Delivering a difficult message is like throwing a hand grenade. Coated with sugar, thrown hard or soft, a hand grenade is still going to do damage. Try as you may, there’s no way to throw a hand grenade with tact or to outrun the consequences. And keeping it to yourself is no better. Choosing not to deliver a difficult message is like hanging on to a hand grenade once you’ve pulled the pin.
Breaking out of your comfort zone is rarely easy and is never risk-free. It requires you to look hard at yourself, and sometimes to change and grow. But better the ache of muscles growing from an unaccustomed workout than the sting of wounds from an unnecessary fight.
We know that even with the best intentions, human relationships can corrode or become tangled, and, if we are honest, we also know that we don’t always have the best of intentions. We know just how fragile are the heart and the soul.
So it is best to keep our goals realistic. Eliminating fear and anxiety is an unrealistic goal. Reducing fear and anxiety and learning how to manage that which remains are more obtainable. Achieving perfect results with no risk will not happen. Getting better results in the face of tolerable odds might.
And that, for most of us, is good enough. For if we are fragile, we are also remarkably resilient.
The identity conversation: This is the conversation we each have with ourselves about what this situation means to us. We conduct an internal debate over whether this means we are competent or incompetent, a good person or bad, worthy of love or unlovable. What impact might it have on our self-image and self-esteem, our future and our well-being? Our answers to these questions determine in large part whether we feel “balanced” during the conversation, or whether we feel off-center and anxious.
The “What Happened?” Conversation is where we spend much of our time in difficult conversations as we struggle with our different stories about who’s right, who meant what, and who’s to blame. One each of these three fronts — truth, intentions, and blame — we make a common but crippling assumption. Straightening out each of these assumptions is essential to improving our ability to handle difficult conversations well.
Well, no. The point is this: difficult conversations are almost never about getting the facts right. They are about conflicting perceptions, interpretations, and values. They are not about what a contract states, they are about what a contract means. They are not about which child-rearing books is most popular, they are about which child-rearing book we should follow.
They are not about what is true, they are about what is important.
But talking about fault is similar to talking about truth — it produces disagreement, denial, and little learning. It evokes fears of punishment and insists on an either / or answer. Nobody wants to be blamed, especially unfairly, so our energy goes into defending ourselves.
From the front seat looking back, it is easy to see how each child has contributed to the fight. It’s much more difficult to see how we’ve contributed to the problems in which we ourselves are involved.
In the presence of strong feelings, many of us work hard to stay rational. Getting too deep into feelings is messy, clouds good judgment, and in some contexts — for example, at work — can seem just plain inappropriate. Bringing up feelings can also be scary or uncomfortable, and can make us feel vulnerable. After all, what if the other person dismissed our feelings or responds without real understanding? Or takes our feelings to heart in a way that wounds them or irrevocably damages the relationship? And once we’ve gotten our feelings off our chest, it’s their turn. Are we up to hearing all about their anger and pain?
The problem with this reasoning is that it fails to take account of one simple fact: difficult conversations do not just involve feelings, they are at their very core about feelings. Feelings are not some noisy byproduct of engaging in difficult talk, they are an integral part of the conflict. Engaging in a difficult conversation without talking about feelings is like staging an opera without the music. You’ll get the plot but miss the point.
Understanding feelings, talking about feelings, managing feelings — these are among the greatest challenges of being human. There is nothing that will make dealing with feelings easy and risk-free.
The Identity Conversation looks inward: it’s all about who we are and how we see ourselves. How does what happened affect my self-esteem, my self-image, my sense of who I am in the world? What impact will it have on my future? What self-doubts do I harbor? In short: before, during, and after the difficult conversation, the Identity Conversation is about what I am saying to myself about me.
The prospect of telling the people involved makes you anxious, even if you aren’t responsible for the decision. In part, it’s because you fear how the conversation will make you feel about yourself: “I’m not the kind of person who lets people down and crushes enthusiasm. I’m the person people respect for finding a way to do it, not for shutting the door.” Your self-image as a person who helps others get things done butts up against the reality that you are going to be saying no. If you’re no longer the hero, will people see you as the villain?
Then we turn to the mechanics of how to talk productively about the issues that matter to you: finding the best ways to begin, inquiring and listening to learn, expressing yourself with power and clarity, and solving problems jointly, including how to get the conversation back on track when the going gets rough.
Disagreement is not a bad thing, nor does it necessarily lead to a difficult conversation. We disagree with people all the time, and often no one cares very much.
