The Art of Manliness - #559： How to Handle Difficult Conversations

00:00:00.000 brett mckay here and welcome to another edition of the art of manliness podcast asking for a raise

00:00:12.360 disagreeing with your boss telling your neighbor that their dog's barking is bothering you talking

00:00:16.780 about money with your spouse debating politics with a friend they're all examples of difficult

00:00:21.440 conversations fraught with anxiety anger and awkwardness many people just avoid them my guest

00:00:26.260 today says the right framework you can handle even the most pitfall laden exchanges her name is

00:00:30.580 sheila heen she spent 20 years developing negotiation theory in practice as part of the

00:00:34.500 harvard negotiation project and she's one of the co-authors of the book difficult conversations

00:00:38.420 how to discuss what matters most she'll start things off by sharing the most common difficult

00:00:42.760 conversations people encounter professionally and personally and the most common unhelpful ways

00:00:46.960 people deal with them she then explains how every difficult conversation actually has three hidden

00:00:51.080 conversations going on how people confuse the impact of what others say and do with their

00:00:55.100 intentions how you can acknowledge your contribution to a problem without assuming the blame how to

00:00:59.140 share your emotions without being emotional and how to generally move a conversation from being

00:01:03.180 about combative confrontation to be about exploring each other's stories after the show's over check

00:01:07.960 out our show notes at aom.is slash difficult conversations sheila joins you now via clearcast.io

00:01:13.840 sheila heen welcome to the show i am delighted to be here so you are a co-author of a book called

00:01:29.480 difficult conversations how to discuss what matters most now this book originally was a published in

00:01:34.940 1999 so that was 20 years ago yeah you came out with a 10-year anniversary in 2010 we did 10 years ago and

00:01:42.780 both times new york times bestseller it's still selling well i see this book brought up in

00:01:48.580 conversations with friends in articles on the internet and i think that speaks to the the idea that

00:01:54.520 difficult conversations is a perennial problem for a lot of people well it is you know if you're

00:02:01.380 human and you're in relationships with other people guess what you have difficult conversations or

00:02:07.960 or you're not having the ones that you need to have and that's not actually a better solution

00:02:12.880 and you're all at your work dealing talking about difficult conversations and talking to people about

00:02:17.300 this issue like what are some examples of the most common difficult conversations that people

00:02:21.340 encounter you know professionally or personally well you know our our second book was about feedback

00:02:27.800 because giving and receiving feedback basically in conversation with other people or in relationship

00:02:34.320 with other people the things they're doing that drive you crazy or that are making it harder to work

00:02:40.000 together or live together or be their friend or be their family member those conflicts between us

00:02:46.100 are a particular type of difficult conversation that really every person on the planet that we've ever

00:02:52.460 met and worked with struggles with so that's definitely a really big category another big category

00:03:00.240 is just talking up and down hierarchy in any way telling your boss that they're wrong trying to figure out

00:03:07.260 how to handle a client whose expectations feel unreasonable or a scope creep is sort of a chronic problem

00:03:13.840 also any conversations across difference or across culture tend to be challenging there's like an extra

00:03:22.080 layer of challenge although we would probably say that any conversation between two people including

00:03:29.100 identical twins is in some way cross-cultural because of the the stories that we form in our heads

00:03:34.660 about what's going on and what we expect of each other those can be different actually even in the same

00:03:39.700 family as anybody who's got family conflict can probably attest to so that those kinds of talking

00:03:46.720 across values and stories about who we are and how we are is a big category as well all right so the

00:03:54.640 categories you see so feedback is always uncomfortable because you have to tell someone you're not so

00:03:58.980 great at something potentially and that's awkward and awkward to hear telling someone someone's wrong

00:04:04.460 you think they're wrong or bothering you or annoying you that's another awkward conversation and just

00:04:10.000 talking across different values or cultures is another type of awkward category that's right and

00:04:15.740 so any sort of disagreement or conflict in the relationship causes a set of conversations that either we feel like

00:04:24.220 we should have or we're avoiding anytime it feels there's emotion involved so strong disagreement strong emotion

00:04:32.400 and then of course you've got sensitive topics that tend to end up implicating strong disagreement and strong

00:04:39.620 emotion right the classic politics maybe particularly right now religion etc like deeply held views where it's

00:04:48.380 actually pretty upsetting to learn that some people really don't see it the same way that we do and how do

00:04:55.620 people most people manage or handle difficult conversations that actually leads to more problems

00:05:01.760 well one of the most common is that we avoid them right so instead of talking to the person who i'm frustrated

00:05:11.840 with i will i have to do something with that frustration so then i instead will vent to someone else and once i feel

00:05:19.340 better venting somehow i feel like that i'm relieved of the responsibility or maybe the energy right to go back to have

00:05:27.000 the conversation directly so we triangulate the problem rather than talking to the person directly and then it's sort of

00:05:34.640 festers it festers it festers both for us emotionally and it festers often in the system of relationships

00:05:40.300 like in the family or at work and the problem with it festering is that the next time they do exactly the

00:05:47.660 same thing which i promise will happen now i'm reacting not just to what you just did but the fact that this is

00:05:55.800 the 17th time you've done that and you should know better and so my reaction is really cumulative which then

00:06:02.900 appears to you if i let you see it and sometimes i can't help it to be an overreaction and in some

00:06:09.340 sense it is an overreaction to what just happened today but it's not an overreaction to what's been

00:06:13.380 happening for 17 years so so that's part of the problem which is that we're trying to sidestep them

00:06:20.280 the other way to go of course is that we decide we're gonna step up and confront them and explain to

00:06:28.400 them why this is what the problem is in other words why you are the problem and what you need

00:06:34.760 to change because if you change then we won't have a problem and that doesn't tend to go very well

00:06:39.320 either so one of the metaphors and and my colleague doug stone came up with this one actually i have to

00:06:46.000 give credit where credit is due it's like you're you're standing there holding a hand grenade and my

00:06:50.680 choices are i can either throw the hand grenade and confront you with what you need to change

00:06:55.020 but and i think well that's probably not going to go well but holding on to it once the pin has been

00:07:00.220 pulled isn't a solution either they're just and there isn't a diplomatic or tactful way to deliver

00:07:06.040 a hand grenade so part of it is that we try to get out of it by finding exactly the right words that

00:07:12.220 will mean that they'll either agree that we're right or they won't be upset or mad at us because

00:07:16.620 it's more comfortable for me to secretly be mad at you than to know that you're mad at me for many of

00:07:23.660 us i think i don't know what's your experience with this no i think the the former is typically

00:07:28.780 the approach that i take avoiding i'd rather avoid it and it's a lot i think it's for a lot of people

00:07:33.160 it's just cultural you know i grew up in oklahoma so sort of the midwest you know you're from iowa

00:07:38.640 like minnesota nice iowa nice right yeah oh for sure you just don't talk about the problem and then

