Difficult Conversations: How to Discuss What Matters Most

by Douglas Stone

  A relationship takes hold and grows when both participants experience themselves and the other as being authentic. Such relationships are both more comfortable (it’s more relaxing to be yourself) and nourishing to the soul (“My boss knows some of my vulnerabilities and still thinks I’m okay”).

  Feel Entitled, Feel Encouraged, But Don’t Feel Obligated

  You are entitled to express yourself. If you do not believe this to your core then you’ve got some work to do.

  But being entitled doesn’t mean you’re obligated. That turns entitlement into another way to beat yourself up: “I should be saying what’s on my mind, but I’m too afraid. I can’t do anything right!” Expressing yourself is often extremely difficult. Finding the courage to do it is a lifelong process. If you aren’t doing it as much as you’d like, it’s something to work on, but not something to punish yourself about.

  Speak the Heart of the Matter

  The first step toward expressing yourself is finding your sense of entitlement to speak up; the next step is figuring out what, exactly, you want to say.

  Start with What Matters Most

  There’s no better place to begin your story than with what is at the very heart of the matter for you: “For me, what this is really about is . . . . What I’m feeling is . . . . What is important to me is . . . .”

  Sharing what is important to you is common sense, and yet it’s advice we often neglect. Consider the story of Charlie, the oldest of four brothers, who wants to improve his relationship with his youngest brother, sixteen-year-old Gage. Gage is dyslexic, which is especially tough since his older brothers all graduated near the top of their high school classes and went to college on academic scholarships. Gage struggles in school, is prone to act out, and has increasingly turned to drinking for solace.

  Charlie wants to help by offering the benefit of his experience and advice: “You should definitely do the debate team. The coach is great, and it will help your college applications.” And, “You know, Gage, don’t overdo the drinking thing. It can really be bad news.” But whatever Charlie says makes Gage feel criticized, defensive, and patronized. As a result, the two brothers have grown increasingly distant.

  When we asked Charlie why the relationship is important to him, the story took a different turn. Charlie admires the way Gage works so hard to succeed. He feels bad about how he treated Gage when they were younger. And ultimately, it turns out that Charlie needs deeply to feel like a good brother, who loves and is loved in turn. As he revealed this, Charlie cried.

  When Charlie finally shared these things with his brother, Gage was riveted. Charlie needed him. Charlie needed Gage’s help in being a good brother. It proved a turning point in their relationship.

  Gage would have had to be a mind reader to perceive even a hint of these meanings in Charlie’s original communication. The heart of the message simply wasn’t there. Nor was there a hint of the enormous depth of feelings at stake. Instead, there was a completely different message in its place: “You’re a screw-up who needs my help and is too dumb to ask for it.”

  This is unfortunately all too typical of many difficult conversations. We say the least important things, sometimes over and over again, and wonder why the other person doesn’t realize what we really think and how we really feel.

  As you embark upon a difficult conversation, ask yourself, “Have I said what is at the heart of the matter for me? Have I shared what is at stake?” If not, ask yourself why, and see if you can find the courage to try.

  Say What You Mean: Don’t Make Them Guess

  One way we often skirt sharing things that are important to us is by embedding them in the subtext of the conversation rather than simply stating them outright.

  Don’t Rely on Subtext. Think back to the Introduction, where we discussed the dilemma of whether to engage in a conversation or to try to avoid it. One common way to manage this dilemma — especially when you’re not sure you’re really entitled to bring something up — is to communicate through subtext. You try to get your message across indirectly, through jokes, questions, offhand comments, or body language.

  Bringing it up by not quite bringing it up seems a happy medium between avoiding and engaging. It is a way of doing neither and doing both. The problem is, to the extent you are doing both, you’re doing both badly. You end up triggering all of the problems you worried you’d create by bringing it up, without getting the benefit of clearly saying what you want to say.

  Imagine that you and your husband have usually spent Saturdays sleeping in, puttering around the house, walking the dog, or doing errands together. Recently, however, he has discovered golf, and has begun playing eighteen holes every Saturday morning. Your Saturday regime has never been particularly important — it’s not like it was a date or something — but now that it’s gone, you’re missing it. The two of you don’t spend much time alone together during the rest of the week, and as a result, you’re feeling more and more irritated with his new hobby.

  You could avoid conflict altogether by simply saying nothing, though as we’ve seen, your unhappiness would probably still leak out in spite of yourself. Or you might try to bring it up indirectly: “Honey, there’s really a lot to be done around the house this weekend.” “Is golf so important that you need to play it this often?” “Honey, you are simply playing too much golf!”

  None of these comments conveys what you really mean, which is: “I want to spend more time with you.” Let’s consider the text and subtext of what each statement is saying:

  “Honey, there’s really a lot to be done around the house this weekend.” This comment falls short on several grounds. First, it’s simply the wrong subject. Working around the house is related to but different from spending time together. Second, even if work were the issue, the statement is shared as “truth.” Your husband can reply, “There’s not that much to do, and we’ll talk about it when I get back.”