But other times, we care a lot. The disagreement seems at the heart of what is going wrong between us. They won’t agree with what we want them to agree with and they won’t do what we need them to do. Whether or not we end up getting our way, we are left feeling frustrated, hurt, or misunderstood. And often the disagreement continues into the future, wreaking havoc whenever it raises its head.
In a charitable mood, you may think, “Well, everyone has their opinion,” or, “There are two sides to every story.” But most of us don’t really buy that. Deep down, we believe that the problem is them.
- They’re selfish.
- They’re naive.
- They’re controlling.
- They’re irrational.
But instead, our persistence leads to arguments. And these arguments lead nowhere. Nothing gets settled. We each feel unheard or poorly treated. We’re frustrated not only because the other person is being so unreasonable, but also because we feel powerless to do anything about it.
Arguing blocks us from exploring each other’s stories.
Arguing is not only a result of our failure to see that we and the other person are in different stories — it is also part of the cause. Arguing inhibits our ability to learn how the other person sees the world. When we argue, we tend to trade conclusions — the “bottom line” of what we think: “Get a new mattress” vs “Stop trying to control me.” “I’m going to NY to make it big” vs “You’re naive.”
In difficult conversations, too often we trade only conclusions back and forth, without stepping down to where most of the real action is: the information and interpretations that lead each of us to see the real world as we do.
Some of us pay more attention to feelings and relationships. Others to status and power, or to facts and logic. Some of us are artists, others are scientists, other pragmatists. Some of us want to prove we’re right; others want to avoid conflict or smooth it over. Some of us tend to see ourselves as victims, others as heroes, observers, or survivors. The information we attend to varies accordingly.
And Daniel has listened repeatedly to executives who talk as if the only two racial categories that mattered were white and African American.
We each know ourselves better than anyone else can. In addition to choosing different information, we each have access to different information. For example, others have access to information about themselves that we don’t. They know the constraints they are under; we don’t. They know their hopes, dreams, and fears; we don’t. We act as if we’ve got access to all the important information there is to know about them, but we don’t. Their internal experience is far more complex than we imagine.
Intentions strongly influence our judgments of others: If someone intended to hurt us, we judge them more harshly than if they hurt us by mistake. We’re willing to be inconvenienced by someone if they have a good reason; we’re irritated to think they just don’t care about the impact of their actions on us. Though either blocks our way just as surely, we react differently to an ambulance double-parked on a narrow street than we do to a BMW.
Here’s the problem: While we care deeply about other people’s intentions toward us, we don’t actually know what their intentions are. We can’t. Other people’s intentions exists only in their hearts and minds. They are invisible to us. However real and right our assumptions about other people’s intentions may seem to us, they are often incomplete or just plain wrong.
Much of the first mistake can be traced to one basic error: we make an attribution about another person’s intentions based on the impact of their actions on us. We feel hurt; therefore they intended to hurt us. We feel slighted; therefore they intended to slight us. Our thinking is so automatic that we aren’t even aware that our conclusion is only an assumption. We are so taken in by our story about what they intended that we can’t imagine how they could have intended anything else.
We assume the worst. The conclusions we draw about intentions based on the impact of others’ actions on us are rarely charitable. When a friend shows up late to the movie, we don’t think, “Gee, I’ll bet he ran into someone in need.” More likely we think, “Jerk. He doesn’t care about making me miss the beginning of the movie.” When we’ve been hurt by someone else’s behavior, we assume the worst.
Learning what the doctor was really doing didn’t erase the inconvenience Margaret had endured. Yet knowing that he was not acting out of selfishness, but from an unrelated and generous motivation, left Margaret feeling substantially better about having to wait the extra week.
We attribute intentions to others all the time. With business and even personal relationships increasingly conducted via email, voice mail, faxes and conference calls, we often have to read between the lines to figure out what people really mean. When a customer writes “I don’t suppose you’ve gotten my order yet…,” is he being sarcastic? Is he angry? Or is he trying to tell you that he knows you’re busy? Without tone of voice to guide us, it is easy to assume the worst.
When your husband forgets to pick up the dry cleaning, he’s irresponsible. When you forget to book the airline tickets, it’s because you’re overworked and stressed out. When a coworker criticizes your work in front of department colleagues, she is trying to put you down. When you offer suggestions to others in the same meeting, you are trying to be helpful.