00:07:44.800 you sort of festers and then you sort of you vent about it to somebody and then you don't actually

00:07:48.540 address the problem yeah and i'm really glad that you brought up the way that upbringing

00:07:53.060 affects this because i do think that in families we sort of learn by osmosis how conflict is handled

00:08:02.600 and you know it's interesting because if you look at the research about how kids do in adult life

00:08:10.400 and sort of the relationship between that and how they saw conflict handled in their own families of

00:08:17.060 origin you know there are some striking results so there are families where the kids never saw the

00:08:23.800 parents argue or the family members argue and you'd think well that's wonderful that's idyllic

00:08:30.320 right but then they don't know how to handle conflict conflict feels like a huge deal because

00:08:35.860 it just isn't done and if we have if you are upset with me it's catastrophic then you have kids who

00:08:43.580 see their parents have conflict and then they go in a different room and then they come back out and

00:08:49.020 they've made up somehow and so even if what we saw wasn't upsetting we're not sure what happened in

00:08:56.060 between i'm not sure really we want to tell the kids what happened in between sometimes but

00:08:59.340 but they're not sure how do you get from i'm so frustrated with you to i you know now everything is

00:09:07.600 fine and then you've got a third category who are kids who see their parents handle conflict or

00:09:14.480 estrangement you know violence abuse anger etc rupture in the family and obviously those aren't

00:09:25.220 great things to learn and so really the kids who do the best are sort of in this fourth category which

00:09:30.600 is they saw the conflict and they saw it happen within boundaries of i know you so well i know

00:09:38.460 what i could say right now that would really hurt you and part of me really wants to hurt you but

00:09:44.500 there's a boundary on what i where i will go even though right now i hate you so they see people

00:09:51.720 actually have conflict have some boundaries on how we treat each other even when we're in conflict

00:09:58.480 but not avoid it to talk it through to understand why is it that we see this so differently and to

00:10:04.540 find some kind of resolution even if it's well now i i don't i still don't agree with you but i

00:10:09.260 understand why you react it that way or why you see it that way the kids who see that process happen

00:10:15.380 are the ones who go on to tend to form the most stable relationships later and i imagine that group's

00:10:21.840 really small because like this isn't explicitly taught how to handle conflict right if you don't get it at

00:10:27.980 home if you don't see it through osmosis you you'll have to go to law school and take a negotiation

00:10:32.600 class to really learn like explicitly like what you're doing wrong i'm not sure law school generally

00:10:39.240 is good uh training for dealing with conflict effectively but but negotiation course is supposed

00:10:44.420 to be right i mean part of the reason why there's a one piece of the puzzle and the divorce rate among

00:10:50.500 attorneys is just that we take our advocacy skills home and we argue that we're right but there's no

00:10:55.520 judge at home to declare us the winner so we win the marriage or we think we do but we actually do

00:11:02.020 all sorts of damage to the relationship i think you're right though that that category feels sort

00:11:07.500 of dishearteningly small but i guess maybe what's more reassuring is that we just need to expand our

00:11:14.920 horizons for where you can learn it because i do think that you can learn it by watching others

00:11:20.140 you know like if it's not happening in your family maybe you had a friend as a kid or maybe you had a

00:11:25.760 mentor or a coach or a teacher and so you know we're sponges absorbing everything we're not sunk if

00:11:33.700 members of our immediate family didn't handle it well because it certainly is something that you can

00:11:38.560 learn both by watching people and of course by actually deciding this is a set of skills that i need

00:11:46.700 to work on all right so the two most common approaches you probably see avoiding the the

00:11:50.360 difficult conversation in the first place or just confronting it but doing what what you guys call

00:11:55.540 battle battle conversations battle messaging where you're like i'm i'm right and here's why you're

00:12:00.760 wrong type of conversation for sure i think that we go into these conversations when we decide to have

00:12:07.260 them and because the whole situation just feels really messy and anxiety ridden and uncertain part of the

00:12:14.060 natural tendency is okay i do actually need to have this conversation so i'm gonna stick as close as i

00:12:20.140 can to the things that i'm pretty sure that i'm right about because if i wasn't sure i was right about

00:12:25.200 them i wouldn't have this conversation in the first place so once they see how obviously right i am

00:12:30.080 then right they'll have to agree and the problem is that that leads us into this sort of message

00:12:38.660 delivery stance like i'm gonna deliver a message to you for why i'm right and your choices are agree

00:12:44.380 or be a problem and the problem with that approach of course is that the other person is pretty sure

00:12:51.340 that they're right about a few things as well and that's why it doesn't go anywhere well here's an

00:12:56.520 example of that so like asking for a raise it's one of those difficult conversations so you go in and

00:13:01.260 you have all the data it's like here's what i've done for the bottom line for the company here's this

00:13:04.600 because you just follow all the advice on what you do when you ask for a raise document show what

00:13:08.620 you've done blah blah blah and you're like here's what i've done i'm comfortable with what i know so

00:13:12.420 i'm gonna present that i think i'm right i know i'm right but then your boss says well no because you

00:13:18.160 don't know this other part of the story that's going on yeah and so oh this is a good one so let's

00:13:23.860 let's just name you know three or four different other parts of the story that okay might be going on

00:13:29.900 they took a loss somewhere that's not that that employee doesn't know about yeah so like actually

00:13:35.960 you're right about all of the amazing things that you did this year the problem is that i'm also right

00:13:41.980 that we incurred a loss so that our pool is just not as big as it should be right so that's a great

00:13:47.500 example of the boss is sticking to what he or she is pretty right about and they are but we're just

00:13:54.180 talking about two different topics another answer might be you did actually do all of these

00:13:59.620 things and that's not the criteria we use for a raise right like you would need to move into a

00:14:06.740 different role and and although you're fantastic at the role that you're in you actually don't have

00:14:12.360 some of the skills that the next role needs and pay is tied to that set of responsibilities so

00:14:19.020 you've got some development to do right that would be another version of why the boss is pretty clear

00:14:25.500 on what they're right about which is how pay is tied to responsibilities and your skill set so

00:14:31.580 that's another really common thing and it's not that you did a bad job it's just that your frame on

00:14:37.720 what you need to do in the conversation is just a little off okay so doesn't matter what the

00:14:44.820 conversation is about whether it's asking for a raise or you know bringing up a difficult issue in

00:14:50.200 your marriage you and your co-authors say that when you ever you have a difficult conversation

00:14:54.880 there are actually three different conversations going on at the same time what are those three

00:15:01.460 different conversations that are going on yeah so actually let me pause for a second because i should

00:15:07.540 have added something sure to what we were just saying which is it feels like well if i'm not supposed

00:15:13.520 to talk about what i'm right about am i supposed to pretend that they're right or like what what the

00:15:17.640 am i supposed to do instead and i think that the key shift is actually a shift in your purpose in

