How to Stop a Difficult Conversation Going Bad

[00:00:00] Rachel: If you supervise lead or manage any human being, one of the messages that you probably dread receiving is one of those quick Have you got five minutes for a quick catch-up?

[00:00:11] Rachel: My other half who leads a big team always the dreads those, because he knows that if a member of staff wants to sort of speak to him urgently, it’s never normally with good news. Good news comes on a WhatsApp message or on an email. But when somebody wants to speak to you, there’s probably something difficult coming up that’s going to be tricky to hear.

[00:00:31] Rachel: I had one of those the other day. Just the message Have you got five minutes? Just once to have a quick chat about something. There was no warning about what exactly it was about. And so this person came on the call and actually they were very kind and compassionate at the beginning. They said that the reason they wanted to have the call was that they really valued our relationship and they wanted to make it as good as it could be giving forwards.

[00:00:57] Rachel: They then talked about something that had happened and how they felt about it. And even though I felt they probably hadn’t got their facts completely. Right. was all going okay for me until at one point I suddenly started to feel myself getting quite defensive and feeling quite upset. And I can pinpoint that moment. It was when the person said that they felt that I had been unfair.

[00:01:19] Rachel: And also at that point, I can’t really remember very much about what we talked about, but I remember feeling very defensive and fitting that that got me all wrong and feeding a bit hard done by. And the conversation finished okay in the end, but I can pinpoint the exact time where it started spiral.

[00:01:35] Rachel: I’m gonna show all of you can look back at conversations that you’ve had with your team that didn’t go the way that you wanted them to go, even though you did your best to be empathetic and caring and open-minded and wise. And so we start to avoid having the conversations that we know we need to have because they are tricky conversations or difficult conversations. And I would describe any difficult conversation is something where someone has to say something to the other person that the other person probably won’t like to hear, that’s uncomfortable. And why do we fear these conversations? Because we fear the effects it has on our relationship with people. We worry that we’re going to be accused of all sorts of things. We worry that we’re going to be feeding bad. We don’t want to upset people. It’s a massive threat situation because if our amygdala detects a group threat, It sends straight into the corner into our adrenalized sane, where as soon as we’re in that fight flight or freeze state, We can’t really hear things properly, we can’t make good decisions, and so we fear the consequences. Of having these conversations.

[00:02:36] Rachel: And then the problem is we don’t often understand why they are so difficult and what happens to make them spiral out of control. And we often avoid them because we think, well, the other person is going to get really defensive. They can’t hear that sort of thing. They’re not mature enough. They’ll just be thinking of themselves. They’ve behaved really badly. So what’s going to happen when I pointed it out?

[00:02:57] Rachel: So we often think the reason why they’re difficult is because of the other person, or it’s because we just not saying it right. That there’s something magical that we can say or do in these conversations that’s going to make it so much better.

[00:03:08] Rachel: And then what happens? Is that we never have the conversations that we need to have. And relationships. Deteriorate anyway, if we don’t have these conversations. Standard strop. People aren’t held to accounts about things. People don’t know where they’re going wrong and they can’t learn from feedback and improve. We don’t gain any more understanding about them. They don’t gain any more understanding about us. We ended up feeling incredibly guilty and responsible for how they’re feeling. We feel like a failure. They feel like a failure, and it’s just a downward spiral.

[00:03:38] Rachel: So the mistake we make is just thinking, I just need that skill, that skill, that right sentence to say, to make it all right, when actually what we need. It’s to understand the moment where the conversation starts to go wrong. And be able to shift our approach. And that starts from way before we even have the conversation.

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[00:04:28] Rachel: Conversations don’t go wrong because somebody doesn’t want to hear feedback. They don’t want to know what they can see to improve. They don’t want to know what they’ve done to upset other people. They go wrong. When you, while skipping that feedback, whilst having that conversation have gone over the net and gone into judgment.

[00:04:47] Rachel: Now, what do I mean by over the net? Well, I came across this concept when I listened to these guys on a podcast. Uh, there’s a wonderful book called connect by David Bradford and Carole Robin. And they run a class on interpersonal dynamics at Stanford Business School. And their theory. Is that the biggest problem in interpersonal communication is when you go over the net.

