What went wrong?
We Begin Inside Our Own Story
When we jump into conversations we typically begin inside our story. We describe the problem from our own perspective and, in doing so, trigger just the kinds of reactions we hope to avoid. We begin from precisely the place the other person thinks is causing the problem. If they agreed with our story, we probably wouldn’t be having this conversation in the first place. Our story sends up flares, warning them to defend themselves or to counterattack.
We Trigger Their Identity Conversation from the Start
Our story invariably (though often unintentionally) communicates a judgment about them — the kind of person they are — and the fact that inside our version of the events, they are the problem. Something as simple as an opening sentence can give us away. Let’s take a look at the lines offered above:
* * *
Opening Lines If you contest Dad’s will, it’s going to tear the family apart.
Implicit Message About Them You’re selfish, ungrateful, and don’t care about the family.
* * *
Opening Lines I was very upset by what you said in front of our supervisor.
Implicit Message About Them At worst, you betrayed me — at best, you were stupid.
* * *
Opening Lines Your son Nathan can be difficult in class — disruptive and argumentative. You’ve said in the past that things at home are fine, but something must be troubling him.
Implicit Message About Them Your son is a troublemaker, probably because you’re a bad parent who’s created a lousy home environment. What are you hiding?
* * *
We could imagine even worse ways to begin, but it’s not hard to see why these provoke defensiveness. We trigger the other person’s Identity Conversation from the outset, and there’s no room in our agenda for their story. It’s natural that they would reject our version and want to get their own on the table: “I’m not trying to tear the family apart, I’m just sticking up for what Dad wanted.” Or, “Nathan is not a problem child. People who know how to handle children see that he’s a very sweet boy.”
By leaving their story out, we implicitly set up a trade-off between their version of events and our version, between our feelings and theirs.
The question is what to do instead. Below, we lay out two powerful guidelines for starting the conversation off in the right direction: (1) begin the conversation from the “Third Story,” and (2) offer an invitation to explore the issues jointly.
Step One: Begin from the Third Story
In addition to your story and the other person’s story, every difficult conversation includes an invisible Third Story. The Third Story is the one a keen observer would tell, someone with no stake in your particular problem. For example, in the battle between bicycles and cars for the streets of the city, the Third Story would be the one told by city planners, who can understand each side’s concerns and see why each group is frustrated with the other. When tensions arise in a marriage, the Third Story might be the one offered by a marriage counselor. In a dispute between friends, the Third Story may be the perspective of a mutual friend who sees each side as having valid concerns that need to be addressed.
Think Like a Mediator
The urban planner, marriage counselor, and mutual friend each have the vantage point of a neutral observer, or mediator. Mediators are third parties who help people solve their problems. Unlike judges or arbitrators, though, mediators have no power to impose a solution; they are there to help the two sides communicate more effectively, and to explore possible ways of moving forward.
One of the most helpful tools a mediator has is the ability to identify this invisible Third Story. This means describing the problem between the parties in a way that rings true for both sides simultaneously. It’s easy to describe the problem so that only one of the disputants would agree with it — in fact, that’s what each of us does when we begin inside our own story. The trick is being able to get two people with different stories to sign on to the same description of what is going on.
Mediators don’t possess some magical intuition that allows them to do this. They are relying on a formula (and a lot of practice), and this formula can be learned by anyone. You don’t have to be an impartial third party to begin from the Third Story. You can begin your own conversations this way.
Not Right or Wrong, Not Better or Worse – Just Different
The key is learning to describe the gap — or difference — between your story and the other person’s story. Whatever else you may think and feel, you can at least agree that you and the other person see things differently. Consider an example.
Jason’s Story. Jason’s roommate, Jill, leaves dishes in the sink for days on end. This drives Jason crazy, and means that he ends up doing much of the cleaning up, since he can’t stand to let them sit. In the past, Jason has raised the issue with Jill by saying, “Do I have to do everything around here? You can’t let dishes sit this long — it’s a health risk.”
Obviously, Jason is speaking from inside his story. Jill is not going to be thrilled with this start to a conversation, and will likely respond by defending herself or attacking Jason. This would be true even if Jason began with more tact, offering something like, “Jill we need to talk about your problem with getting the dishes done.” Tact or not, it’s still his story.
Jill’s Story. If Jill were to raise the problem, she would begin differently: “Jason, we need to talk about the fact that you are so annoyingly anal about the dishes. Last night you practically cleared the table before I was finished eating. You need to relax.” This, of course, suits Jill but not Jason.
