How to Have a Difficult Discussion
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“The Law of Positive Intent simply says everyone is doing the best they can with the resources they have.”
– Mike Goldman
Step 1 - Identify Your Goals For The Difficult Discussion
Think about and document your goals for the conversation
Avoid solely confronting the other person
Consider goals such as improving the relationship, solving a problem, or gaining their perspective
Having a clear goal is important for approaching and succeeding in the conversation
Step 2 - Invite Them Into A Conversation
Extend a direct invitation to the other person
Use a simple and straightforward approach
Establishes a commitment to the conversation and indicates the seriousness of the matter
Step 3 - State The Facts ( not opinions )
Avoid expressing personal opinions
Share only the objective facts related to the situation
Distinguish between opinions and facts
There is still a possibility of the other person becoming defensive, but focusing on facts minimizes that likelihood.
Step 4 - State Your Feelings
After stating the facts, you can express your feelings
Share how the other person's actions made you feel
The other person may become defensive, but it is difficult for them to deny or invalidate your feelings
Step 5 - Discuss A Resolution
After expressing feelings, you can propose a resolution or initiate a discussion on how to resolve the issue
The other person may explain their reasons for their actions, providing important insights
The resolution may involve finding a compromise or establishing mutually agreed-upon actions
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In this episode, I want to talk about difficult conversations. As leaders, we need to master the art of having the difficult conversation because if we don't master that art, two things happen. One kind of obvious, maybe one not so obvious. One is if we don't master the art of having a difficult conversation, we jump in
to a conversation where maybe we've gotta give difficult feedback to someone. Maybe, someone has hurt our feelings and we want to tell them how we feel. Maybe someone is hurting the team and you need to let them know the impact of that. If you don't know how to have the difficult discussion, you jump in with your opinion with accusations, and very often you can make things worse.
Now that's not the only problem. The other problem, which probably happens more often is when we haven't mastered the art of confronting and having the difficult conversation. We let it sit. We fear having that conversation so we don't have it. And we wait, and we wait and we wait. And finally, six, nine months later when we can't take it anymore, we have this conversation and we say something like, you know, for the last nine months, this has really been bothering me and we need to talk about it.
Well, if you've waited that long, the problem gets bigger. Not only does the problem continue to get bigger over time, but if you think about hearing that from someone else, hey, for the last nine months this has been a problem. I'm thinking, oh my God. Nine months. Why didn't you come to me eight and three quarter months ago to tell me about it?
So if we want to be powerful leaders, strong leaders, impactful leaders, we've gotta master the art of having the difficult conversation. And I wanna take you through a few steps on that. Have that conversation one-on-one, but also what to do in a group debate. And how to say the difficult things there and how to make sure you are moving a debate forward versus bringing it to a screeching halt.
But before I talk about those processes, there's an umbrella attitude and umbrella mindset that's really important. And I talked about this in another podcast. In another episode, called Mastering Your Focus. I talk about this in my TEDx. If you do a search for Mike Goldman TEDx, you know, it'll come up.
I'm even gonna see if I can put a TEDx as an episode on my podcast, but I'm not sure that's legal in Ted World or not. So I'll check that out. But anyway, this umbrella mindset or attitude that I want to talk about is,I call the law of positive intent. The law of positive intent simply says everyone is doing the best they can with the resources they have.
Everyone's doing the best they can with the resources they have. Now, that does not mean everybody's doing the right thing. It says everybody's trying to do the best they can with the resources they have. They may not have the resources you have. They may not have the knowledge you have, or maybe they know something you don't know.
But very often what we do when we are in a debate or in conflict with someone else is we assume negative intent. We assume somehow this person did something wrong on purpose. And I don't know about you, but I've actually never known anyone who woke up in the morning and said, what can I screw up today?
Okay, maybe you have, but it's still not a very powerful way to approach another person to approach a difficult situation is to believe they have negative intent, that they're doing something wrong on purpose when we believe that. We tend to get angry. We lash out. We can't solve problems. We hurt relationships.
We don't help relationships. But if we start with this idea of positive intent, they're trying to do the best they can with the resources they have. Instead of getting angry, it makes us curious. I wonder why they believe that. I wonder why they're behaving in that way. So again, if you wanna know more about that, listen to the Mastering Your Focus episode.