  “Is golf so important that you need to play it this often?” This is a classic example of a statement masquerading as a question. It’s obvious that the meaning of the comment is conveyed in the subtext. What is less obvious is what the meaning is supposed to be. Your tone conveys anger or frustration. But it’s not clear what is causing the anger or what your husband is supposed to do about it. Are you angry that your husband is engaged in a meaningless sport rather than community service or household chores? Are you angry that he’s not taking you along? Are you angry that you aren’t spending enough time together? How would he know?

  “Honey, you are simply playing too much golf!” This statement is an opinion couched as a fact. Your husband is left to wonder, “Too much golf in relation to what?” “How much golf is too much golf?” “How much would be an appropriate amount of golf?” “Even if I am playing too much golf, so what?” Of course, even if he knew the answers to these questions, he would not have received the message intended. The gap between “You are playing too much golf” and “I would like to spend more time with you” is just too great.

  To do better, you need to figure out what you are really thinking and feeling, and then say it directly: “I’d like to spend more time with you, and Saturday morning was one of the few times we had to spend together. As a result, I’m finding your interest in golf irritating.”

  Sometimes, you’ll find yourself wishing you didn’t have to be explicit. You wish the other person already knew that there was a problem and would do something about it. This is a common and understandable fantasy — our ideal mate or perfect colleague should be able to read our mind and meet our needs without our having to ask. Unfortunately, such people don’t exist. Over time, we may come to know better how we each think and feel, but we will never be perfect. Being disappointed that someone isn’t reading our mind is one of our contributions to the problem.

  Avoid Easing In. A related and often destructive way to communicate through subtext is what Professor Chris Argyris of Harvard Business School has called easing in. Easing in is wh
ere you try to soften a message by delivering it indirectly through hints and leading questions. This is all too common in performance reviews: “So, how do you think you’ve done?” “Do you think you’ve really done as much as you could have?” “I have the same problem, but it probably would have been a little better to . . . . Wouldn’t you agree?”

  Easing in conveys three messages: “I have a view,” “This is too embarrassing to discuss directly,” and “I’m not going to be straight with you.” Not surprisingly, these messages increase both sides’ anxiety and defensiveness. And the recipient’s imagination almost always conjures up a message worse than the real one.

  A better approach is to make the subject clear and discussable by stating your thoughts straight out, while also indicating, honestly, that you are interested in whether the other person sees the situation differently and, if so, how: “Based on what I know, it seems to me that you might have gotten more done. However, you know more about what happened. In what ways would you see it differently?” Then if you disagree, you can talk directly about how to test or otherwise reconcile or deal with your different views.

  Don’t Make Your Story Simplistic: Use the “Me-Me” And

  We’ve all learned that for others to understand us, we need to make what we say clear and simple. Fair enough, as far as it goes. The problem is this: What’s going on in our heads is often a jumble of complex thoughts, feelings, assumptions, and perceptions. When we try to be simple, we often end up being incomplete.

  Imagine that you receive a memo from a co-worker that leaves you confused. You are thinking, “This memo shows incredible creativity, and at the same time is so badly organized that it makes me crazy.” In your attempt to be clear, you say, “Your memo is so badly organized it makes me crazy,” or worse, “Your memo makes me crazy.”

  You can avoid oversimplifying by using the Me-Me And. The And Stance recognizes that each of various perceptions, feelings, and assumptions is important to talk about. This is true of the other person’s perceptions and your perceptions, the other person’s feelings and yours. It’s also true of the various perceptions, feelings, and assumptions that are going on just inside you. The “and” in this case is connecting two aspects of what you think or feel. And though complex, it’s both clear and accurate. Me-Me And statements sound like this:

  I do think you are bright and talented, and I think you’re not working hard enough.

  I feel badly for how rough things have been for you, and I’m feeling disappointed in you.

  I’m upset with myself for not noticing that you were so lonely. And I also was having problems during that time.

  I feel relieved and happy that I finally went through with the divorce — it was the right decision. And I do miss him sometimes.

  The Me-Me And is also useful for overcoming a common obstacle to starting a difficult conversation: the fear of being misunderstood. You think your team would be the best one to take on a new client, but fear that it will sound self-serving, that you’re in it only for the glory and the bonus. If this is the fear, share it along with your argument: “I have a view on this that I want to share, and I have to say that I’m nervous about doing so because I’m afraid it may sound self-serving. So if you see anything in what I say that doesn’t seem legitimate, please say so and let’s discuss it.” Or, in a different situation, “I’m having a strong reaction here that I’d like to share, and I’m worried about feeling embarrassed if I’m not able to be clear or unemotional at first. I hope if that happens that you’ll bear with me and help me stay with it until I can put it succinctly.”

