Conflict, negotiation and difficult conversations are hard, but there are plenty of good books help. I often recommend Crucial Confrontations, Getting to Yes and Getting Past No. Someone recommended Difficult Conversations, a book that I recently finished reading.
Difficult Conversations
Where the other books I read tended to take a more mechanistic view of steering the conversation, I really appreciated the slightly different take with this book, which I felt more humanistic because it acknowledged the emotional side to difficult conversations. The authors suggest that when we have a difficult conversation, we experience three simultaneous conversations:
- The “What Happened” Conversation
- The Feelings Conversation
- The Identity Conversation
The “What Happened” Conversation
We often assume we know what happened, because we know what we know (Our Story). The authors (rightly) point out, that our story may be completely different from the other person (Their Story). A good practical tip is to focus on building the Third Story as a way of building a shared awareness and appreciation of other data that may make a difference to the conversation
The Feelings Conversation
As much as we like to think we are logical, we are highly emotional and biased people. It’s what makes us human. We manifest this by saying things based on how we are feeling. Sometimes we don’t even know this is happening. The book helps us understand and gives us strategies for uncovering the feelings that we may be experiencing during the conversation. They also suggest building empathy with the other person by walking through the Feelings Conversation the other person will be having as well.
The Identity Conversation
I think this was the first time that I had thought about when we struggle to communicate, or agree on something, we may be doing so because have difficulty accepting something we may not like, or something that threatens our identity. This is what the authors call out as the Identity Conversation and is a natural part of successfully navigating a difficult conversation.
Conclusion
I found Difficult Conversations a really enjoyable read that added a few new perspectives to my toolkit. I appreciate their practical advice such as stepping through each of the three conversations from both your and the other person’s perspective and avoiding speaking in different modes. I like the fact that they address the emotional side to difficult conversations and give concrete ways of understanding and coping with them, instead of ignoring them or pushing them aside.
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