[00:05:07] Rachel: Now, what do we mean by this? Well, In any conversation, you’ve got two people and there are three things going on. You’ve got me, what’s going on in my head, my intense, how I’m feeling. I’ve got you, I’ve got what’s going on in your head, the impacts of what I’m saying, what you intended, what you think, what you’re worried about. And we’ve also got the behavior. Now I can only ever know two out of those three things. I know what’s in my head and I know the behavior that I can see. When I’m talking about behavior, I’m saying, you know, if you were filming that situation, what would you be able to watch on the film? So it would be what I said, what I did, the tone of voice that I used. The other person only knows about three things. They know the behavior that they can see. But they will say what’s in their head, their assumptions, how they’re feeling the impact of stuff on them, but they have no idea what’s in my head.

[00:06:00] Rachel: When we go over the net is when we think we know all three of those things. It’s when I think I know what’s in the other person’s head. When I assume I know what they intended. When I assume I know what they’re feeling. When I assume why they did something. I can never know why they did something unless they tell me.

[00:06:21] Rachel: And if you think about it, the times when you can feel the most annoyed and upset is when somebody has misjudged you or misunderstood you, misunderstood your intention. If someone accuses you of disrespecting them, or being greedy, or being selfish when that hundred percent wasn’t your intent, you feel very upset, you feel very judged. And that is when you’re a amygdala will go there’s a threat, there’s a treat. You get into the corner, you’ll be flooded with adrenaline or the blood will rush from your prefrontal cortex to your big muscles. And you just won’t be able to think straight.

[00:06:57] Rachel: So being misunderstood is a massive threat. And as soon as you feel misunderstood in any way, shape or form, It’s pretty much curtains to any rational conversation because you’re backed into the corner, you don’t behave well, and it all becomes about self protection, which is defensiveness, isn’t it? And you can’t have a conversation if you’re being defensive and someone else has been defensive. And if you’re being defensive and somebody else has being defensive, and there’s not really any hope for that conversation, because all you’re doing is fighting your own corner, fighting the battle. And no matter how rational you started off. He just ended up defending yourself, even if the back of your mind, you’re thinking, why am I doing this?

[00:07:37] Rachel: So if, when we’re thinking about these tricky conversations that we need to have, rather than fearing the other person and how they are going to react, if we start to think about our own approach and understand the precise moment when we might be triggering defensiveness in somebody else, these conversations are going to go much, much better. We’ll actually end up with better relationships at the end of them than if we’d said nothing. Both sides will feel heard. Both sides will feel understood. And that’s where real change takes place. That’s where teams get to fell it where trust is built. But it all starts with me controlling what I can control.

[00:08:14] Rachel: You know, I talk all the time about the same, the power about working out what’s in your control and what’s not in your control. Well, unfortunately, the other person is not under my control. I don’t know what’s in the head. I can’t control how they feel. can only control what I say and what’s I do, my attitude and how I approach things. And it all starts with staying on your own side of the net. So how do we do that? Well, firstly, we refrain from all judgment.

[00:08:42] Rachel: So when this person said to me that she’d felt I’d been unfair, that was judgment that was over the net, because she had no idea what my intent was. Was my intent to be unfair? To push my own interests above theirs? No, of course it wasn’t. But but by saying they felt I had been unfair, that immediately triggered my inner chimp, triggered this feeding of hang on a sec, I wasn’t being unfair you over the net. He don’t know that.

[00:09:08] Rachel: So, if you say to somebody I felt dismissed, I felt you weren’t listening, I felt you were being mean or thoughtless, that is the net, because you don’t know if their intention was to be mean. You don’t know if they were dismissing you. You don’t know if they weren’t listening to you.

[00:09:24] Rachel: Now, from their behavior, it might look like they weren’t listening to you. So you could say when I came into the room, I, you were reading a piece of paper., I started speaking to you and you didn’t look up. So the story in my head was that you weren’t listening to me. That’s owning that, owning what I thought. But not saying you weren’t listening to me, that’s an accusation and that will immediately put people’s backs up.

[00:09:47] Rachel: So assuming that we know what the other person was intending is way over the net. And just a side note, when you say, I felt, well, that’s not actually true. You can’t feel that somebody is being unfair. You can feel upset because you think somebody is being unfair. You can feel angry because you think that somebody dismissed you, but you can’t feel dismissed or feel unfair that doesn’t make any sense at all. So by all means own your feelings. Say how you felt. But you felt like that because of the story you were telling yourself.