The Third Story. The Third Story would remove the judgment from the description, and instead describe the problem as a difference between Jason and Jill. It might go like this: “Jason and Jill have different preferences around when the dishes are done, and different standards for what constitutes appropriate or obsessive cleanliness. Each is unhappy with the other’s approach.” That’s how a mediator or observant friend might describe the problem. Both Jason and Jill can sign on to this difference.
Clearly, there is a difference, and in the Third Story there is no judgment about who is right or even whose view is more common. The Third Story simply captures the difference. That’s what allows both sides to buy into the same description of the problem: each feels that their story is acknowledged as a legitimate part of the discussion.
Once you find it, you can begin with the Third Story yourself. So Jason might say, “Jill, you and I seem to have different preferences about when the dishes get done or beliefs about when they should be done. I wonder if that’s something we could talk about?” Jason can offer that without sacrificing his own views (soon enough, he’ll ask about Jill’s story, and describe his own), and Jill can sign on without defensiveness.
Importantly, you don’t have to know what the other person’s story entails to include it in initiating the conversation this way. All you have to do is acknowledge that it’s there: that there are probably lots of things you don’t understand about their perspective, and that one of the reasons you want to talk is that you want to learn more about their view. You can begin from the Third Story by saying, “My sense is that you and I see this situation differently. I’d like to share how I’m seeing it, and learn more about how you’re seeing it.”
Opening Lines
* * *
From Inside Your Story: If you contest Dad’s will, it’s going to tear our family apart.
From the Third Story: I wanted to talk about Dad’s will. You and I obviously have different understandings of what Dad intended, and of what’s fair to each of us. I wanted to understand why you see things the way you do, and to share with you my perspective and feelings. In addition, I have strong feelings and fears about what a court fight would mean for the family; I suspect you do too.
* * *
From Inside Your Story: I was very upset by what you said in front o
f our supervisor.
From the Third Story: I wanted to talk to you about what happened in the meeting this morning. I was upset by something you said. I wanted to explain what was bothering me, and also hear your perspective on the situation.
* * *
From Inside Your Story: Your son Nathan can be difficult in class — disruptive and argumentative. You’ve said in the past that things at home are fine, but something must be troubling him.
From the Third Story: I wanted to share with you my concerns about Nathan’s behavior in class, and hear more about your sense of what might be contributing to it. I know from our past conversation that you and I have different thinking on this. My sense is that if a child is having trouble at school, something is usually bothering him at home, and I know you’ve felt strongly that that’s not true in this case. Maybe together we can figure out what’s motivating Nathan and how to handle it.
* * *
Most conversations can be initiated from the Third Story to include both perspectives and invite joint exploration. Consider the openings we looked at earlier, and how they might sound if begun from the Third Story:
Stepping out of your story doesn’t mean giving up your point of view. Your purpose in opening the conversation is to invite the other person into a joint exploration. In the course of that exploration you’ll spend time in each side’s perspective, and then come back to adjust your own views based on what you’ve learned and what you’ve shared.
After talking with your brother about how you each think your father’s estate should be divided, where those views come from, and how you feel about the current conflict, it may be that your view of what’s fair changes. Your brother’s view may also shift. And the two of you may find a way to settle the issue that feels fair to both of you.
Or the two of you may still disagree. You think that the estate should be evenly divided among the three kids. Your brother says Dad meant it to be divided equally among the seven grandchildren — so that his branch of the family with its three grandsons gets more than you and your only daughter. Even if you disagree on the substance of the dispute, you’ve had the chance to express how upsetting, sad, and worrisome the conflict is for you, and to gain a deeper understanding of why your brother sees it as he does. You may be able to find a process for working through the differences while protecting your family relationships from being ravaged by a nasty fight. Keeping communication open and understanding the feelings and perspectives involved sends an important message that even when we disagree, we care about each other. That we are going to stay in communication with each other, even while we take the questions we can’t agree on to an arbitrator or probate court to be decided. If nothing else, you will be better able to separate the substantive disagreements from the importance of the relationships.
If They Start the Conversation, You Can Still Step to the Third Story
Of course, you won’t always have the chance to reflect on how you want to begin the conversation. Sometimes difficult conversations will simply descend upon you — presenting themselves in your office or on your doorstep — whether you are ready for them or not.
You can follow the Third Story guidelines even when you are not the initiator of the conversation. Here’s what you do. You take whatever the other person says and use it as their half of a description from the Third Story. Since the Third Story includes their story, starting the conversation with their view doesn’t mean you’re off track.
If Jill comes to Jason and says, “We need to talk about how you ruin all our meals by being so obsessive about the dishes,” Jason might find himself wanting to respond from inside his story: “What? You’re the one with the problem. You’re the biggest slob I know!” But if he does, he’ll send the conversation headlong toward that brick wall.
