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A guide to difficult conversations

medium.dave-bailey.com

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Re: A guide to difficult conversations

#131

Post by ndynan »

leesalminen wrote: post #126

I’m generally a good conversation participant, but this week has made me second guess myself. My father-in-law is currently hospitalized after his heart stopped this weekend. He’s currently in an induced coma. Brain damage is a foregone conclusion at this point and they’re unsure if he will ever regain consciousness. My wife and I happened to be on vacation in Costa Rica when this happened. We hopped on the next avai…

I'm sorry to hear about your situation, that sounds particularly challenging.

I've found this book very helpful at facilitating communication and it might be of help: https://www.amazon.com/Say-What-You-Mean-Communication/dp/16...

Re: A guide to difficult conversations

#132

Post by denzil_correa »

dragonwriter wrote: post #98
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…

I agree wholeheartedly. But, I feel it is sometimes extremely difficult to understand if the opposing party seriously cares or is just manipulative.

Re: A guide to difficult conversations

#133

Post by tomjen3 »

ThePadawan wrote: post #8
roenxi wrote: post #2

There are a fair few people in the world who would find a good video of Marshall Rosenberg life changing. His perspectives on how to use language are fundamentally superior to what people stumble into in everyday use. His framework is remarkable because it sets up a non-confrontational approach that lets you speak the truth without hurting or upsetting people. Being able to do that on demand is ... really quite a stu…

I struggle a lot with communication, but have not found a panacea for the biggest issue I regularly face. Communication requires two people to be willing to talk. If one of them just doesn't want to listen, just hear themselves talk, what can I do? This includes them not listening to me telling them that I'm not willing to talk to them if they're not willing to listen (in more, or even fewer words than that).

In that case, let them talk and talk and talk. When they do so, listen.

At the end (which will come eventually, especially if you only answer with yes and no, so there are no follow up possible) you suggest a great solution for some problem they mention, which you can do because a) you are detached and b) they talked a lot and you had ample time to figure things out...

Re: A guide to difficult conversations

#134

Post by gowld »

everdrive wrote: post #104
tome wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I can think of plenty of situations where I don't care if someone tramples my emotions, but I'd be pretty distraught if they adopted a flawed idea, or couldn't understand why one idea was superior and another was inferior. Could you share some examples?

Almost any situation where we're trying to design a functional solution to a technical problem. I actually used to have a phrase for this: "You can't build a rocket ship with emotions." If my goal were really to successfully build a rocket ship (as noted in the maxim) then I'd be delighted to be proven wrong. Every correction would get us closer to our goal. Alternately, if someone were interested in empathizing with…

You seem to be conflating "delivering criticim" with "hurting feelings", and I don't understand where that's coming from. Would you be delighted to be proven wrong if for every mistake your boss or peer told you that you were an incompetent idiot who doesn't belong on the team? Would that make you want to do more work? Would that make you feel comfortable proposing an idea that you aren't 100% sure ir correct and already known to your teammates to be correct?

Nothing about respecting teammates and their emotions says you have to accept their pull request.

Re: A guide to difficult conversations

#135

Post by blowski »

leesalminen wrote: post #126

I’m generally a good conversation participant, but this week has made me second guess myself. My father-in-law is currently hospitalized after his heart stopped this weekend. He’s currently in an induced coma. Brain damage is a foregone conclusion at this point and they’re unsure if he will ever regain consciousness. My wife and I happened to be on vacation in Costa Rica when this happened. We hopped on the next avai…

I'm sorry to hear that, must be a really difficult for time for all of you. I doubt there's anything you could have done differently to get a better outcome. When people are in such weird situations, there's no "guaranteed method" to help. They're having a shit time, and they want to take it out on people - and you were there.

Re: A guide to difficult conversations

#136

Post by tomjen3 »

treis wrote: post #55
realradicalwash wrote: post #49

There seems to be quite some overlap between NVC and I-messages [0], which are constructed in a similar manner: 1. I feel... (Insert feeling word) 2. when... (tell what caused the feeling). 3. I would like... (tell what you want to happen instead). (from [0]) I learnt about I-messages about 10 years ago in a seminar on conflict resolution and have tried to use them eversince. My personal impression is that they have…

>I learnt about I-messages about 10 years ago in a seminar on conflict resolution and have tried to use them eversince. My personal impression is that they have really helped me - in solving conflicts, but also in growing as a person. Because, again purely subjective, my impression is that once you give others your I-messages, they are more likely to also respond with I-messages. Which again helps me to understand ot…

My answer to that would be "I don't give a shit what you do, as long as you take out the garbage" and I would _still_ be mad at you (plus annoyed that you asked me for a solution to something that shouldn't be my problem in the first place).

Re: A guide to difficult conversations

#137

Post by treis »

rejschaap wrote: post #120
leroy_masochist wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> >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…

Depends on how you deliver the lines. I can easily imagine saying this with sincerity and without anger. It sticks to facts, it doesn't make any judgments about them or their intent, it invites them to share their side of the story. It is also pretty direct and far from passive-aggressive behavior in my opinion.

>It is also pretty direct and far from passive-aggressive behavior in my opinion.

The message is "Stop being late for meetings because it's making the team ineffecient". That's an 'aggresive' statement but you're delivering it in a 'passive' way because it makes it look like you're asking to see if everything is ok.

If you want to deliver the "Stop being late" message then say that.

If you want to ask what's going on, then do it without pointing out the problems they are causing.

Re: A guide to difficult conversations

#138

Post by CiPHPerCoder »

leesalminen wrote: post #126

I’m generally a good conversation participant, but this week has made me second guess myself. My father-in-law is currently hospitalized after his heart stopped this weekend. He’s currently in an induced coma. Brain damage is a foregone conclusion at this point and they’re unsure if he will ever regain consciousness. My wife and I happened to be on vacation in Costa Rica when this happened. We hopped on the next avai…

Death, sickness, and financial windfalls each bring out the worst in most of us.

Don't take it personally, the failure here isn't yours.

Re: A guide to difficult conversations

#139

Post by britch »

sidlls wrote: post #102

Some of the things in there are incredibly condescending and foster ambiguity. For example, the observation "three of the numbers in your report were inaccurate" is an observation of a mistake made, which people do. It only means "you are sloppy" if it's a regular occurrence without signs of improvement. Using that as a stand in for "you are sloppy" is itself sloppy, and also lazy and unhelpful.

I think the point is to never communicate in evaluations. Observations are not codes for evaluations. Observations force discussion of concrete actions, which have a bunch of benefits over evaluations.

Let's say X and Z are coworkers. Z messed up some report numbers.

X could say "Z, you are sloppy." Z could easily respond "No I am not, how could you say that?"

By focusing on a concrete example, X and Z can both discuss the actual problem (inaccurate report numbers) instead of bickering about whether or not Z is sloppy.

NVC is also a check on the person initiating the communication.

It's possible X's view of Z as a slob is not based in reality. If X can't find a specific thing, but just thinks Z is a slob, NVC makes it hard for X to say anything until they can point to a specific event/action. It's not perfect (X can just look for the first example that proves their belief) but it does prevent totally baseless claims of "you are a slob."

Re: A guide to difficult conversations

#140

Post by vfinn »

It seems his teachings are based on the teachings of Jiddu Krishnamurti. There are some good audio books by him on Youtube, like Freedom from the Known. On a slightly related note, Jonathan Blow also has a talk called Techniques for dealing with lack of motivation, malaise, depression (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i7kh8pNRWOo), where he also talks about the importance of observational skills as a means of understanding / "putting out" your (negative) emotions and thoughts.
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