Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

A guide to difficult conversations

medium.dave-bailey.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

91–100 of 415 posts

Re: A guide to difficult conversations

#91

Post by mercutio2 »

leroy_masochist wrote: post #68
treis wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These three examples: >To a co-founder: ‘When you said, “I’m not happy with your work,” to me in front of the team, I felt embarrassed because it didn’t meet my need for trust and recognition. Please, could we set up a weekly one-on-one session to share feedback in private?’ >To an investor: ‘I haven’t received any responses from the last three monthly updates. I’m feeling concerned because I need input. Please, woul…

> >To a teammate: ‘You arrived 10 minutes late to the last three team meetings. I am frustrated because, as a team, we have a need for efficiency. Please, could you help me understand what’s happening?’ > This one is super passive aggressive. Your intention is to communicate a problem but instead of just doing that this is asking a question. I think this example shows the problem most clearly. These should be stateme…

I don’t get it. There are two (harsh! Direct!) statements, followed by a relatively low-emotional-intensity question. So the “these should be statements” angle doesn’t make any sense to me, they’re already statements. Are you expecting people to just say “cut it out”, with no conversational room for a discussion?

I think it’s true that many people would prefer to get scolded in silence, but in actual fact, what the other people involved in a rude behavior that needs to stop need, is for you to discuss it with them. If there’s a need for discussion, I don’t see how this approach would cause more harm than alternative ways of insisting that the rude person discuss their rudeness.

Re: A guide to difficult conversations

#92

Post by matwood »

weeksie wrote: post #14

It's funny because few things make me seethe like someone talking to me in this way during a high stress moment. The artifice is transparent and if the conversation is tense the tone is quite easy to read as condescension. I'm hardly dismissing NVC as a tactic, just that when done poorly it's worse than simply being direct.

Part of communicating is also building a relationship. I should know if you respond to blunt and direct and lean more in that direction when communicating with you.

I have worked on remaining calm in high stress moments. In certain situations it drives my wife nuts that she is stressed/excited and I'm calm looking for a solution. What I learned is to reflect back some of her excitement from a stressful situation, but not quite to her level. This then calms her down.

Is it easy? No. Do I manage to do this 100%? I wish. Is is manipulation? I don't think so. It's building a relationship to better communicate. Too often people think about communication as what I say and not what do people hear and also say.

Re: A guide to difficult conversations

#93

Post by SkyPuncher »

js2 wrote: post #58
kdelok wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I went to a course on how to negotiate with people delivered by a hostage negotiator for the (British) police that basically agreed with what you say. The key they said was to work out what the person's motivation was and then adapt your communication to suit what was appropriate. The general rule was to (at least appear to) match the emotional intensity of the person you were talking to. If you're negotiating with s…

The book “Never Split the Difference” was recommended on HN recently: https://www.amazon.com/Never-Split-Difference-Negotiating-De...

Very good book (audiobook is very well done).

It's a great balance of story-telling and teaching. He teaches some simple rules then provides examples of how he actually used to practices to get the results he wanted.

Also, none of his suggestions felt fake or pandering. Just small tweaks to how you word and approach things can have a huge impact without necessarily being an expert.

Re: A guide to difficult conversations

#94

Post by tome »

tenaciousDaniel wrote: post #87
kodz4 wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It takes time. It's only after you have a few big unrecoverable screwups in life, will some of this stuff make more sense. You are better off being aware and not understanding its value, than not being aware at all of NVC. Once you hit an issue where you find yourself automatically avoiding things, attacking someone or defending yourself and producing all kinds of misery, just remind yourself that there is another to…

^ This is what NVC does. Notice how this person is attempting to sound authentic, genuine, helpful, and hopeful. But also notice that they are very subtly positioning themselves as someone who has learned some Very Big Life Lessons, whereas who they are talking to has not. And then they close off. With small sentences. For. Dramatic. Effect. See how wise they are?

I'm not sure I follow. From my minimal understanding NVC is about expressing how things make one feel rather than telling someone else the direction in which their life will go. kodz4's comment didn't mention the word "I" and was all about "you". Thus I don't see what it has to do with NVC at all. Can you explain?