00:15:24.240 the conversation which is to shift from delivering a message about what i'm right about to instead

00:15:30.720 i just need to understand whether we see this differently and if we do why so if i'm going

00:15:37.520 in to ask for a raise and i've i've done all of my homework in all of the same ways but my frame on

00:15:42.400 the conversation rather than saying so here's why i deserve a raise yes or no which kind of

00:15:48.460 backs your boss into a corner by the way i would instead say look i'm looking at a whole bunch of

00:15:53.660 things that i did this year i'm happy to share them and i'd love to talk about them that suggest to me

00:15:59.580 that an adjustment in my compensation makes sense and that i deserve a raise including by the way

00:16:05.320 criteria for what people doing my role are paid elsewhere so i'm curious to talk a little bit about

00:16:11.100 that and learn more about how you think about compensation and the job that i've done so

00:16:17.620 that's a frame that says i want to share what i see i need though to understand what you see

00:16:23.880 so that then we can kind of think about what might make sense or not you're not saying that it's not

00:16:29.700 your boss's decision but that's actually an invitation to a really different kind of conversation where

00:16:34.700 you're likely to walk away having learned something whether or not you got the raise now

00:16:39.880 you're going to walk away with a much better sense of what it would take to get the raise

00:16:44.300 the next time you have the conversation so you're shifting from a that battle conversation to a

00:16:49.000 learning conversation to a learning conversation yeah exactly now we're ready to talk about those

00:16:54.100 three conversations yeah so so when you're having a difficult conversation what are those three

00:16:58.400 conversations that are actually going on but you don't but you don't know what's going on

00:17:02.360 right because they're below the surface that's exactly right so so one of the insights for us

00:17:08.420 and we learned this in part from chris argyris over harvard business school and his colleagues

00:17:14.160 doing action science has to do with the internal voice so if you want to understand a difficult

00:17:19.440 conversation you have to listen beyond what people are saying to actually listen to what they're really

00:17:25.660 thinking and feeling and often not saying to each other maybe particularly in polite corporate

00:17:30.780 cultures or non-profit cultures or midwestern cultures where we say just a tiny fraction

00:17:38.520 of what we're really thinking and feeling so there's a gap between what i'm saying and what i really think

00:17:45.720 and feel so then when you take a look at okay well then what in the world are people really thinking

00:17:51.160 and feeling during these conversations it's like you're x-raying the conversation and what you'll find

00:17:55.240 is a really predictable structure because no matter who you're talking to or what you're talking about

00:17:59.900 in the midst of a hard conversation your internal voice is doing a very predictable set of things

00:18:05.320 and we basically categorize them into three buckets that which we call the three conversations that are

00:18:11.960 happening sort of inside of you and by the way inside of the other person so the first is what we call

00:18:17.620 the what happened conversation in other words we each have a story about what has happened what's

00:18:23.280 happening now in this conversation while you're being so difficult and defensive and what we think

00:18:28.200 should happen like what's the solution and that story has three key pieces to it that are sort of

00:18:35.660 sub pieces of our story of what is happening the first is what i'm right about the second is whose fault

00:18:41.700 it is that we're having this problem because blame is always at least implicit if not explicit when

00:18:48.880 things go wrong or get hard and then the last is suspicions about your intentions motivations or character

00:18:55.200 like why are you being this way what is wrong with you that you're so clueless or controlling or naive

00:19:02.100 to be acting this way so those are three pieces of the story that are particularly important

00:19:08.940 below that though there are two more things going on and we can circle back to dig in a little bit more

00:19:13.920 but i should just name the other two the second one is what we call the feelings conversation which is

00:19:19.240 that we're each trying to figure out what do i do with all of these strong feelings and reactions

00:19:23.380 i'm having that are often bundles of feelings and sometimes contradictory feelings like i feel

00:19:29.060 grateful for the opportunity you've given me this past year to really step up and shine and i have

00:19:36.220 felt sometimes neglected along the way and now i'm frustrated and dismayed and a little betrayed that

00:19:42.100 this is not going to pay off right and but i'm in a corporate context so like what am i supposed to do

00:19:46.700 with that because i feel like i'm not supposed to be emotional i'm supposed to check my feelings at the

00:19:51.160 door when i come in in the morning and stay rational and business-like so i've got to figure

00:19:57.160 out what to do with those emotions even though they tend to leak out in tone of voice and body language

00:20:03.060 and all of that and then finally at the deepest level the third piece is what we call the identity

00:20:08.260 conversation and it really came out of our observation that if a conversation feels difficult to you if it's

00:20:15.100 keeping you up at night chances are there's something that the situation suggests about you

00:20:20.780 that feels like it's at stake in other words what if you go in and ask for a raise and your boss

00:20:26.280 actually says well that's great all of your facts and figures for what you accomplished but i have to

00:20:31.500 tell you you were kind of a disappointment to me this year like holy cow we're not just talking about

00:20:38.580 dollars and cents we're talking about who i am and whether i'm valued around here and if i don't get the

00:20:43.880 raise well do they think they can take advantage of me do they not actually value me am i not the

00:20:48.740 superstar i thought i was and so it's who we are is really on the line and that's part of the anxiety

00:20:54.900 around the conversation and by the way for the boss too right are they somebody who goes to bat for their

00:21:00.320 people or are they somebody who you know isn't able to reward good work or didn't wasn't honest with

00:21:08.020 you during the year about how things were going so that they're not a great manager or leader so

00:21:12.920 identity is actually in play often on both sides of the conversation awesome so let's let's circle

00:21:17.920 back and dig into these a little bit more because like the what the what happened conversation it

00:21:23.040 seems to me in my experience whenever you have a difficult conversation once you sort of become

00:21:27.320 come at loggerheads it's always around this like what happened who's to blame what was your intent

00:21:32.800 because there's all these differing perspectives of what's going on in the conversation so

00:21:37.760 what can you do to get a better idea of what happened with an issue that's there yeah well so

00:21:45.360 importantly the first conversation you need to have is a conversation with yourself

00:21:50.080 i if i go into the conversation still focus on what i'm right about and focus on blame and why

00:21:57.920 my suspicions about why you're being so crazy it's not going to help i'm not going to be able to have

00:22:05.180 the conversation any differently because my behavior of course flows from my internal assumptions and

00:22:10.460 stance and thoughts and feelings so the first conversation is a conversation with myself where

00:22:15.240 i've really got to shift all three pieces of that story from being focused on what i'm right about to

00:22:20.940 wondering why we see it so differently what is it that you can see that i can't that helps me understand

00:22:26.880 why you could possibly disagree with me or why what i'm saying is the issue isn't the issue from your

00:22:32.860 point of view right i think we're arguing about what the contract says you're actually not arguing

00:22:38.920 about what the contract says we agree on that what you're arguing about is what the contract means now