Check out my TEDx, which may or may not be an episode somewhere in the podcast. But it's out there on YouTube and on my website, so it's gotta start with positive intent. Now let's talk about a simple, straightforward process to have a one-on-one difficult discussion with someone, and I am modifying slightly, but stealing this
process from a gentleman named Kevin Lawrence, whodepending on when this comes out, either has been or will be a guest on the show. He wrote a great book called, Your Oxygen Mask First, and he talks about how to have difficult discussions. So I've modified his process a little bit, but I'm gonna save you.
There are probably a dozen books written on challenging conversations, difficult conversations, awkward conversations. There are books written on how to have difficult conversations. Feel free to read them, but I'm gonna share with you in a few minutes a process that I think is gonna save you a lot of time in reading a two or three, 300 page books.
Just listen to this process. It's a five step process. Step number one, when you are thinking of approaching someone and having a difficult conversation, step number one is for you to think about and identify and even document what are your goals for the conversation. Your goal is not just to confront the other person.
I hope your goal is not to make the other person feel bad. You have goals in the conversation. Maybe your goal is you want to at least begin to improve your relationship with the other person. Maybe your goal is to specifically solve a problem in that conversation. Maybe your goal is just to take the first step in solving the problem, but you know that there's gonna be more.
Maybe your goal is just to get their perspective so you understand it, but you need to have a goal because without a goal, it's hard to know how to approach the conversation. It's hard to know whether you will be successful in the conversation. And I would say without thinking of your goals first, the chances of you being successful really, really shrink down to a low level.
So start off, what are your goals in having the conversation? Now we're ready to have the conversation. First thing we need to do after setting our goals is we need to invite. The other person to a conversation. Now that sounds kind of silly, why can't I just go talk to them?
It is difficult for us to approach these conversations. How do we start? When do we start? So as a real simple second step in the process is just invite the person to the conversation, which might be saying, hey John, I've got something that I really need to talk to you about. Do you have some time now or hey Susan, I've got something kind of challenging I need to talk to you about.
Are you free at two o'clock? You know something. What that does is it kind of knocks down though. It's an easy way to get things started. So now you're in. There's no way out. You're now into the conversation. It also lets the other person know that you're not just gonna talk to them about the weather or the baseball game or status on some project.
You've got something that's on your mind, that may be a little difficult for you to talk about. That sets them up for a serious conversation, and that's important. So step number one is identify your goals. Step number two is invite them into the conversation and now you're in the conversation.
Step number three. Very often when we enter into a conversation, we right away want to tell people how we feel. And that's not actually the next step after goals and inviting someone into the conversation that next step, step three is share with the person the facts and only the facts. Saying I feel like you disrespect me in meetings is not a fact.
That's your opinion. That's a feeling that you have. A fact might be a, in this morning's status meeting. Ooh, I said status meeting. I hate status meetings In this morning's weekly accountability meeting. You interrupted me three different times, and I noticed that you also did that in our meeting last Wednesday.
Those are the facts. Most often people can't argue the facts. If they interrupted you by stating the facts first in the conversation, you're moving the conversation along without the other person. In all likelihood, without the other person getting very defensive, is there a chance they may get defensive?
Sure. But by just stating the facts, you're moving the conversation along. Adding value to the conversation. Chances are lower, they get defensive. That's step number three. So goals, invite, facts. Step number four is now you can state your feelings or your opinion. So when you interrupted me in the meeting this morning, when you continue to interrupt me, it makes me feel like you don't respect my opinion.
It makes me frustrated that I can't get my ideas out. Now again, the other person might get defensive here, but it's kinda hard for them to say, no, you're, you know, you are wrong. You don't feel disrespected, or you don't feel frustrated. That's how you feel. They may say, oh my God, I didn't mean for you to feel that way.
That's valid and that's moving the conversation forward. They may say, yeah, but let me tell you why I interrupt you. And even there, you're getting important information. So step one, goals, step two, invite them into the conversation. Step three, what are the facts and only the facts, trying to keep it short.
Step four, how that makes you feel. And then step five is discuss a resolution. And that resolution may be something you already have in your hip pocket. Hey, the way I'd like to resolve it is X. Or in all likelihood, you may say hey, let's talk about how we may resolve that. The other person might say hey, Mike, the reason why I interrupt you and I have interrupted you.
I know I do that man, I'm sorry, but it takes you too long to get your ideas out and I just wanna get to the point. And it's frustrating when you don't get to the point quickly. That's why I interrupt you. That's important for you to know because the resolution may be, hey, I will agree to get to the point more quickly if you'll agree to give me a little bit more space.
And not interrupt me. And maybe we could even make a sign or a signal when you think I'm going on too long, you know, you could signal me with, you know, with your hands. Do something. That's a great resolution that you're both working on now, is this five step process guaranteed to resolve any issue you have with another person?
