Books - Difficult Conversations

Good conversations are important, but we often shy away from difficult ones.

I was in a leadership program at my company, and one important test you need to pass to become a manager is giving critical feedback. You are given a mock situation where the employee is doing poorly in some areas, but great in others. They are doing things that are completely unacceptable, but you really want to keep them on the team.

Hopefully, as a manager, you will not ever have to address this because your team is performing so well, but it is a good and important skill to have.

To get better at situations like this, you need to know how to handle difficult conversations. So I looked for books, and "Difficult Conversations: How to Discuss What Matters Most" by Douglas Stone, Bruce Patton, and Sheila Heen looked interesting. And it is.

The main idea of the book is that we need to turn difficult conversations into learning conversations. You do not just want to get your point across. The main idea is to learn. If you approach the conversation with an open mind and are curious about the thoughts of the other person, you are much more likely to succeed. The authors also think that there are basically three different conversations embedded in a single conversation. So when preparing for a difficult conversation, we need to think about and prepare for those three different conversations.

The "What happened?" conversation

This conversation is about what actually happened and what it means. People, of course, assume that their view of the matter is correct. But maybe you do not have all the information. Or maybe you do, but the other person does not know something that you know.

One mistake here is assuming intent when something was not intended. "You did this because you wanted to make me look bad." But the only thing we know, and the thing we can share, is how it made us feel: "It made me feel incompetent." And do not work around this by saying something like, "You made me feel like you wanted to hurt me." :)

What is important here is adopting the and stance: acknowledging your view and their view.

The other mistake people make in the "what happened?" conversation is focusing on blame. Blame is not helpful and does not really get us forward. In many cases, both parties contributed something to the situation, maybe even by not addressing the issue earlier and letting things slide. So it is important to sort out the contributions of each person, because both people likely contributed something to the situation.

The feelings conversation

For this part of the conversation, the authors argue that it is important to understand our feelings first before expressing them to the other person. But it is important to express them, because otherwise they will stop us from discussing the matter. When we express our feelings, it is important that we share the impact the actions had on us. We should not share our feelings to hurt or blame the other person.

The identity conversation

Some conversations are difficult because they threaten the identity of the other person. "I am a super competent software engineer, so I could not have been responsible for any part of the incident," for example. This makes it difficult to acknowledge contributions and find a way forward, even when your focus is not assigning blame. This gets especially bad with all-or-nothing thinking, e.g. "I can be either competent or incompetent, so if I did something wrong, I am incompetent." So for this part of the conversation, it is easier to take a step back and accept that there might be parts that you need to improve. You cannot be perfect. You should also take the and stance: "I am a competent engineer AND I made a mistake when deploying this AND I am still worthy."

Learning conversations

One important point the authors make is that the goal of the conversation should be to learn something. "I need to convince the other person of my view and I will just wait for my turn to talk" would be the wrong mindset to bring into the conversation. The other person surely has information that you do not have. So ask and find out. This is especially important for discovering their feelings, because they need to be acknowledged.

The third story

The authors argue that a good way to start a conversation is from the third story: the point of view of a "neutral" observer. The third story describes the differences between their story and your story of the situation and makes it easier to talk about those differences, instead of triggering a defensive reaction. The feelings of the other person are acknowledged, and there is room to understand each other.

My take

I think the biggest insights were to focus on contributions instead of blame, and to remember that intentions are never simply good or bad, but usually a complex mixture of things.

Starting the conversation from the third story is also a good idea. And it is good to keep in mind that people will not be ready for change until they feel understood and their feelings have been heard.

I would recommend this book to everyone. It helped me pass the management program exam. :)