00:22:42.900 that you know the circumstances have changed and what we should expect from each other given that

00:22:47.860 circumstance the second shift in the story is from blame to something we call joint contribution

00:22:54.560 which is to step back from the idea that it's as simple as somebody's fault and instead to think okay

00:23:05.940 probably we've both contributed to this and the things we've contributed done or failed to do

00:23:10.980 may not really be blame worthy we didn't do anything wrong but it hasn't helped and that doesn't mean

00:23:17.000 it's 50 50 it could be 90 10 but if i can think about boy looking back what do i think i've contributed

00:23:24.960 to this problem and what do i wish i would have handled differently and what do i need them to do

00:23:32.900 differently or what do i wish they would do differently that i think would actually help that's actually a

00:23:38.200 much easier conversation for us to have particularly if i take the initiative to put my contribution and

00:23:46.360 taking responsibility for it up front yeah the accepting contribution that can be hard for a lot

00:23:50.560 of people because you're going into it's like well i didn't do anything wrong this guy this lady she's

00:23:55.460 the problem but you know what your contribution could be as simple as maybe you didn't you know say

00:24:00.560 something earlier like hey this is bothering me yeah and then you let it fester for a long time to be

00:24:06.280 until it became like a bigger problem that was your contribution totally and and that's the thing is

00:24:11.600 that people say look i didn't do anything wrong to which we would say that's right you didn't but you

00:24:18.180 did do or fail to do some things that probably didn't help right and avoiding until now is one of

00:24:24.780 the most common it's also like you know you didn't call right back so people had to make some decisions in

00:24:31.240 the meantime you didn't do anything wrong you didn't even do it on purpose right you were on a plane or

00:24:36.740 asleep but partly if we want this not to happen again figuring out what did we contribute if we

00:24:44.220 wanted to go differently what we each contributed tells us what would have to change so that we're

00:24:48.680 not having the same conversation you know next week or next month and so contribution we sort of lower

00:24:55.600 the stakes on it it doesn't say that you've done something wrong necessarily it just is untangling

00:25:03.500 how did we get here and if we want to land in somewhere in a different place what would we need

00:25:09.740 to change to make that happen and in this idea of trying to figure out what happened and learning

00:25:15.420 what they're how they're seeing the issue like one line that really stuck out to me was reminding

00:25:19.660 yourself when you're going to one of these conversations if you think you already understand

00:25:23.180 how someone feels or what they're trying to say or what they see about the topic you're being

00:25:27.780 delusional like well put and i think yeah this this idea that uh you know you take a learning

00:25:36.140 stance for a difficult conversation you just start asking questions about like you know you agree that

00:25:41.720 something happened right you agree what happened but like the meaning of what that happened can be

00:25:45.940 vastly different in that guy's head than in your head and so you start asking questions about that

00:25:50.760 yeah i mean i sometimes remind myself that if i can move from my reaction of like they're crazy or

00:26:01.360 there's no excuse for that to i wonder why they're crazy or what how could they possibly be telling this

00:26:09.000 story that makes sense because they are telling a story that makes sense to them so there's something

00:26:14.980 i'm not understanding that i may or may not agree with it at the end of the day

00:26:20.540 but i'm better off if i at least understand how they're seeing it and also think they always have

00:26:26.240 information that we don't right including about their own reactions but often they have a whole

00:26:33.780 bunch of information about conversations they were in with other people or you know they stayed after

00:26:39.140 the meeting and we didn't or they got invited to the meeting after the meeting where everybody talked

00:26:42.780 about sort of what we said at the meeting so they have information that we don't about the impact

00:26:48.320 that we had on them or on the team or whatever on the project and if we walk in thinking that we

00:26:55.760 have all the pieces of the puzzle visible to us now that that is delusional so part of our purpose

00:27:01.680 in the conversation is look i'm going to put my puzzle pieces on the table i'd love to have yours and

00:27:05.160 let's see whether they fit together in any way but at least we can both have a more complete picture

00:27:10.200 about what is going on and at that point we're in a better place to figure out what do we want to

00:27:15.300 change and how would we do that and i think another key concept of really trying to figure out what

00:27:19.620 happened is you have to remind yourself that a lot of the reasons that difficult conversations exist

00:27:24.020 it's not because someone said something though that can be a source but like people aren't saying

00:27:28.900 things right so you're left to make assumptions that make things awkward so what you have to do is you

00:27:36.400 have to you know craft questions to make those unspoken things explicit yeah i think that's right and

00:27:44.040 also in the vacuum of understanding what is going on because of all that we don't see or have access

00:27:51.660 to one of the automatic things that as human beings our brains do is that we attribute intentions to other

00:28:00.360 people like we make up stories about why they did what they did well they didn't they didn't really want

00:28:06.580 us to come to the meeting they were trying to hide it or they just need to control everything or you

00:28:11.780 know they're threatened by me because that helps make sense of what we see and if if you want to

00:28:18.540 turn a regular conversation into a difficult conversation here's a here's a little tip if you

00:28:23.360 want to go the other way accuse the other person like i know why you did that it was strategic

00:28:28.740 you were hiding something you were out to get me you've never liked me right i mean you could come

00:28:34.880 up with all kinds of stories the worst possible story about why they're behaving the way they're behaving

00:28:39.080 and i guarantee you they will react to that right that's this idea of you have to disentangle

00:28:46.480 intent from impact yeah that happens all that because something it's something if something

00:28:50.860 affects you in a bad way you ought you automatically want to assume like someone did this on purpose

00:28:55.460 they're out to get me and i'm gonna do something about it but usually sometimes people just do things

00:29:00.280 and they weren't malicious about it but it impacted you and they didn't know yeah i mean it's it's

00:29:05.180 amazing i don't know about you but it's a rare day that i wake up and think to myself how can i make

00:29:12.220 this person's day horrible right right and i'm gonna figure out a way to really mess with them

00:29:19.940 and yet somehow when other people mess with us we assume that that is in fact how they're living

00:29:26.820 their day like we always have know that we have good intentions or at least like i look i it was a joke

00:29:32.660 i'm sorry i didn't mean to offend you i didn't mean to upset you i didn't mean to forget to add you to

00:29:37.580 the conference call i'm really sorry like we always know that at worst we were forgetful or busy or

00:29:44.600 distracted but when we're upset with someone else part of what happens is like our brains jump from

00:29:52.080 how we feel impacted frustrated left out betrayed etc to assuming well they meant to do that and so

00:30:00.840 we're not even aware that we are making that leap to attributing intentions or character like it's

00:30:07.740 just the kind of person that they are is the next step and the more frustrated we are the more likely

00:30:12.700 we are to assume the worst but people it's really hard to live in a world where somebody else has

00:30:19.320 really different beliefs than you do about things that are important to you like we can talk about

00:30:23.480 politics here that just living alongside each other is upsetting it's even harder to live alongside