We assume bad intentions mean bad character. Perhaps the biggest danger of assuming the other person had bad intentions is that we easily jump from “they had bad intentions” to “they are a bad person.” We settle into judgment about their character that color our view of them and, indeed, affect not only any conversation we might have, but the entire relationship. Once we think we have someone figured out, we see all of their actions through that lens, and the stakes rise. Even if we don’t share our view with them, the impact remains. The worse our view of the other person’s character, the easier it is to justify avoiding them or saying nasty things behind their back.
When you find yourself thinking “That traffic cop is a control freak” or “My boss is manipulative” or “My neighbor is impossible,” ask yourself why this is your view. What is it based on? If it’s based on feeling powerless, fearing manipulation, or being frustrated, notice that your conclusion is based solely on the impact of their behavior on you — which is not a sufficient basis to be sure of someone else’s intentions or character.
The easiest and most common way of expressing these assumptions is with an accusatory question: “How come you wanted to hurt me?” “Why do you ignore me like this?” “What have I done that makes you feel it’s okay to step all over me?”
We think we are sharing our hurt, frustration, anger, or confusion. We are trying to begin a conversation that will end in greater understanding, perhaps some improved behavior, and maybe an apology. What they think we are doing is trying to provoke, accuse, or malign them. (In other words, they make the same mistaken leap in judging our intentions.) And given how frequently our assumptions are incomplete or wrong, the other person often feels not just accused, but falsely accused. Few things are more aggravating.
We should not be surprised, then, that they try to defend themselves, or attack back. From their point of view, they are defending themselves from false accusations. From our point of view, they are just being defensive — we’re right, they just aren’t big enough to admit it. The result is a mess. No one learns anything, no one apologizes, nothing changes.
Each would claim that their own statements were made in self-defense. Those are the two classic characteristics of the cycle: both parties think they are the victim, and both think they are acting only to defend themselves. This is how well-intentioned people get themselves into trouble.
Attributions can become self-fulfilling. Our assumptions about the other person’s intentions often come true, even when they aren’t true to begin with. You think your boss isn’t giving you enough responsibility. You assume that this is because she doesn’t trust you to do the work well. You feel demotivated by this state of affairs, figuring that nothing you do will change your boss’s mind. Your work suffers, and your boss, who hadn’t been concerned about your work before, is now quite worried. So she gives you even less responsibility than before.
Leo assumes that because he had good intentions, Lori should not feel hurt. The thinking goes like this: “You said I meant to hurt you. I have now clarified that I didn’t. So you should now feel fine, and if you don’t, that’s your problem.”
The problem with focusing on clarifying our intentions is that we end up missing significant pieces of what the other person is trying to say. When they say, “Why were you trying to hurt me?” they are really communicating two separate messages: first, “I know what you intended,” and, second, “I got hurt.” When we are the person accused, we focus only on the first message and ignore the second. Why? Because we feel the need to defend ourselves. Because Leo is so busy defending himself, he fails to hear that Lori is hurt. He doesn’t take in what this all means to her, how hurt she is, or why these issues are so painful.
A literal focus on intentions ends up clouding the conversation. Often we say “You intended to hurt me” when what we really mean is “You don’t care enough about me.”
Either way, it hurts. If the father responds to his son’s complaint by saying “I didn’t intend to hurt you,” he’s not addressing his son’s real concern: “You may not have intended to hurt me, but you knew you were hurting me, and you did it anyway.”
It is useful to attempt to clarify your intentions. The question is when. If you do it at the beginning of the conversation, you are likely doing it without fully understanding what the other person really means to express.
As is so often the case, Leo’s intentions are probably mixed. He may not even be fully aware of what is actually motivating him. But the answer to the question of what is truly motivating Leo is less important than his willingness to ask the question and look for an answer. If his first response to Lori is “No, I had good intentions,” then he is putting up a barrier to any learning he might get from the conversation. And he is sending a message to Lori that says, “I’m more interested in defending myself than I am in investigating the complexities of what might be going on for me in our relationship.”
Interestingly, when people take on the job of thinking hard about heir own intentions, it sends a profoundly positive message to the other person about the importance of the relationship. After all, you’d only do that kind of hard work for somebody who matters to you.
In fact, your reaction might even say as much about you as it does about what you they did. Perhaps you’ve had a bead experience that gives their action special meaning to you. Many people find certain kinds of teasing hostile, for example, because of bad experiences with siblings, while others think of teasing (in moderation) as a way to connect and show affection.
