sweaty palms, and procrastination of an impending one.
Whether it is having to cold call a very senior executive, speak with a team member whom you are going to ask to leave, or confront a relationship issue you have with family or friends, there are any number of ways that we find ourselves faced with what we perceive as a ‘difficult conversation’.
Not only have they the potential to impact our health; increasing our heart rate, contributing to loss of sleep, increasing stress and anxiety – they also have a major impact on personal productivity as we continually run the ‘story’ in our head as to how difficult this conversation is going to be, procrastinating over it for hours, days, or even weeks. Unable to really focus on the job in hand.
Researching for this article alerted me to just how much of a direct cost not handling difficult conversations potentially can be. Workcover NSW estimates that it spends some $30million per annum on psychological injury claims.
Nationally, in 2003-4, the Australian Government reported that they made up 7% of Workers Compensation claims but the cost of psychological injury claims actually accounted for 27% of the total claim costs. Exit interview research states that ‘chronic unresolved conflicts’ is decisive in more than 50% of the cases.
Maybe then there is value in being able to minimise and handle difficult conversations more effectively?
So what is going on?
A good place to start is to understand what is going on in our minds when we perceive or feel a conversation is going to be, or is, difficult. In my own experience, particularly during my early sales career, I was often frustrated at how I could worry about how a conversation might go, and its potential to be difficult. I would procrastinate for days before picking up the phone or initiating the conversation. Only to discover, on having the conversation, that the other party was delightful and it all went very easily and smoothly. ‘Difficult’ was just in my head, not in theirs at all. So why might this be so?
Fifteen years of research by the Harvard Negotiation Project has distilled it down to three key things that we are processing in our thoughts:
- What happened or didn’t happen.Conversations become difficult when there is a different recollection of what actually happened.This one particularly resonates for me in my role as father. With two children, aged 7 and 8, I often find myself in a frustrating loop of conversation where we disagree on the ‘facts’.
“Can you understand my frustration, I have had to ask you three times to go to bed/clean your teeth/put your clothes in the basket/ do your homework/(insert as applicable) and you are still not listening.” “Yes I am Daddy, I heard you.”
The ‘fact’ for them is that they have heard me, they are just choosing not to do. The ‘fact’ for me is that they can’t have heard me because they are not doing it.
- How we feel. An internal dialogue around what we are feeling, are my feelings valid? Is it OK to express my feelings? What about the other party, have I hurt their feelings or am I going to hurt their feelings if I say…?Subject to our personality, we can get so caught up in our feelings and how they may be feeling that it becomes increasingly difficult to simply state what we need to happen. The irony is that if we prefer to avoid conflicts, for example, our concern not to upset someone can actually create situations whereby we do just that – upset them.
- Finally, your internal dialogue is struggling with identity. Perceptions about what you might lose or gain. The impact the conversation may have on your; relationship, career, reputation, whether you are seen as competent or incompetent.This may show up at quite innocuous times. For example; have you ever been reticent to contribute during a team meeting or to put up your hand amongst a large audience to ask a question. Fear of how your question may be perceived by others stops you wanting to ‘expose’ yourself.
So what might help?
Well getting conscious as to how our own internal conversations can create the perception that a conversation is going to be difficult will certainly help. That said, some conversations will genuinely be difficult. What then?
At Just a Conversation we recommend you apply the INPUT formula within a positive ‘conversation climate’. By that I mean, create an environment for success in terms of time and place for both parties then apply INPUT in how you have the conversation:
IHow might “I” have contributed, be contributing, to the problem. For example; an inability to say “no” can result on becoming overloaded with work and suddenly having a ‘performance’ conversation with the boss.
What can “I” offer to help resolve things? Remembering that someone disagreeing with you may not be wrong – now there’s a thought.
NNOW is better than later. The longer you leave a difficult conversation the harder it becomes. The more you allow for things to be unsaid, the more emotional, more resentful, and potentially irrational it can become.
PTalk in terms of PROOF. Be objective not subjective, provide evidence of what’s happening compared to what should be happening.
UAllow yourself to UNDERSTAND their positioning/reasoning. Adopt empathic listening and “seek first to understand, before being understood”.
Recognise, though, that understanding is different to accepting.
TTake TIME to mutually agree on a solution. What might we both do/say moving forward to minimise recurrence of a similar difficulty.
Finally, some difficult conversations may be of our own choosing and some may be foisted upon you. To help yourself create a conversation climate that shines more than it rains remember the words of Mahatma Ghandi “Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony”. Wishing you more harmonious conversations than difficult ones.