[00:10:20] Rachel: So if this person has had said to me the story I’m telling myself was that it was unfair and then I felt upset, that would have made me less defensive. But if we take that step further, If this person had assumed good intent from me, so if this person has said, now I know that you would never want to be unfair or come across like that, then I would have felt much safer. And she could have said, but I did feel upset because my interpretation of it was that it was. And that would have given me a chance to go, okay, there’s something that I did there that had that impact on this person. But because they’ve assumed good intent from me, they’ve not assumed that I’m out to get them. They’ve not assumed I’m being mean, thoughtless or selfish. That gives me somewhere to go with this.

[00:11:04] Rachel: So assuming good intent of the other person is the most important thing in any interaction. If I have to feed back about some behavior that was detrimental and harmful to either me or somebody else, if I go in and saying to them, I know that the last thing that you would want is to do something that’s going to affect our relationship or cause issues to people, I know that right? So if I think that the other person assumes that I have good intent. That makes it much easier for me to hear feedback. If I’m thinking that the other person thinks I’m a despicable human being and it’s just expecting me to do horrible things. I’m going to get much, much more defensive. So assuming good intent and knowing that other people are assuming good intent from you is the basis of psychological safety. Just basically means that you can feed anything back. I’m like, I know that you don’t think I’m awful, so you can actually tell me anything I’ve done that really didn’t work for you, because I know that. You know, I would never mean anything harmful. That’s got a bit meta, but this assumption of good intent is so, so important, particularly for not going over the net. So to stay over my side of the net, firstly, I assume good intent from the other person.

[00:12:13] Rachel: The next thing in your approach that will make things so much better is to know what your highest intention is. Why am I having this conversation in the first place? What’s in it for them? When we do our training, we often start with what’s in it for me. W I F M. We need to start with what’s in it for them. Because if the only person that’s going to benefit from this conversation is me, then there’s probably no point in having it. There needs to be a benefit to the other person. So something they could do differently in the future that’s going to help them go through life. That’s going to help our relationship. That’s going to make things better.

[00:12:49] Rachel: So if I’m sharing something that I need to get off my chest because I’ve misunderstood it and I want to find out what really happens so we can avoid it again, that’s a great intention. If I’m sharing something, because I just want somebody else to know how much they’ve hurt me and feel bad about it, that’s a terrible intention and that sort of conversation is always going to go wrong. But if I’m sharing something. In order to understand, move on and make things better, then that is a great intention for everybody.

[00:13:15] Rachel: So always ask yourself before you have a conversation what’s in it for them. Seriously, why am I doing this? How is this going to help them? What’s the biggest possible positive outcome for them?

[00:13:26] Rachel: And finally, to stop ourselves going over the net, we need to listen much, much sooner and ask questions. Because if I don’t know what’s going on in your head, the only way I can find out is if you tell me. And I need to ask the right questions. I need to be curious, genuinely curious, not asking questions with the sort of subtext of, well, why did you do that if you knew, blah, blah, blah? That’s not going to help, but just really getting curious. Can you just tell me what was behind that?

[00:13:54] Rachel: Recently someone said to me, It’s just an off the cuff comment that the best way to get feedback is to just say to them, how do you think that went? If you were to rate it on a scale of one to five, where would he be and why? And half the time someone would say, oh, it didn’t really go that well, would give you the score and tell you everything that you were going to tell them anyway. How much better is that? How much more accessible is that towards somebody then just giving them a list of everything that they did wrong.?

[00:14:18] Rachel: And so often when people give you feedback about stuff, you want to button and go, yep. I know this. I know, I know. And this is what I’ve done, but they just so intent on telling you that a piece that you can’t get it in. You can’t get a word in edgeways. So before you have any difficult conversation, just asking them how they’re feeling about the whole situation and what they think will save you a lot of pain in the long run. It makes everything so much easier and so much more accessible.

[00:14:44] Rachel: So approach these difficult and tricky conversations by firstly thinking, how can I stop myself going over the net? How can I assume good intent from the other person? How can I get the highest intent from myself? And how can I find out what’s in their head without making those assumptions? And if you start there. You can’t go far wrong.