The more you can relieve the other person of the need to defend themselves, the easier it becomes for them to take in what you are saying and to reflect on the complexity of their motivations. For example, you might say, “I was surprised that you made that comment. It seemed uncharacteristic of you…” Assuming this is true (that it is uncharacteristic), you are giving some balance to the information you are bringing to their attention. If there was some malice mixed in with that they said, this balance makes it easier for them to own up to it.
Focusing on blame is a bad idea because it inhibits our ability to learn what’s really causing the problem and to do anything meaningful to correct it. And because blame is often irrelevant and unfair. The urge to blame is based, quite literally, on a misunderstanding of what has given rise to the issues between you and the other person, and on the fear of being blamed. Too often, blaming also serves as a bad proxy for talking directly about hurt feelings.
First, did this person cause the problem? Did your assistant’s actions (or inaction) cause you to have the wrong storyboards? Second, if so, how should her actions be judged against some standard of conduct? Was she incompetent, unreasonable, unethical? And third, if the judgment is negative, how should she be punished? Will she be yelled at? Warned? Perhaps even fired?
When we say “This was your fault,” it is shorthand for giving condemning answers to all 3 questions. We mean not only that you caused this, but that you did something bad and should be punished. It’s no wonder that blame is such a loaded issue, and that we are quick to defend ourselves when we sense its approach.
When blame is in play, you can expect defensiveness, strong emotion, interruptions, and arguments about what “good assistants,” “loving spouses,” or “any reasonable person” should or shouldn’t do.
Contribution asks a related but different set of questions. The first question is “How did we each contribute to bringing about the current situation?” Or put another way: “What did we each do or not do to get ourselves into this mess?” The second question is “Having identified the contribution system, how can we change it? What can we do about it as we go forward?”
When the dog disappears, who’s to blame? The person who opened the gate or the one who failed to grab her collar? Should we argue about that or look for the dog?
But while the company had changed one “part” in the contribution system, it had failed to look at the system as a whole. Why did those who predicted failure keep silent? Were there implicit incentives that encouraged this? What structures, policies, and processes continue to allow poor decisions, and what would it take to change them?
Removing one player in a system is sometimes warranted. But the cost of doing so as a substitute for the hard work of examining the larger contribution system is often surprisingly high.
If you find yourself mired in a continuing urge to blame, or with an unceasing desire for the other person to admit that they were wrong, you may find some relief by asking yourself: “What feelings am I failing to express?” and “Has the other person acknowledged my feelings?” As you explore this terrain, you may find yourself naturally shifting from a blame frame to a contribution frame. You may learn that what you really seek is understanding and acknowledgement. What you want the other person to say isn’t “It was my fault,” but rather “I understand that I hurt you and I’m sorry.” The first statement is about judgment, the second about understanding.
You know, the white man has a more difficult task than the black man in this country. Whenever there is a problem, we [white men] have to find a solution. But whenever you blacks have have a problem, you have an excuse. You can simply say, “It is the whites.”
He was saying that we could always blame all of our troubles on the white man. His message was that we must also look within ourselves and become responsible for our actions — sentiments with which I wholeheartedly agreed.
A particularly problematic form of avoiding is complaining to a third party instead of to the person with whom you’re upset. It makes you feel better, but puts the third party in the middle with no good way to help. They can’t speak for you, and if they try, the other person may get the idea that the problem is so terrible that you can’t discuss it directly. On the other hand, if they keep quiet, the third party is burdened with only your partisan and incomplete version of the story.
“Eng-An is incapable of dealing with feelings, hers or mine. She goes into denial when the tiniest thing is wrong.” Toby becomes increasingly frustrated with their inability to make tough decisions, or simply to have it out.
Meanwhile, Eng-An is confiding in her sister: “Toby is smothering me. Everything is an emergency, everything has to be discussed right now.”
Feelings, of course, are part of what makes good relationships so rich and satisfying. Feelings like passion and pride, silliness and warmth, and even jealousy, disappointment, and anger let us know that we are fully alive.
At the same time, managing feelings can be enormously challenging. Our failure to acknowledge and discuss feelings derails a startling number of difficult conversations. And the inability to deal openly and well with feelings can undermine the quality and health of our relationships.