  Telling Your Story with Clarity: Three Guidelines

  Obviously, how you express yourself makes a difference. How you say what you want to say will determine, in part, how others respond to you, and how the conversation will go. So when you choose to share something important, you’ll want to do so in a way that will maximize the chance that the other person will understand and respond productively. Clarity is the key.

  1. Don’t Present Your Conclusions as The Truth

  Some aspects of difficult conversations will continue to be rough even when you communicate with great skill: sharing feelings of vulnerability, delivering bad news, learning something painful about how others see you. But presenting your story as the truth — which creates resentment, defensiveness, and leads to arguments — is a wholly avoidable disaster.

  It is an easy mistake to make. It’s based on an error of thought: we often experience our beliefs, opinions, and judgments as facts. When you’re arguing about a favorite movie or food or sports hero, sharing judgment as the truth is fine. But in difficult conversations it doesn’t wash. Facts are facts. Everything else is everything else. And you need to be scrupulously vigilant about the distinction.

  If you and your friend disagree about whether it is ever okay to spank your child, you add to the conflict if you state your view as the truth: “Spanking children is just plain wrong.” This statement muddies the already turbulent waters, and your friend may hear it as accusatory or presumptuous. Instead of engaging you on the issue, your friend may react by saying, “Who are you to proclaim what’s right and wrong?!”

  Far better to say any of these: “I believe spanking children is wrong,” “I’ve read several books that say spanking children is harmful to them,” “I was spanked as a child and I feel sad and frightened when I hear of a child being spanked,” or even “I’m not sure why I feel this way, but I just feel so strongly that spanking children is wrong.” Each of these clearly distinguishes between what your view or feeling is and what the facts are.

  Some words — like “attractive,” “ugly,” “good,” and “bad” — carry judgments that are obvious. But be careful with words like “inappropriate,” “should,” or “professional.” The judgments contained in these words are less obvious, but can still provoke the “Who are you to tell me?!” response. If you want to say something is “inappropriate,” preface your judgment with “My view is that . . . .” Better still, avoid these words altogether.

  This is not an argument that there is no truth, or that all opinions are equally valid. It simply distinguishes opinion from fact, and allows you to have a careful discussion that leads to better understanding and better decisions rather than to defensiveness and pointless fighting.

  2. Share Where Your Conclusions Come From

  The first step toward clarity, then, is to share your conclusions and opinions as your conclusions and opinions and not as the truth. The second step is to share what’s beneath your conclusions — the information you have and how you have interpreted it.

  As we saw in Chapter 2, often we merely trade our conclusions back and forth, and never get into the process of exploring where these views come from. You have information about yourself that the other person has no access to. That kind of information can be important; consider sharing it. And you have life experiences that are influencing what you think and why, as well as how you feel. When you tell these stories, it puts some meat onto the bones of your views.

  You and your wife argue about whether to send your daughter, Carol, to private school. Your wife says, “I really think we should do it this year. It’s an important age and I know we can come up with the money.” You say in response, “I think she’s doing fine in public school. I think we should keep her there.”

  If this conversation is going to get anywhere, the two of you need to share where these conclusions come from: What specific information is in your heads? What past experiences influence how you’re thinking about this? You need to share your own experience in private school — the fear you felt the first few months, the sense of never quite fitting in. How guilty you felt that your parents weren’t able to buy a car because they were paying your tuition for so many years. Tell that story with all the vividness and detail that’s in your head as you discuss your concerns about the decision. Nothing else you say will make sense if your wife is unaware of the experiences that inform yo
ur feelings on this subject.

  3. Don’t Exaggerate with “Always” and “Never”: Give Them Room to Change

  In the heat of the moment, it’s easy to express frustration through a bit of exaggeration: “Why do you always criticize my clothes?” “You never give one word of appreciation or encouragement. The only time anyone hears anything from you is when there’s something wrong!”

  “Always” and “never” do a pretty good job of conveying frustration, but they have two serious drawbacks. First, it is seldom strictly accurate that someone criticizes every time, or that they haven’t at some point said something positive. Using such words invites an argument over the question of frequency: “That’s not true. I said several nice things to you last year when you won the interoffice new idea competition” — a response that will most likely increase your exasperation.

  “Always” and “never” also make it harder — rather than easier — for the other person to consider changing their behavior. In fact, “always” and “never” suggest that change will be difficult or impossible. The implicit message is, “What is wrong with you such that you are driven to criticize my clothes?” or even “You are obviously incapable of acting like a normal person.”

  A better approach is to proceed as if (however hard it may be to believe) the other person is simply unaware of the impact of their actions on you, and, being a good person, would certainly wish to change their behavior once they became aware of it. You could say something like: “When you tell me my suit reminds you of wrinkled old curtains, I feel hurt. Criticizing my clothes feels like an attack on my judgment and makes me feel incompetent.” If you can also suggest what you would wish to hear instead, so much the better: “I wish I could feel more often like you believed in me. It would really feel great to hear even something as simple as, ‘I think that color looks good on you.’ Anything, as long as it was positive.”