Re: A guide to difficult conversations

#96

Post by icelancer »

motohagiography wrote: post #7

This is a valuable post. I have not taken an NVC course before, but I have done a lot of work in negotiations, writing, and was brought up to use this style of communication. One thing I would be interested in either from the OP or someone with experience with NVC, is how you recognize when you are being patronizing. Much of this communication style is the artifact of an implied power relationship, where the speaker…

Constantly relying on "observations" is incredibly patronizing and I've gotten away from it outside of very formal reporting / performance improvement plans / firing someone.

In my current line of work (and previous one, finance), if you cite observations as the main way of communicating, the other person is just going to cut you off and tell you to hurry the fuck up and tell them what they did wrong.

Re: A guide to difficult conversations

#97

Post by mercutio2 »

treis wrote: post #51
davesuperman wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I won't lie... NVC is really, really hard to achieve. But sometimes it's worth risking making mistakes to achieve your goal.

These three examples: >To a co-founder: ‘When you said, “I’m not happy with your work,” to me in front of the team, I felt embarrassed because it didn’t meet my need for trust and recognition. Please, could we set up a weekly one-on-one session to share feedback in private?’ >To an investor: ‘I haven’t received any responses from the last three monthly updates. I’m feeling concerned because I need input. Please, woul…

I don’t think your definition of passive aggressive matches with mine. None of those engagements read as even slightly passive aggressive to me.

Passive aggression is about saying one thing, but doing something that doesn’t match your words. All of these examples are about stating what you perceive as facts, then stating what you’d like to go differently.

I think many people use “passive aggressive” to mean “you said something in a way/tone/phrasing that irritated me”, and by that definition, I can imagine anyone getting annoyed by any of these: the recipient is being put in an uncomfortable position.

But being put in an uncomfortable position is the whole point, here; the situation demands it.

I’m very receptive to the idea that NVC has an emotional tone that frustrates people, but I think it’s very inaccurate to call it passive aggressive.

Re: A guide to difficult conversations

#98

Post by dragonwriter »

weeksie wrote: post #14

It's funny because few things make me seethe like someone talking to me in this way during a high stress moment. The artifice is transparent and if the conversation is tense the tone is quite easy to read as condescension. I'm hardly dismissing NVC as a tactic, just that when done poorly it's worse than simply being direct.

> I'm hardly dismissing NVC as a tactic,

But...you should be. The entire problem you relate is about NVC as an insincere, indirect tactic (most likely, to avoid an ultimatum in a situation where the speaker isn't seeking mutual understanding and accommodation but submissive compliance.) NVC as a tactic relied on an implicit lie about the relationship which forms the context of the communication.

As a honest tool in a relationship where the parties actually care about each others feeling, NVC is a useful communication tool for addressing that mutual concern. As a tactic in relationships where that isn't a mutual concern, and especially as a top-down tactic in a relationship where the speaker would not have the concern that is being called for in the listener, where it is a passive-aggressive way of framing commands, it's obviously toxic and manipulative.

Re: A guide to difficult conversations

#99

Post by MadWombat »

kodz4 wrote: post #62
tenaciousDaniel wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not really a reasonable question to ask. Even if I were still connected with those people, I'd have no idea how to rank their skills as professional therapists? I can, however, speak to my girlfriend's skills. She's incredible. And when she talks about NVC, she's far less charitable than OP.

It takes time. It's only after you have a few big unrecoverable screwups in life, will some of this stuff make more sense. You are better off being aware and not understanding its value, than not being aware at all of NVC. Once you hit an issue where you find yourself automatically avoiding things, attacking someone or defending yourself and producing all kinds of misery, just remind yourself that there is another to…

I am not sure whether you are using NVC well or not, but this comment makes you sound like a pompous ass. I suppose thats what you learn by picking up the book you mentioned.

Re: A guide to difficult conversations

#100

Post by el_cujo »

weeksie wrote: post #14

It's funny because few things make me seethe like someone talking to me in this way during a high stress moment. The artifice is transparent and if the conversation is tense the tone is quite easy to read as condescension. I'm hardly dismissing NVC as a tactic, just that when done poorly it's worse than simply being direct.

I agree with what the article says about needing a concise opener for a difficult conversation, and for that the madlibs-style script may be useful, but beyond that opener I think more natural language will come off as more genuine. I think the article may be in favor of this as well, as its kind of framed as NVC helping to get a hard conversation started instead of putting off forever.
Post reply on HN