Framing feelings out of the problem is one way we cope with the dilemma of whether to raise something or avoid it. The potential costs involved in sharing feelings make raising them feel like too big a gamble. When we lay our feelings on the table, we run the risk of hurting others and of ruining relationships. We also put ourselves in a position to get hurt. What if the other person doesn’t take our feelings seriously or respond by telling us something we don’t want to hear? By sticking to the “business at hand,” we appear to reduce these risks.
The problem is that when feelings are at the heart of what’s going on, they are the business at hand and ignoring them is nearly impossible. Emotions have an uncanny knack for finding their way back into the conversation, usually in not very helpful ways.
Unspoken feelings can color the conversation in a number of ways. They alter your affect and tone of voice. They express themselves through your body language or facial expression. They may take the form of long pauses or an odd and unexplained detachment. You may become sarcastic, aggressive, impatient, unpredictable, or defensive. Studies show that while few people are good at detecting factual lies, most of us can determine when someone is distorting, manufacturing, or withholding an emotion. That’s because, if clogged, your emotional pipe will leak.
For some of us, the problem is not that we are unable to express our feelings, but that we are unable not to. We get angry and show it in ways that are embarrassing or destructive. We cry or explode when we would rather act composed and capable. We don’t cry or lose our temper because we express our feelings too often, but because we express them too rarely.
Unexpressed feelings can cause a third, more subtle problem. The two hardest (and most important) communication tasks are expressing feelings and listening. When people are having a hard time listening, often it is not because they don’t know how to listen well. It is, paradoxically, because they don’t know how to express themselves well. Unexpressed feelings can block the ability to listen.
Why? Because good listening requires an open and honest curiosity about the other person, and a willingness and ability to keep the spotlight on them. Buried emotions draw the spotlight back to us. It’s hard to hear someone else when we are feeling unheard, even if the reason we feel unheard is that we have chosen not to share. Our listening ability often increases remarkably once we have expressed our own strong feelings.
When important feelings remain unexpressed, you may experience a loss of self-esteem, wondering why you don’t stick up for yourself.
Most of us assume that knowing how we feel is no more complicated than knowing whether we are hot or cold. We just know. But in fact, we often don’t know how we feel. Many of us know our own emotions about as well as we know a city we are visiting for the first time. We may recognize certain landmarks, but fail to understand the subtle rhythms of daily life; we can find main boulevards, but remain oblivious to the tangle of back streets where the real action is. Before we can get to where we’re going, we need to know where we are. When it comes to understanding our own emotions, where most of us are is lost.
This isn’t because we’re dumb, but because recognizing feelings is challenging. Feelings are more complex and nuanced than we usually imagine. What’s more, feelings are very good at disguising themselves. Feelings we are uncomfortable with disguise themselves as emotions we are better able to handle; bundles of contradictory feelings masquerade as a single emotion; and most important, feelings transform themselves into judgments, accusations, and attributions.
Each of us has a unique footprint. You may believe that it’s okay to feel longing or sadness, but not okay to feel anger. Anger may be easy for me to express, while feelings of shame or failure are off-limits. And it is not only so-called negative feelings that are implicated. Some of su find it easy to express disappointment, but difficult to express affection, pride, or gratitude.
You won’t always be happy with what you’re feeling. For example, you assume you should feel sad at your brother’s funeral but find it instead that you feel only rage. You know you should be excited about finally getting your dream job, but instead you’re unmotivated and weepy. Whether or not it makes sense, you are. And while it might be more pleasant to have only good feelings toward you mother, there will be times when you feel irritated or resentful or ashamed. We all experience such conflict, and it has nothing to do with whether or not you we are a good person.
There are times when denying feelings serves a deeper psychological function: in the face of overwhelming anxiety, fear, loss, or trauma, removing yourself from your feelings can help you cope with daily life. As the saying goes, “Don’t knock down a wall until you know why it was put up.” At the same time, the reality is that unacknowledged feelings are going to have an effect on communication. All things being equal, it is better to strive toward an understanding of your feelings, perhaps over time with a therapist or a trusted friend. As you begin to feel things that were there all along and begin to deal with the underlying causes of these feelings, your interactions with others — including difficult conversations — will become increasingly easy to handle.
“Well, it’s just easier not to rock the boat,” you think. “I don’t like it when they’re mad at me.” If you’re thinking this, then you are undervaluing your own feelings and interests. Friends, neighbors, and bosses will recognize this and begin to see you as someone they can manipulate. When you are more concerned about others’ feelings than your own, you teach others to ignore your feelings too. And beware: one of the reasons you haven’t raised the issue is that you don’t want to jeopardize the relationship. Yet by not raising it, the resentment you feel will grow and slowly erode the relationship anyway.