Instead, Jason can treat Jill’s opening as her part of the Third Story. He might say, “It sounds like you’re pretty unhappy with how I handle the dishes. I have trouble with how you deal with the dishes too, so I think we each have different preferences and assumptions around that. It seems like that would be a good thing for us to talk about. . . .”
Jason has not only acknowledged Jill’s story as an important part of the conversation, but also included his own as part of the process of understanding the problem. And in doing so Jason has succeeded in shifting the purpose of the conversation from arguing toward understanding.
Step Two: Extend an Invitation
The second step in getting off to a good start is to offer a simple invitation: I’ve described the problem in a way we can each accept. Now I want to propose mutual understanding and problem-solving as purposes, check to see if this makes sense to you, and invite you to join me in a conversation.
Describe Your Purposes
If the other person is going to accept your invitation, they need to know what it is they are agreeing to do. Letting them know up front that your goal for the discussion is to understand their perspective better, share your own, and talk about how to go forward together makes the conversation significantly less mysterious and threatening. Knowing that their perspective has a place in the conversation, and that this isn’t a campaign to change them, makes it more likely that they will accept your invitation.
Invite, Don’t Impose
An invitation, of course, can be turned down. Neither person can force the other to engage in a conversation. If you conceptualize your task as “setting the description of the problem and purposes for the conversation,” even a well-crafted opening may meet with some resistance, because this is now your version of the Third Story. So your offer should be open to modification by the other person.
Think of the goal rather as “offering and discussing a possible description and purpose” for your conversation. In other words, the task of describing the problem and of setting purposes is itself a joint task.
Make Them Your Partner in Figuring It Out
Your invitation is more likely to be accepted if you offer the other person an appealing role in managing the problem. You need to sidestep the temptation to cast them as “the problem,” or in an unappealing light, since this will trigger their Identity Conversation and stop the conversation cold. So if, in a stalled contract negotiation, you were to say, “I can see that we have different ideas about what salary makes sense here,” so far so good. But if you then add, “and since you’re new at this, I can tell you how it’s usually done,” you cast them as the neophyte, and sink the ship.
If accepting your invitation requires the other person to acknowledge that they are naive, callous, manipulative, or in any other way unsavory or inadequate, they are substantially less likely to accept. If, on the other hand, you say, “Can you help me understand . . . ?” you offer the role of advisor. “Let’s work on how we might . . . .” invites a partnership. “I wonder whether it’s possible to . . . .” throws out a challenge, one which offers the other person the potential role of hero.
The role you offer has to be genuine. But don’t be fooled into thinking that your original depiction — the story that casts the other person as the villain, for example — is any more genuine than other roles you can find for them. It may be that recasting them into a more attractive role requires recognizing that if you are going to gain a more complete picture of what’s going on — and make any real progress — you need their help.
Sometimes the most genuine thing you can do is share your internal struggle to cast them in a more positive role. You can say something like, “The story I’m telling in my head about what is going on is that you are being inconsiderate. At some level I know that’s unfair to you, and I need you to help me put things in better perspective. I need you to help me understand where you are coming from on this.” It’s honest and, at the same time, offers them the role of “someone who can help me get my perspective back.”
Be Persistent
Being persistent is not inconsistent with the advice to invite rather than impose. It may take a little work to help t
hem understand what it is you are proposing.
Ruth wants to have a conversation with her ex-husband about the time he spends with their daughter, Alexis. In the past, their conversations have resulted in fights. This time, Ruth begins from the Third Story and offers some useful purposes. Even so, it takes some negotiating to get her ex-husband to understand:
RUTH: Brian, it seems to me that we’re having a hard time being clear with each other about how likely it is that you’ll make it for your time with Lexi.
BRIAN: I know, I know. I’m sorry, okay? We had a crisis on the shop floor and I was tied up in meetings trying to address it.
RUTH: I understand that things sometimes come up. I guess I was thinking about the bigger picture, since there have been several times in the last few months when I thought we’d confirmed plans for you to spend the day with Lexi, and later learned that you understood our plans to be more tentative. You thought the plan was that you’d come by if you could get away.
BRIAN: That was what I said. If I could get away, I’d visit.
RUTH: See, and I thought we’d agreed to a definite plan — that you’ll be here no matter what. So you and I are misunderstanding each other. I’d like to sort this out, because it’s awfully hard on Alexis when you and I get our signals crossed. Can we spend some time trying to figure this thing out?
Difficult Conversations: How to Discuss What Matters Most Page 16