00:30:29.280 someone who has a story about the kind of person we are that feels fundamentally wrong you know they

00:30:36.740 somehow have the impression that you are a scheming lying you know defensive controlling person and

00:30:44.800 you're thinking i don't even recognize that picture of me and it's really hard to feel that deeply

00:30:50.980 misunderstood by other people so what's the solution there the idea is you just okay you disentangle

00:30:56.500 intent from impact you i guess assume assume good faith right don't don't assume that you did this

00:31:03.000 just you know get at me and then explore what was going on like why why they really did what they did

00:31:08.240 and how they felt about that thing yeah i would probably tweak that just a little bit because people

00:31:15.720 often say assume good faith and in long-term relationships you'll get a quick reaction to that

00:31:21.380 oh no i know them better than that right you know there's no basis on which to assume good faith

00:31:27.400 so i actually would say assume you don't know in other words other people's intentions are invisible to us

00:31:36.920 so we have to impute them from their actions so just assume that you don't know they might have been

00:31:45.640 busy they might have been well-intentioned but actually they were trying to help in a way that actually

00:31:51.120 hurt but their intentions were good and instead just and they might have had bad intentions but

00:31:57.680 what's important is actually speak to the impact that you're concerned about here's what you did

00:32:02.420 and here was the consequence of that which is that i ended up having to explain to the client

00:32:06.420 yada yada yada or explain to the family the following and then we had to change the travel plans

00:32:13.180 etc etc that's the problem i don't know what was going on with you i don't know whether you were even aware

00:32:17.820 that of the impact but i wanted to talk to you about it because actually the impact is the problem

00:32:23.800 that we're trying to fix whatever your intentions were and another tactic you suggest you and your

00:32:30.320 colleagues suggest on trying to figure out what happened is instead of starting from your story

00:32:35.320 right which is this happened this guy meant to do it and it's terrible and you only have to start from

00:32:41.100 their story and say okay what you what your perspective is right what you do instead is you

00:32:45.580 start from a third story how do you figure out what that third story is yeah it's a great question

00:32:51.280 so we automatically start from within our own story and by the way when when i have students or

00:32:58.680 executives i work with they're often sort of walking in the door with stronger skills on one side or

00:33:06.020 another so either and more often they're quite good at asserting their view explaining their

00:33:15.740 persuasive their articulate etc and what they actually need to work on is a set of empathy skills for

00:33:22.340 understanding someone else and also listening when you actually don't feel like listening many people

00:33:29.460 will say like oh i think listening is really important i think it's really you know one of my better

00:33:35.200 skills things that i a thing that i really work on and when things get difficult listening is like

00:33:40.920 the first skill to go totally out the window partly because i'm coping with my internal voice like in a

00:33:45.400 difficult conversation my internal voice is super loud you know it's saying that's ridiculous you know

00:33:50.560 that's not what happened you're totally not taking responsibility for your part in this so often people

00:33:57.640 will come in with pretty good skills on explaining their view and what they need to do is work on

00:34:02.060 listening to and understanding someone else's story what we call the second story other people actually

00:34:07.880 have the reverse they're really empathetic they're the person everybody comes to talk to and often what

00:34:13.480 happens to them is they have a difficult conversation they're really great at listening to the other

00:34:18.220 person's story and then they walk away and they think well hang on a second that all made sense and i i felt it

00:34:27.240 but i forgot to say what's important to me like my needs and my views and my interests actually

00:34:33.300 somehow got left behind or lost because i forgot to transition back to say okay well here's what makes

00:34:39.420 sense to me but here's what doesn't or here's what matters to me that seems like it's left out

00:34:44.000 so that's a big long wind up to say part of it is balancing those two skills but starting the

00:34:52.860 conversation from what we call the third story can not only help you have a good conversation

00:34:59.220 but it also can remind you to do whichever of those comes less naturally to you so the third story would

00:35:07.800 be basically how does an observer how would an observer describe the problem between you and a key

00:35:14.440 phrase is different or difference so just saying you know i think we have different assumptions about

00:35:20.620 when and how how well to do the dishes how well adds my view perhaps but we have different views

00:35:29.320 about when to do the dishes whether they should be done after dinner and cleaned up before you go to

00:35:34.040 bed or whether you're too tired after dinner you'd rather come down in the morning and do them

00:35:39.520 and i wonder whether we could talk about that that describing it as a difference does a couple of

00:35:47.180 things number one it names their view the their story and my story as legitimate those are both

00:35:54.600 legitimate parts of the conversation rather than let's talk about why you can't seem to actually

00:36:01.800 clean up in the you know after dinner even when it's your turn and i have to come downstairs to a mess

00:36:06.220 that would be totally inside my story and you know in my story i'm the good person and you're the bad

00:36:14.060 person so that's one of the reasons why starting in your own story proposes a conversation that the

00:36:19.340 other person is like well i don't want to be part of that conversation i'm cast as the bad guy in that

00:36:23.300 one so you know we're definitely i'm not definitely not agreeing to be part of that conversation yeah

00:36:28.400 they're going to get defensive and you're just it's not going to go anywhere yeah we're and we're cat

00:36:32.220 we are casting a play anytime we have a conversation our story casts people as good guys or bad guys

00:36:38.900 as the problem or sort of the hero of the story and when we start the conversation from inside our

00:36:45.880 story chances are they're cast as the problem or the villain and they don't want to have anything to

00:36:50.980 do with that and vice versa right so if i start from inside your story i'm losing track of my own

00:36:57.840 and from your point of view either there isn't a problem which i don't agree with or i'm the problem

00:37:04.280 because i'm complaining too much and i'm needy etc and that's why the third story is kind of the magic

00:37:09.740 place you can go that creates both uh look we're partners in this the role i'm casting you in is

00:37:15.680 that together let's figure out what's going on and that's actually a role that people are much more

00:37:21.040 likely to say yes to so i think this is really useful for people who have problems managing conflict

00:37:26.220 because okay the typical approach like i said earlier is avoid it because it's uncomfortable the

00:37:30.520 second approach is just like go aggro and just like go overly aggressive and that just makes things

00:37:34.820 worse this idea of just going at it at a stance of i'm gonna try to figure out what the problem

00:37:39.960 really is and how that this other person is seeing the problem and how an outside observer would see the

00:37:43.860 problem diffuses that hand grenade you were talking about right it's still a little bit like it's still

00:37:49.340 a hand grenade like if you bring up the problem someone might not react favorably but if you come at it

00:37:55.360 with say well tell me how you're seeing things they can take a step back and it takes the i don't

00:38:01.180 know it just makes it easier you start having an actual productive conversation yeah so if you look

00:38:06.100 at the the research or the literature one of the things that jumps out is that reciprocity is one of

00:38:13.100 the strongest social norms that just unconsciously we tend to fall into so if you attack me i'm going to