He was stunned. About the job search, he was feeling hopeless, confused, and afraid. Putting off the search was Brad’s way of putting off some of the anxiety.
Love: affectionate, caring, close, proud, passionate.
Anger: frustrated, exasperated, enraged, indignant.
Hurt: let down, betrayed, disappointed, needy.
Shame: embarrassed, guilty, regretful, humiliated, self-loathing.
Fear: anxious, terrified, worried, obsessed, suspicious.
Self-doubt: inadequate, unworthy, inept, unmotivated.
Joy: happy, enthusiastic, full, elated, content.
Sadness: bereft, wistful, joyless, depressed.
Jealousy: envious, selfish, covetous, anguished, yearning.
Gratitude: appreciative, thankful, relieved, admiring.
Loneliness: desolate, abandoned, empty, longing.
We translate our feelings into:
Judgment: If you are a good friend you would have been there for me.
Attributions: Why were you trying to hurt me?
Characterizations: You’re just so inconsiderate.
Problem-Solving: The answer is for you to call me more often.
What is unsatisfying, though, is not the failure to express blame, but the failure to express feelings. The urge to blame arises when the contribution system is exploded in a feeling vacuum. When we can’t seem to get past needing to say, “Admit it! This was your fault!” we should recognize that as an important clue that we are sitting on unexpressed emotions. The sense of incompleteness that sometimes accompanies a conversation about contribution should not be a stimulus to blame, but a stimulus to search further for hidden feelings. Once those feelings are expressed, the urge to blame recedes.
Too often we confuse being emotional with expressing emotions clearly. They are different. You can express emotion well without being emotional, and you can be extremely emotional without expressing much of anything at all. Sharing feelings well and clearly requires thoughtfulness.
It is crucial to look at the actual words you are using to see whether those words really convey what you want them to. For example, the statement “You are so damn undependable!” is a judgment about the other person’s character. There is no reference in the statement to how the speaker feels. We should not be surprised if the response is “I am not undependable!”
In contrast, the statement “I feel frustrated. You didn’t send the letter out,” removes the blame and focuses on the feelings underneath. Such a formulation won’t make all of your problems disappear, but it is more likely to lead to a productive discussion.
If you have strong feelings, it’s quite likely that the other person does too. And just as your own ambivalent feelings don’t cancel each other out, their feelings don’t cancel yours, or vice versa. What’s important is to get both parties’ strong and perhaps conflicting emotions into the conversational cart before you head for the checkout.
What does it mean to acknowledge someone’s feelings? It means letting the other person know that what they have said has made an impression on you, that their feelings matter to you, and that you are working to understand them. “Wow,” you might say, “I never knew you felt that way,” or, “I kind of assumed you were feeling that, and I’m glad you felt comfortable enough with me to share it,” or, “It sounds like this is really important to you.”
It’s tempting to jump over feelings. We want to get on with things, to address the problem, to make everything better. We often seek to get feelings out of the way by “fixing” them.
Before moving on to problem-solving, you have a responsibility to yourself and to the other person to ensure that they appreciate the importance of this topic to you; that they truly understand your feelings; and that they value your having shared them. If they aren’t getting how important something is to you and you don’t flag it, then you are letting yourself down.
Telling my boss I’m leaving raises this loyalty issue directly. My boss was also my mentor, and has been very supportive. The whole thing is making me wonder: Am I really the loyal soldier I like to think I am, or just another greedy jerk willing to betray someone for the right price?
Our anxiety results not just from having to face the other person, but from having to face ourselves. The conversation has the potential to disrupt our sense of who we are in the world, or to highlight what we hope we are but fear we are not. The conversation poses a threat to our identity — the story we tell ourselves about ourselves — and having our identity threatened can be profoundly disturbing.
There are probably as many identities as there are people. But 3 identity issues seem particularly common: Am I competent? Am I a good person? Am I worthy of love?
Images of yourself or of the future are hardwired to your adrenal response, and shaking them up can cause an unmanageable rush of anxiety or anger, or an intense desire to get away. Well-being is replaced with depression, hope with hopelessness, efficacy with fear. And all the while you’re trying to engage in the extremely delicate task of communicating clearly and effectively. Your supervisor is explaining why you’re not being promoted; you’re busy having your own private identity quake.