Of course not, but what it's designed to do, what these five steps are designed to do is, number one, if you have those steps, I hope it makes you feel more comfortable confronting the other person, so you're not waiting a week, two weeks, two months, six months to have that conversation. The other thing it does is it increases the chances that that conversation
will end successfully, that you will move closer to whatever your goals are. So that's one process I wanna share with you. I wanna share with you another perspective too that relates to debates as a group, as a team. Typically it's more than just one-on-one, although it could be one-on-one as well.
And this idea I'm taking from a wonderful book called Conversational Capacity by Craig Weber. Great book to read. I would suggest you read this one, but I'm gonna share with you kind of the basics and I think the basics will help when in conversational capacity, when Craig talks about debates as a group.
He uses this kind of continuum with a sweet spot in the middle and all the way. Picture it on the left of the continue, he calls minimize and on the right of this continuum is winning. Now let me explain both of those. So on one end of the spectrum is minimizing. Minimizing is when as a me, as a group, as a member of a team, as a participant in a meeting, you minimize your opinions, your feelings about something, because you don't wanna enter the fire because you don't wanna ruffle any feathers because you don't feel safe in saying what you wanna say.
So minimizing might sound like, hey, this may not be really important, but I thought I just mentioned this. You know, you're minimizing it, which makes it easy for people to just kind of blow it off and say it's not important, cause you've kind of told them it's not important and you do that because you're fearful of entering the danger zone.
What minimizing more typically looks like is you minimize in your head, you have an opinion on something, but you say, I'm just not gonna say anything. It's probably not important. I don't wanna stir the pot. I don't want to throw a wrench in. I'm gonna keep silent. And if you're going to be a valuable member of your team, you cannot keep silent.
The team needs to hear your opinion. So on one extreme is minimizing, and that's not very helpful. On the other extreme is winning. Winning is when someone enters into a debate. With the goal of winning the debate. Now that doesn't sound so bad. Why wouldn't you have a goal of winning your argument? The problem is when your goal is winning, you're not listening very well to the other side.
You're not doing a good job of gathering more information. You're just trying to beat somebody down until they say uncle you got it. You win. You've got the better idea. Okay. Now, if you are the leader of that team, even worse, if your goal is to win the conversation, you are shutting other people down. If I'm the CEO and I say this is the way to go, I can't believe there's another way to do it.
Here are all the reasons why what you're causing the rest of your team to do is to go to the other extreme and minimize. I'm not gonna say anything cause I don't want to get into an argument with the CEO. So whether you are minimizing or winning, whether that's what you're doing, those behaviors are not very helpful to help the team make the best decision.
To move that discussion, whatever it is, forward. The sweet spot, according to Craig Weber, in conversational capacity. That sweet spot right in the middle, you're not minimizing, you're not winning. That's not your goal. Your goal in the conversation, if you're in the sweet spot, is to gather the information you need to make the best decision possible in that moment.
It's not to win, it's not to minimize, it's to gather information. So if your goal is to gather information to make the best decision, you certainly wanna make your opinions heard, but it also makes you curious as to what the other opinions are in the room. Instead of asking closed-ended questions like, you know, someone else is on the witness stand and you're doing it to shut them down, you're asking curious, open-ended questions with an attitude of
positive intent with an attitude of curiosity. Find out what they know so that you could make the best decision moving forward. So great book, go read it. But it's a fairly simple, straightforward, but very powerful model. You don't want to minimize, you don't wanna win. You want your goal to be to gather the information you need, and the team needs to move that decision forward to make the best decision you can in the moment.
So when you are in a debate, be thinking, where's my head at? You know, and do I have a goal of minimizing? Do I have a goal of winning or do I have a goal of gathering information to make the right decision? Anyway, that is hopefully helpful when it comes to having these difficult conversations or these challenging debates.
Remember though, none of this works. These are all kind of interesting techniques, which don't work very well if it doesn't start with you having an attitude about the other person of positive intent. Because if you believe negative intent, you're not gonna be very authentic when you do these things. And you're just gonna wanna be frustrated and that frustration is gonna come across loud and clear to the other person.
If you have this attitude of positive intent, of which causes two curiosity, man, even without the best techniques, you're gonna be able to move that conversation forward. So start with positive intent. Then move forward with either the five step one-on-one conversation or that conversational capacity sweet spot in a group debate.
Hope that helps. Look forward to seeing you next time.