00:38:21.660 attack you back if you take responsibility for your part of the problem that's a super strong signal to

00:38:27.560 me that like oh that's what this is about okay well you know there's some things i probably should

00:38:33.400 have done differently too it's no guarantee but by saying hey i think we should just try to figure out

00:38:40.200 what's going wrong here and then we can think about whether there's a solution i'm inviting you to join me

00:38:45.460 and to reciprocate a stance that you're both likely to say yes to more likely to say yes to

00:38:52.560 and also that will actually get us somewhere because we've tried the other ways to go about

00:38:58.180 this and that didn't get us anywhere so this is probably my best shot and and part of what's hard

00:39:02.700 about these conversations is that the only person you have any control over and we might argue that

00:39:07.320 sometimes you don't have as much control as you want to is yourself and you can't control whether the

00:39:13.160 other person takes the invitation you can't control whether they you know see themselves

00:39:21.020 i suppose i'll use the word accurately right based on what we see but they will react to however you

00:39:29.000 handle it and so you're sort of giving it your best shot and you often have to do that persistently

00:39:33.900 over time because these kinds of patterns don't change quickly all right so how to handle those what

00:39:41.020 happen conversations better is shift from certainty to curiosity and remind yourself if you think

00:39:46.620 you know what happened you're probably being deluding yourself let's talk about that feelings

00:39:50.880 conversation of a difficult conversation now you said people like in business think well there's no

00:39:55.020 feelings involved but there are feelings because like you feel awkward about having that conversation

00:39:59.240 so obviously there's emotions there so what does that feelings conversation look like in a

00:40:04.960 difficult conversation yeah people will say like oh no we don't have feelings in my organization it's

00:40:12.580 like really because i just sat in on that meeting and there were a lot of feelings going on or just read

00:40:17.740 you know people's email conversations right right you can tell there's emotion behind them whether

00:40:23.880 that's frustration or uncertainty or you know anxiety and so part of it is just being honest with

00:40:33.000 ourselves about what's going on like we're all sitting in meetings having reactions

00:40:36.300 and also by the time something becomes a tough conversation chances are there are two problems that

00:40:44.480 we're trying to grapple with one is the surface problem like whatever the business issue is that

00:40:49.560 we need to decide or fix but often there's a second problem sitting under it which is how i feel treated

00:40:58.780 by you which is you're not even willing to see my part you're part of the problem but you're not

00:41:04.320 willing to own up to that i can't fix this by myself right because you just won't say no to the client and

00:41:10.040 that's part of what's wrong here and so i feel badly treated and so if we stay on the surface and just

00:41:17.680 talk about the business problem we may or may not solve that problem but the deeper issue is still there

00:41:23.860 and it's just going to manifest in some you know whatever the next problem is next week and so

00:41:30.160 part of it is understanding that feelings are actually what's at issue and at the heart of it in many

00:41:37.620 cases and so if we're not addressing that we're not actually addressing the problem at its heart

00:41:44.400 so how do you address those do you just bring it up it's like this this issue has made me feel

00:41:48.760 frustrated or it's angry or what is that is that as simple as that yeah so so i think part of what

00:41:56.800 makes people shy away from thinking that including feelings at all is like opening a can of worms it's

00:42:02.960 not going to go well is that what they're picturing is what we would call being emotional

00:42:07.520 and being emotional is just letting the feeling basically drive the conversation so feelings end up

00:42:15.500 getting translated into arguments accusations ultimatums etc right there you know i don't i

00:42:24.540 don't understand why you can't just say no to the client like is that so hard what they're asking for

00:42:30.500 is totally unreasonable but no you can't say no to them you're going to turn around and tell us that

00:42:35.140 we have to scramble and work all weekend to meet a deadline that has no there's no reason they need

00:42:39.280 this by monday but you just can't man up and have the conversation a lot of feelings you hear in that

00:42:46.560 a lot of feelings there yeah but what's interesting is i didn't name a single feeling so people would

00:42:54.040 walk out and say whoa she was emotional right i didn't actually name a single feeling the feeling

00:43:00.940 was just the energy that drove what i translate that feeling into which is a bunch of incredibly

00:43:07.540 frustrated exasperated accusations and a story right about what i'm right about and about why you're

00:43:14.240 acting this way is because you can't man up so you're the problem and it's your fault if i want to

00:43:19.920 handle it differently and by the way include feelings in the conversation because they're probably at the

00:43:26.260 heart of it what you actually did a few minutes ago is exactly the direction to go which is to just

00:43:34.340 name the feelings and describe them and describe what they're the role that they're playing in this

00:43:42.160 situation so i could be much more effective and actually get my point across more clearly if i simply

00:43:50.420 said so look i'm frustrated and i'm a little bit at the end of my rope because the client keeps asking

00:43:58.760 for things and insisting apparently on really short timelines and what that means is that on a friday

00:44:08.520 afternoon repeatedly we learned that we need to work all weekend and turn ourselves inside out to

00:44:16.320 deliver something on monday it's confusing because i'm not sure why it's needed on monday it's frustrating

00:44:24.180 and it's causing i'm worried it's causing burnout it's definitely causing burnout for me and i see it

00:44:30.260 on the team and i'm not sure what's going on on your end and so that's what i think we need to talk

00:44:36.700 about because the way it's working now the impact on the team is a real problem and i probably should

00:44:43.240 have brought it up earlier because i've let it it's festered for a little while and i'm worried

00:44:48.100 that it's going to take some doing if we're going to change things i like this example because you

00:44:52.820 showcase that a lot of times difficult conversations issues there's multiple feelings going on and in

00:44:57.680 some cases you might have like contra what you'd think would be contradictory feelings so i think

00:45:02.040 example in the book was you know a mother who's always calling you to like visit right and yeah on

00:45:08.700 the one hand okay you feel frustrated because it's just like okay i've got i got stuff going on with my

00:45:13.140 family and i just i feel like she's being bothersome blah blah blah but on the other hand you also feel

00:45:17.440 oh well you know my mom loves me and she cares about me she wants to know what's going on in my life

00:45:21.440 so it would probably be good first you have to recognize the sort of complex feelings you have

00:45:26.500 but also expressing those as well can help that difficult conversation yeah and somehow it i what i

00:45:33.700 find is that we don't have the conversation because we can't quite figure out how to express what we

00:45:39.940 really think and feel and it's because we somehow think we're not allowed to have contradictory feelings

00:45:45.820 or contradictory views like mom on the one hand it's really good to hear from you and i'm i love you

00:45:52.800 and i'm so appreciative of the role that you play in our lives i'm also a little bit overwhelmed and

00:46:00.160 i'm worried about how some things are going with you know so and so at home and so i'm not sure

00:46:08.680 whether i can come this weekend actually and whether that's going to be a good decision same time

00:46:14.020 i'm a little worried because i imagine it feels lonely for you do you want to tell me a little