You can’t “quake-proof” your sense of self. Grappling with identity issues is what life and growth are all about, and no amount of love or accomplishment or skill can insulate you from these challenges. Seeing your husband cry when you tell him you don’t want to have another child, or hearing your coach say “Grow up” when you raise the issue of discriminatory treatment on the team, will test your sense of who you are in these relationships and in the world.
Not all identity challenges are earthshaking, but some will be. A difficult conversation can cause you to relinquish a cherished mourning just as surely as the death of a loved one. There’s no use pretending there’s a quick fix, or that you will never again lose your balance, or that life’s toughest challenges can be overcome by mastering a few easy steps.
But there is some good news. You can improve your ability to recognize and cope with identity issues when they hit. Thinking clearly and honestly about who you are can help reduce your anxiety level during the conversation and significantly strengthen your foundation in its aftermath.
The biggest factor that contributes to a vulnerable identity is “all-or-nothing” thinking: I’m either competent or incompetent, good or evil, worthy of love or not.
The primary peril of all-or-nothing thinking is that it leaves our identity extremely unstable, making us hypersensitive to feedback. When faced with negative information about ourselves, all-or-nothing thinking gives us only two choices for how to manage that information, both of which cause serious problems. Either we try to deny the information that is consistent with our self-image, or we do the opposite: we take in the information in a way that exaggerates its importance to a crippling degree.
Denial requires a huge amount of psychic energy, and sooner or later the story we’re telling ourselves is going to become untenable. And the bigger the gap between what we hope is true and what we fear is true, the easier its is for us to lose our balance.
The alternative to denial is exaggeration. In all-or-nothing thinking, taking in negative feedback requires us not just to adjust our self-image, but to flip it. If I’m not completely competent, then I’m completely incompetent. “Maybe I’m not as creative and special as I thought I was. I’ll probably never amount to anything. Maybe I’ll even get fired.”
Often during a difficult conversation we are not even aware that our identity is implicated. We know we feel anxious, fearful, or tentative, and that our ability to communicate skillfully has deserted us. Usually articulate, we stumble and stammer; usually emphatic, we can’t stop interrupting and arguing; usually calm, we boil over with anger. But we aren’t sure why. The connection to our identity is not obvious. It’s easy to think, “I’m talking with my brother about how he treats his wife. Why does this have to do with my identity?”
For even the best and worst among us, all-or-nothing identities oversimplify the world. “I’m always there for my children.” “When it comes to dating, I just have bad judgment.” “I’m always a good listener.” No one is always anything. We each exhibit a constellation of qualities, positive and negative, and constantly grapple with how to respond to the complicated situations life presents. And we don’t always respond as completely or compassionately as we’d like.
Ben’s fear of telling his boss that he has accepted another job is a good example of this. Is Ben loyal or is he a sellout? Both of those are simplifying labels that can’t capture the complexity of the endless interactions Ben has had with the many people in his life. He has made many sacrifices for his family and many for his boss. He has worked weekends, turned down other job offers, worked hard to help the company recruit top talent. The list of things Ben has done that indicate loyalty is long indeed.
And, Ben is leaving his job for higher paying work elsewhere. It’s reasonable for his boss to feel abandoned. That doesn’t mean Ben is a bad person. It doesn’t mean Ben has made a choice based on greed. He wants to put his children through college; he has been under-compensated for years and not complained.
What, then, is the bottom line on Ben? The bottom line is that there is no bottom line. Ben can feel good about many of his actions and choices, and ambivalent or regretful about others. Life is too complex for any reasonable person to feel otherwise. Indeed, a self-image that allows for complexity is healthy and robust; it provides a sturdy foundation on which to stand.
One reason people are reluctant to admit mistakes is that they fear being seen as weak or incompetent. Yet often, generally competent people who take the possibility of mistakes in stride are seen as confident, secure, and “big enough” not to have to be perfect, whereas those who resist acknowledging even the possibility of a mistake are seen as insecure and lacking confidence. No one is fooled.
When delivering bad news — in deed, in any difficult conversation — rather than trying to control the other person’s reaction, adopt the And Stance. You can come in with the purpose of letting your children know about the divorce, letting them know how much you love and care about them, letting them know that you honestly believe things will be okay, and giving them space to feel however they are feeling and letting them know their feelings make sense and are okay to feel. This gives you control over everything you can actually control (yourself), and gives them space to be honest in response.
