I was unwittingly sending "stay away from me" signals to my family members yesterday. A little nothing would set me off. Something is weighing on me and I don't know how to resolve it so my frustration seeps into my everyday life. My husband who has known me for over 30 years clued in that something was wrong. We went for a long bike ride together and he got me to fess up. I need to have a difficult conversation with a client about their unrealistic expectations and inadequate financial compensation for work done. I have tried all the good old tricks like denial, or putting on a brave face hoping that things will resolve themselves if I wait long enough, to finally come to the realization that I need to take the bull by the horns so to speak and confront this client.
I think that most people become procrastinators when it comes to having an emotionally charged conversation about a difficult topic, but in my case, I practically run away from it. I have this type of personality that craves harmony and I am willing to twist myself emotionally into a pretzel to suppress my feelings and keep the peace. But that only lasts so long and, much like a presto pot, the steam has to come out at some point or else the whole thing explodes. Not the best way to manage relationships I must agree.
Ironically, I taught a class on "How to Have Difficult Conversations" this week to a group of senior executives. I think that I need to practice what I preach.
Judy Ringer wrote an article entitled We Have to Talk: A Step-by-Step Checklist for Difficult Conversations that I found very useful.
Ringer wisely suggests that the very first step to prepare for a difficult conversation is to work on you.
Step 1: What is your purpose for having the conversation? What do you want to accomplish? What would success look like?
Be honest with yourself. Do you have a win-win or a win-lose mindset? Do you want to give that irritating person a piece of your mind so you can feel better or do you actually want to come to a positive resolution? Think of a parent sitting his teenager down to have a talk because things have gotten a bit out of hand. The parent tells himself that it is for the good of the child and ends up preaching and even chastising his teen's behavior in the hopes that he or she will do the right thing the next time. That is not a conversation, it is a monologue. It is a one-way conversation where the parent says you will listen to me because I am right about this.
Another approach would be to ask yourself how can I guide a two-way conversation between my teenager and I that would result in both of us feeling understood, respected and more positive about our relationship?
Step 2: What are the assumptions you are making about this person's intentions? You might be feeling undermined, ignored, ridiculed, or disrespected but do you know for sure that is what they intended? Remember that impact does not necessarily equal intent.
The other day I handed my husband a post card of a house listing that we had received in the mail from a Real Estate Agent. I exclaimed "this will be my house one day!" It was a large old fashion house surrounded by acres of wooded land. My husband immediately got onto the computer and researched the listing. "Sylvie" he said, "this is much too expensive and too far from where we live. You can't be serious?" His words were like a pin bursting the little happy balloon that I had allowed to float around in my mind.
I was not actually serious about buying this house but I liked playing with the idea. I am a perpetual dreamer. My husband, on the other hand, is a no-nonsense black and white kind of guy. I felt deflated and a bit angry at his reaction. It was as if he wanted to rain on my parade on purpose. But that was not his intention. Being a researcher, he went into research mode to evaluate the feasibility of my dream and to see if we could practically make it happen. He came to the same conclusion that I had - we could not afford that house. His way of helping was to give me objective data to make a decision while all I wanted was to pretend that it was possible just for the fun of it for a little while longer.
Step 3: What hot buttons are being pushed? Are your emotions all related to this specific situation or is there some history here that muddies your senses and thwarts your perception?
I have a friend that I adore who has boundless energy and hundreds of projects on the go. She is almost always over-committed socially and professionally. For a period of time (until I finally had a difficult conversation with her) she would make dates with me to chat on the phone or have a coffee and cancelled at the last minute, sometimes not even giving me a heads up if she could not make it and leave me waiting. After a while I started feeling quite resentful and hurt. I pretended like everything was OK between us but it wasn't. I started weaving a story in my head that she did not want to be my friend anymore but did know how to tell me. The more I thought about it, the more it became like a soap opera type of story in my mind.
The truth is that I have some childhood experiences about friendships (or lack thereof) that colored my feelings in this situation. As a child, I loved school. I read voraciously and loved doing school projects. I guess you could call me a nerd and nerds are not popular kids at school. I was also very overweight and I remember (still painfully) how it felt to be left standing alone against the wall at gym class because no one wanted me on their team.
If I was perfectly honest, some of those old emotional wounds were being triggered in this situation and I needed to be aware of that when I had the difficult conversation with my friend.
Step 4: How is your attitude towards this conversation influencing your perception of it? Your thoughts create reality. If you think that this conversation will be confrontational and painful, chances are it will be. On the other hand, if you can imagine that some good will come out of the conversation then your attitude and behavior will change accordingly.
For example, I knew that having a conversation with my friend about how hurt I felt about all the missed appointments would be difficult, but I felt it was important to tell her if we were going to continue to be friends. I had enough trust in her and our friendship to believe that the conversation would have a positive impact on our relationship in the long term.
Step 5: What about the person with whom you are having the difficulty? If you could step into their shoes for a moment to see the problem from their perspective what would you see and feel? Are they even aware that there is a problem?
Rather than seeing this person as an opponent, see him or her as a partner.
I had a boss once who was the exact opposite of me in Personality Type. I am a creative big-picture thinker and she was a down-to-earth meticulous kind of person. She insisted on reviewing all my work and made many changes (that I considered picky and inconsequential). I felt micro-managed and resented her need to know everything at all times. I felt like she did not trust my abilities to do a professional job. I tried to adapt to her style of management but I grew more and more indignant. One day, I gathered my courage and broached the subject. We were both leading a ground-breaking approach to change-management and we knew that there was much to gain from its success. That is the card I played - our strong commitment to the principles and purpose of the change project. In order for the project to succeed, we had to find a way to work together that would capitalize on both our strengths and skills. Detailed routine paperwork did not bring the best out of me. I needed some leeway to create and implement a way forward that would best serve the organization.
Step 6: Identify what are your needs and fears? Are there any common concerns? Could there be?
In this situation with my boss, we had a common concern. We wanted to demonstrate that our novel approach to change management would yield strong commitment to change at every level of the organization. In order to feel like she was on the right track to deliver on this promise, my boss felt like she had to control every aspect of the work. I, on the contrary, felt that we needed to allow ourselves to experiment, to innovate, to take calculated risks and learn from our mistakes and most importantly...trust the process.
Step 7: How have you contributed to the problem? How have they?
That is probably the most difficult and the most important question. When there is a communication break-down, both parties have a responsibility. We each need to own up to our mistakes.
What role did you play in this difficult situation? What would you do differently if you could turn back the clock? Acknowledge this to the other person.
When I spoke to my friend about how hurt I had been when she kept cancelling our appointments, I also admitted that I should have spoken up a lot sooner than I did. Because I was afraid of her reaction, I perpetuated the problem by pretending that everything was fine between us. It was not. And she did not know because I did not tell her.
Judy Ringer concludes her article by saying that "a successful outcome will depend on two things: how you are and what you say. How you are (centered, supportive, curious, problem-solving) will greatly influence what you say."
Having written this article, I feel better prepared for having a difficult conversation with my client and my family will attest that my mood has vastly improved over yesterday. It's pretty amazing what a little time out to reflect and prepare will do to your moral!
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