00:46:18.840 bit about that so you can say like i love you and i don't know that i can come and i'm grappling with

00:46:26.780 worry and i'm not sure what the answer is well i think it's interesting about this feelings

00:46:30.080 conversations is that by having it by making your feelings explicit and getting the other person's

00:46:35.240 feelings explicit it can do it can go a long way to helping understand the what happened

00:46:40.120 conversation because often feelings color what happened right totally yeah yeah the more frustrated

00:46:48.100 you feel or the even even mood can color the way that we experience what's happening actually

00:46:54.740 and so i think we make the mistake of thinking that there's rationality and then there's

00:47:00.800 irrationality there's thinking and there's feeling and they're separate things but actually what the

00:47:05.980 brain research is showing us is that these two things are pretty intimately intertwined let's talk

00:47:10.640 about the identity conversation because this is more about like the conversation going inside your own

00:47:15.980 head so what does that look like in a difficult conversation yeah often it's it manifests as a strong

00:47:24.440 reaction or overreaction that sometimes we're not even sure what's going on for us and i now think by the

00:47:33.820 way since we wrote the book i tend to think that the identity stuff gets triggered that's part of what

00:47:41.900 drives the intensity of our emotional reactions in the conversation in many cases and then that colors

00:47:48.420 the way we tell the story and by the way the way that we tell the story because of confirmation bias

00:47:53.920 will tend to reinforce why identity is in play right so what kind of person am i what kind of

00:48:03.820 parent do i want to be what kind of boss do i strive to be etc that story we tell about who we are or

00:48:12.700 who we want to be each of us has some things that we hold pretty tightly and so the conversations that

00:48:20.420 we're going to find most difficult are the conversations where maybe that's in question

00:48:24.000 or maybe we let ourselves down and this made me think about like going back to the midwest nice

00:48:29.820 right yeah like your identity identity might be well i'm a nice person uh if i if i bring this issue

00:48:36.020 up or if i if i don't bring up an issue the issue in a tactful way then like i'm not a nice person

00:48:40.740 anymore right what if i hurt their feelings what if i hurt their feelings or your identity could be like

00:48:45.500 well i don't want to be the patsy i don't want to be the guy getting taken advantage of um so i'm going

00:48:51.240 to like dig my heels in and make sure that doesn't happen but that could get in the way of

00:48:55.760 resolving the problem yeah yeah that's exactly right and do you bring this stuff up with the

00:49:02.080 person you're interacting with like hey you know i'm this is where i'm thinking like i i'm like i

00:49:06.720 want to be a guy who's known as going up to bat for my employees i want to give you this raise but

00:49:12.100 i can't do it and this is making me like do you bring that up or is that sort of something you just

00:49:16.760 keep to yourself i think it depends on the relationship okay i mean i actually think if

00:49:21.600 someone's giving you upsetting feedback like you're not going to bat for me sometimes it's

00:49:27.100 actually i think we're better off generally being transparent so that there's not a gap between what

00:49:33.320 i'm really feeling and what i'm saying in most cases it depends on the relationship and the

00:49:36.440 context but i actually think it'd be totally fine to say you know the idea that i am not going to bat

00:49:42.380 for you that's actually pretty upsetting to me i need to think a little bit about whether

00:49:48.500 that's fair but if it is then that's upsetting because i think of myself as going to bat for my

00:49:54.140 team so i think when you're getting upsetting feedback it's it's totally fine and actually in

00:49:59.640 your best interest to own that you know what it's i pride myself on being fair and if i'm not being

00:50:06.420 fair here that would be really upsetting and i want to think about what you've said because it's

00:50:10.900 going to be showing on your face and in your body language anyway so you might as well just name it

00:50:14.740 and own it sometimes people say i need to have this conversation i'm really worried that i'm

00:50:19.200 going to get emotional like i'll start to yell or i'll cry or and how do i make sure i don't do that

00:50:24.800 and the counterintuitive advice is if there's something at issue for you and you're worried about your

00:50:30.540 emotional reaction rather than trying to keep all of that out of the conversation you're better off

00:50:35.380 actually naming it in the conversation because it's like a it releases some of the pressure

00:50:40.280 so if you don't want to cry in the conversation saying you know what you're saying is is really

00:50:46.780 disappointing will actually help you not cry because crying is basically your physiology trying

00:50:53.740 to figure out what do i do with all these feelings because you're not letting me put them anywhere

00:50:57.020 so naming them actually puts them somewhere that feels actually helpful in the conversation but

00:51:03.400 probably more helpful than getting emotional all right so we've talked about some things you can do

00:51:08.020 to get a handle on what's going on in the difficult conversation the what happened the the the feelings

00:51:14.060 aspect of and also the identity aspect where where is this all leading to is it does it is it leading

00:51:19.840 to a problem like resolving the problem or is sometimes the problem can't be resolved despite all this

00:51:25.740 work yeah it's true so i think that sometimes we think well i i need some sort of magic words that will

00:51:33.840 change the other person or fix the situation so i think that part of where it's all going

00:51:39.840 is number one for me and and i do think that this is sort of a lifelong journey for me it's it's helped

00:51:49.280 me better understand myself and like what is going on with me here like why is this conversation why am i

00:51:54.580 finding this conversation or this relationship so frustrating why is there so much transaction cost here

00:52:00.460 and what is going on with me that i need to sort out and get straight and then what conversations do

00:52:05.820 i need to have about it and so rather than feeling stuck and victimized it's a way for me to better

00:52:11.980 understand both the problem itself but also my own reactions to it and then to make a good decision

00:52:18.840 and and by the way you don't always have to have a conversation about it you know you might say oh well

00:52:23.460 i'm i can now see that i'm contributing to this by not calling mom so she always has to call me

00:52:28.380 so maybe i'll just run an experiment maybe i'll change my contribution we don't have to talk about

00:52:33.280 it i'll just start to make a habit of trying to call her on at some set time of the week and over

00:52:38.960 time she'll kind of figure that out and know that she doesn't need to call me today because we'll talk

00:52:43.060 tomorrow morning i always call her on saturday mornings whatever it would be right you can

00:52:46.260 but i can make a good decision about whether to have the conversation or what to do yeah it sounds

00:52:51.860 like you're doing it sounds like you're doing like a pre-mortem right like going like having the

00:52:56.160 conversation right having the conversation before even before you actually have it and you might

00:53:00.460 even figure out well i can just do this thing and don't have that conversation or just try it out

00:53:04.200 you know and see if you get a different reaction and and then i'm more likely to have the conversation

00:53:11.620 and and often these are not one-shot deals they're a series of conversations over time

00:53:16.360 have the conversation or handle the frustration in the moment in more productive ways and they can

00:53:23.860 either take that invitation or not take that invitation but at least i walk away feeling like