Learning that you can’t control the other person’s reaction, and that it can be destructive to try, can be incredibly liberating. It not only gives the other person the space to react however they need to, but also takes a huge amount of pressure off you. You will learn things about yourself based on their reaction, but if you are prepared to learn, you’ll feel free from the desperate need for their reaction to go one certain way.
Instead of trying to control the other person’s reaction, prepare for it. Take time in advance to imagine the conversation. Instead of focusing on how badly it will go — which may be your tendency when you are fretting late at night over whether to raise it — focus on what you can learn about how the other person might respond. Are they likely to cry? Sulk and withdraw? Pretend everything is fine? Attack or reject you?
And then consider whether any of these responses implicate identity issues for you. If so, imagine they respond in the most difficult manner possible, and ask yourself, “What do I think this says about me?” Work through the identity issues in advance: “Is it okay for me to make someone cry? How will I respond? What if they attack my character or motivations? Then how would I respond?” The more prepared you are for how the other person might react, the less surprised you’ll be. If you’ve already considered the identity implications of how they might react, you are far less likely to be knocked off balance in the moment.
For many of us, that’s not easy. Our Identity Conversation tells us loud and clear that asking for help is not okay — that it is shameful or weak and creates burdens on others. These thoughts are powerful, but ask yourself this: If someone you loved — an uncle or daughter, a favorite colleague — were in the situation you find yourself in, would you think it was okay for them to ask for help? Why should you be held to a different standard?
But we know things don’t work that way. Changes in attitudes and behavior rarely come about because of arguments, facts, and attempts to persuade. How often do you change your values and beliefs — or whom you love or what you want in life — based on something someone tells you? And how likely are you do to so when the person is trying to change you doesn’t seem fully aware of the reasons you see things differently in the first place?
We can have an influence, but here we need to be especially careful. The paradox is that trying to change someone rarely results in change. On the other hand, engaging someone in a conversation where mutual learning is the goal often results in change. Why? Because when we set out to try to change someone, we are more likely to argue with and attack their story and less likely to listen. This approach increases the likelihood that they will feel defensive rather than open to learning something new. They are more likely to change if they think we understand them and if they feel heard and respected. They are more likely to change if they feel free not to.
I wanted her to feel as small as I had. And I wanted to let her know that she couldn’t treat me this way.
Oh, I let her have it. And I walked out of the meeting feeling great… for about 15 minutes. Then I started to regret some of the things I’d said, and realized that I’d just made the situation worse by feeding the antagonism between us. The fact was, she could treat me this way, and I’d just made it more likely that she would.
However, there’s another error around timing that we do make. It’s the hit-and-run. An employee wanders into work late, something you’ve been meaning to talk to them about, so you say, “Late again, eh?” and leave it at that. Or you visit your son for the weekend, notice the empty beer bottles in the garbage, and say, “I see you’re still drinking up a storm.”
These comments are intended to help. You hope your employee or your son will take the message to heart. But while your comments may help you feel a bit better, they make the other person defensive and frustrated, which is unlikely to produce the kind of change you had in mind.
A good rule to follow is: If you’re going to talk, talk. Really talk. And if you’re really going to talk, you can’t do it on the fly.
Difficult conversations operate at the core of our being — where the people and the principles we care about most intersect with our self-image and self-esteem. Letting go, at heart, is about how to handle with skill and grace not having a difficult conversation.
The most stressful moment of a difficult conversation is often the beginning. We may learn in the first few seconds that the news for us is not good, that the other person sees things very differently, that we aren’t likely to get what we want. They may become angry or distraught or we may discover that they don’t want to talk to us at all.
It’s usually best to put the bad news up front. Don’t try to trick the other person into saying it first, by asking, for example, “So, what do you think of the relationship?” when what you mean is “I want to break up.” And don’t talk for 2 hours about some of the “issues” you’ve been having with the relationship, if you know that in the end what you want to do is break up.
The problem is this: you are taught what to say and how to sit, but the heart of good listening is authenticity. People “read” not only your words and posture, but what’s going on inside of you. If your “stance” isn’t genuine, the words don’t matter.
Listening is only powerful and effective if it is authentic. Authenticity means that you are listening because you are curious and because you care, not just because you are supposed to. The issue, then, is this: Are you curious? Do you care?
Turning what we have to say into an attack — a sarcastic question — can feel safer. But this safety is an illusion, and we lose more than we gain. Saying “I’d like you to pay more attention to me” is more likely to produce a conversation (and a satisfying outcome) than “Is it impossible for you to focus on me just once?”