2008 Dewey Decimal Project: 158.2 S
Mar. 1st, 2008 09:25 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rsadelleAt our statewide meeting in January, my boss did a short presentation about Difficult Conversations: How to Discuss What Matters Most by Douglas Stone, Bruce Patton, and Sheila Heen of the Harvard Negotiation Project. Our office was so impressed that coworker C promptly checked out our office copy, and coworker O and I checked out the local library system's copies. Even thought I'm writing about it in March, it's actually my February book.
The book defines a difficult conversation as "anything you find it hard to talk about," and explains that in any difficult conversation, there are really three conversations: the "What Happened?" Conversation, the Feelings Conversation, and the Identity Conversation.
In the "What Happened?" Conversation, what's important is to think about it as a learning conversation, and see what each person's story is, and how you each contributed to what happened. This is not about blame; it's about understanding what each person's story is and what they did to contribute to the situation. In all but a few extreme instances, each person has contributed something.
One of the important pieces of the "What Happened?" Conversation is to disentangle impact from intent. Two of the big mistakes we make are:
In the Identity Conversation, we find ourselves struggling with three main questions: "Am I competent?" "Am I a good person?" "Am I worthy of love?" Acknowledging our complex intentions and our contribution can make us question who we think we are. The important thing for us to remember is that we don't have to live in all-or-nothing thinking; we can "adopt the and stance." "No one is always anything. We each exhibit a constellation of qualities, positive and negative, and constantly grapple with how to respond to the complicated situations life presents. And we don't always respond as competently and compassionately as we'd like."
After exploring what the three conversations are, the book delves into how to actually go about having a difficult conversation.
I highly recommend the book. If you want a capsule idea bout how to have a difficult conversation, there is some useful information here. I (fortunately or unfortunately) had a chance to try this out this week, and the difficult conversation I had went much better than it would have if I hadn't read the book. I was able to, in the moment, keep thinking to myself, "learning conversation," and, "acknowledge their feelings," both of which helped the conversation to ultimately be successful.
The book defines a difficult conversation as "anything you find it hard to talk about," and explains that in any difficult conversation, there are really three conversations: the "What Happened?" Conversation, the Feelings Conversation, and the Identity Conversation.
In the "What Happened?" Conversation, what's important is to think about it as a learning conversation, and see what each person's story is, and how you each contributed to what happened. This is not about blame; it's about understanding what each person's story is and what they did to contribute to the situation. In all but a few extreme instances, each person has contributed something.
One of the important pieces of the "What Happened?" Conversation is to disentangle impact from intent. Two of the big mistakes we make are:
- We make assumptions about intentions based on the impact on us. If someone hurts us, we assume they did it on purpose.
- We think that if we had good intentions, that means the impact doesn't matter. When we say, "But I didn't mean to hurt you," we're not hearing what they're really saying and we don't acknowledge that our intentions might be more complex than that.
In the Identity Conversation, we find ourselves struggling with three main questions: "Am I competent?" "Am I a good person?" "Am I worthy of love?" Acknowledging our complex intentions and our contribution can make us question who we think we are. The important thing for us to remember is that we don't have to live in all-or-nothing thinking; we can "adopt the and stance." "No one is always anything. We each exhibit a constellation of qualities, positive and negative, and constantly grapple with how to respond to the complicated situations life presents. And we don't always respond as competently and compassionately as we'd like."
After exploring what the three conversations are, the book delves into how to actually go about having a difficult conversation.
I highly recommend the book. If you want a capsule idea bout how to have a difficult conversation, there is some useful information here. I (fortunately or unfortunately) had a chance to try this out this week, and the difficult conversation I had went much better than it would have if I hadn't read the book. I was able to, in the moment, keep thinking to myself, "learning conversation," and, "acknowledge their feelings," both of which helped the conversation to ultimately be successful.