00:53:28.680 i'm handling this as well as i know how so i'm giving it every opportunity to work well so if at

00:53:35.400 the end of the day you know i need to let somebody go i'm the boss and i gotta let somebody go i can be

00:53:40.880 confident that i tried everything i could think of to figure out what are we contributing to their

00:53:45.720 struggle that they're not performing the way we need to perform or whatever i've changed everything

00:53:50.160 i know how we've talked about it this many times i've been honest with them about how serious it is

00:53:54.420 if i now have to make a hard decision i can at least feel like i treated them well and i gave it

00:54:01.220 every opportunity to work so if the problem could be solved then we solved it and if they weren't ready

00:54:09.820 for that or it wasn't a problem that could be solved i can feel much more confident of that at the end

00:54:15.120 of the day what do you do say you have someone reads this book and they start implementing these

00:54:19.320 these tactics or these techniques or these this mindset and in their conversations with people

00:54:24.240 but it's sort of unilateral right like you like you can you take the blames like well you know i i can

00:54:28.740 see my contribution the other guy's like well yeah it is your fault totally what do you do whenever

00:54:34.280 they're not they don't reciprocate i know right that guy is in every single person's life

00:54:39.340 right how does he do that right you try to be understanding but they are like yeah that is the

00:54:46.300 problem you are a jerk like what do you do with that yeah totally yeah i think that people really

00:54:52.280 worry like they they read the book the the book i think there's a way in which it feels like common

00:55:00.480 sense which is true i think actually the hard part is actually doing it and then that part also feels

00:55:07.600 risky because they didn't read this book they're their usual difficult selves so do i really want

00:55:14.020 to own my contribution the problem when they're going to take it as an opportunity to blame me and

00:55:19.580 go out and repeat to other people they even said that it was their fault i guess partly sure there is a

00:55:27.360 little bit of risk and when we talk about contributions many of them are both not blameworthy but also

00:55:35.360 they're not secret like they knew that you didn't call them back and they know that we haven't had

00:55:38.900 this conversation up until now so it's not like i'm giving them information they don't already have

00:55:44.020 so if i start by saying look i i wish we'd had this conversation six months ago and there are some

00:55:49.020 things i think i haven't been clear about that are probably part of the picture for why we are where

00:55:54.100 we are in terms of whatever what we need and what's going on with the client and then you say

00:56:01.340 you'd be the you'd be the guy well yeah it is a problem he's so articulate that guy

00:56:07.820 and i say well so that's definitely part of the picture at the same time i can't fix this myself so

00:56:17.500 if we're going to fix this we're probably each going to need to do some things differently

00:56:22.780 and there are some things actually if you could change i think that would make a big difference

00:56:27.840 and by the way i can't change them for you so i also need you to step up to the plate

00:56:32.000 now that assumes that i'm higher in the hierarchy if you're my boss and you say yeah so this is all

00:56:40.200 your fault you're a screw-up i might have a slightly more differential frame but i'm not necessarily

00:56:45.980 going to change what i say i might just rather than saying i need you to do some things differently

00:56:51.760 i might frame it as a request so you know boss i think if there are a couple of things that

00:56:59.500 i don't know if they're possible but if you were able to change them a couple requests i would have

00:57:04.640 i would actually be able to deliver what you need for that client much more efficiently because sometimes

00:57:10.260 i have questions about the scope of what you're asking for over the weekend and i've reached out to

00:57:16.100 a couple times but i can't tell to what extent there's room for us to get clarity on that up front

00:57:22.080 so let's talk about that because i actually think that would help both of us deliver what the client

00:57:27.380 needs so i'm framing it as why it's in their interest and why i can't fix this by myself so

00:57:34.300 blame basically says it's not me it's you good luck with that and i'm not accepting that frame so the

00:57:41.560 conversation doesn't have to be over even if they storm out after they say great it's all your fault

00:57:45.260 i'm going to go tell the board i can say okay i mean you know the beauty of text and email is

00:57:51.400 that they're never too far away yeah so you can always follow up and say look here's the next part

00:57:58.080 of that conversation if we're serious about actually fixing it i think another thing people need to keep

00:58:02.640 in mind with handling these difficult conversations you have to be patient it's not gonna like you can't

00:58:07.020 just bust out these tactics and like i'm gonna resolve this in 10 minutes like this could take days

00:58:12.440 even weeks of just trying to keep going back and figuring out what they're talking about even if

00:58:18.020 they put up those you know sort of those hard walls you have to just keep at it and slowly you'll you'll

00:58:24.600 get something yeah and you know i think i think that it feels unfair like i'm working so hard at this

00:58:32.300 and i think there there may be a point where you need to say do i want to work this hard in this

00:58:38.080 relationship if they are not willing to change their part sure but it's also true that it's taken

00:58:45.640 a while often to get you to where you're at so it's going to take a while to change things and so

00:58:51.820 it can be hard work but it's it's hard work to be in the relationship in the first place so you're just

00:58:58.060 actually doing work that's more likely to be helpful yeah the if you don't work hardly you have to do

00:59:04.060 that sort of that cost benefit analysis yeah you do and also to realize people don't change

00:59:10.320 sort of deeply held views or behavior quickly you know like you don't have one conversation and

00:59:18.620 somebody says oh you know what after being a lifelong democrat or republican i suddenly realize i'm on the

00:59:25.660 wrong side of this right that doesn't that doesn't tend to happen so having sort of realistic

00:59:31.500 expectations for what we can accomplish in this conversation if we walk away actually better

00:59:37.520 understanding each other and why we're on such different sides of this or why we find this so

00:59:44.440 frustrating and what might help man that's huge progress and we were going to be having a hard

00:59:49.880 conversation one way or another if we had a battle that wasn't going to be more fun this actually has

00:59:55.860 that upside that maybe we're working towards something that's going to be better for both of us

01:00:01.260 well sheila this has been a great conversation where can people go to learn more about the book and

01:00:05.720 the other work you do yeah so triad learning.com is a place where you can also then hop over to our

01:00:14.060 website we have a section called help yourself where you can download you know worksheets a few

01:00:19.620 white papers etc and also you know we do exec ed at harvard and we do in-house programs through triad

01:00:26.800 to just try to equip leaders and their teams with the skills they need to have better conversations

01:00:33.160 fantastic well sheila heen thanks for your time it's been a pleasure it's been a delight thank you

01:00:39.300 my guest today was sheila heen she is the co-author of the book difficult conversations

01:00:43.120 available on amazon.com and bookstores everywhere you can find out more information about her work

01:00:47.020 at the website stoneandheen.com also check out our show notes at aom.is difficult conversations

01:00:53.760 where you find links to resources where you delve deeper into this topic

01:00:56.720 well that wraps up another edition of the aom podcast check out our website at

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01:01:50.380 you

The Art of Manliness - July 31, 2025

#559： How to Handle Difficult Conversations

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