[00:15:05] Rachel: Now there are also mistakes we make in all of this. Firstly empathy.

[00:15:09] Rachel: The other person needs to know that we really empathize and understand them. So just go straight into conversation without finding out how are you doing? How are things, you know, what’s really going on for you outside of work or whatever will be really helpful.

[00:15:22] Rachel: Secondly, watch out for your own defensiveness. Because often if you’ve gone over the net and triggered bad defensiveness, triggered their inner chimp, that will trigger you because they’ll start saying some things. And when you get triggered, you’ll be much more likely to be judgemental, to say things that you regret. Your inner chimp might also be checkered by feeling really guilty. If they’re feeling upset.

[00:15:46] Rachel: Now with the best will in the world. If you tell me that there’s some things that I have done that have caused hurt to somebody else, I’ll fill upset. And that’s quite appropriate. Nobody likes to be told that their behavior hasn’t worked for somebody else. Nobody likes to think that they’ve caused harm or upset to anybody. We feel upset. We feel guilty. We feel remorseful. But that is normal human behavior. And you are not responsible or in control of how they are feeling. That is their stuff. And it’s okay for them to feel bad.

[00:16:14] Rachel: And often when we see that other people are upset, we start fracking them. We start trying to fix it. We start trying to rescue them. We start giving advice or we start canceling how they’re feeling. Because we can’t keep with somebody else feeding bad, and we may feel incredibly guilty. But it’s okay to sit with those feelings. If you’ve done that work around, what’s my highest intent, you know, you give him that feedback for good reason.

[00:16:38] Rachel: Then finally, another mistake that I make. Is to go into fawn mode. So when our inner chimp is triggered when we’re in the corner, when in our sympathetic nervous zones, we can go into fight, flight, freeze, or fawn. And fawn is where we start to get over helpful. That’s why we start seeing that fracking and, and really trying to make it better.

[00:16:58] Rachel: So we might start saying things like, oh, you know, it doesn’t really matter and, and then minimizing what we’ve just said, which drastically reduces its impact. Someone said to me recently, Rachel it’s really good idea. Just to ditch the final third. What’s that mean? Ditch the final third of what you were going to say. Say what you need to say in a kind and compassionate way, and then leave it. Let the other person deal with it and listen.

[00:17:19] Rachel: So often we assume that the conversation is going to be difficult because the other person is going to get defensive and it’s their problem and they’re difficult and it’s all going to go really badly wrong, whereas actually, we have a lot more control than we think we do if we stay at our side of the net, if we assume good intent from them, if we get a highest intent right, and we really listen so that they feel understood, you will find that at the end of these conversations, even though they might be an uncomfortable, they may have been difficult, but quite often the relationship is much, much, much better than it was even before you had it.

[00:17:54] Rachel: And as senior health care professionals, this is part of your work. This is part of your job. I would love it if I never had to have difficult conversations. Believe me, I shy away from conflict. And I don’t think I’m very good at it, which is why I’m getting quite obsessed with how to do it better. And in our memberships, like the Shapes Academy, we’re constantly being asked, how do I have these difficult conversations and how can I have them better? So the High Five model is something that we teach inside the Shapes Academy, and we give you lots and lots of different conversation canvases and models using our Shapes Toolkit that will help you. Have these conversations in a way that really isn’t over the net, that finds out what the other person is thinking.

[00:18:34] Rachel: It’s all about not making assumptions, not making those quick snap judgements, which put other people into the corner. ‘Cause when you’re both in the corner, when both your chimps out, that is when things go south.

[00:18:45] Rachel: So in the next week, if you’re going to have any conversation that you think has the potential to be slightly tricky, ask yourself am I assuming good intent from this other person? What is my highest intent from the conversation? What’s in it for them.? And how can I uncover what they’re really thinking what’s going on for them as soon as I possibly can?

[00:19:05] Rachel: So if you have any specific phrases or any ways that you remember. Let’s do that. Please email me at hello@youarenotafrog.com. I’d love to hear about ways that you navigate this. And if you have any questions or cases you’re stuck on, then email us and we’ll try and cover those in the next hot topics, podcasts within our frog, extra membership too. So go well, do not shy away from those difficult conversations, but make sure you get the approach right.