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A guide to difficult conversations

medium.dave-bailey.com

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Re: A guide to difficult conversations

#171

Post by ben509 »

waylandsmithers wrote: post #113
tyingq wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"how you recognize when you are being patronizing" That's a good point. I'm fairly adept at recognizing when someone is trying to negotiate with me based on some kind of taught methodology. Because most of what's taught is counter to how you would do it naturally...thus it stands out. Once you recognize it, the natural reaction is to feel like you're being manipulated with some technique.

I think part of it is that the observation needs to be genuinely objective rather than veiled evaluation. For example, when I did tech support I would occasionally get chat messages from my supervisor along the lines of: "Hey, I see that you closed out Ticket #XYZ without any resolution or response sent to the requester." (waits for response) (waits for response) (waits for response) ...and it would make me furious,…

Is it even possible that that could not be an evaluation? I've been on both sides of that exchange, and it never even occurred to me that pointing out a ticket wasn't properly filled out was an evaluation. The ticket itself is often the only proof you actually did your job, after all.

Personally, if I'm on the receiving end of that, I'd rather the boss say, "please update this ticket with X and Y" rather than making an "observation." It can't be condescending nor manipulative since that person is plainly exercising their authority. And you can generally resolve problems with an instruction by pointing out that it won't work, or it conflicts with others, etc., which avoids it getting personal.

(This may be why I rarely had these issues in the military, and noticed that many veterans report a great deal of confusion when they get into civilian life because "nobody knows their lane.")

Re: A guide to difficult conversations

#172

Post by thedaveoflife »

tome wrote: post #111
icelancer wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I'm sorry, I don't understand. If someone says to me "Three of the numbers in the report were inaccurate" (an observation) that's a lot more helpful to me than "Your work is sloppy" (an evaluation). Did you have something else in mind?

Trying overly hard to make something seem more objective is in a sense an obfuscation of what you really think. Sometimes you need to cut the BS and tell people what's actually on your mind.

In my experience there are two types of coworkers: those that respond well to BS (read: couched language) and those that don't. You just have to recognize who is who.

Re: A guide to difficult conversations

#173

Post by BadassFractal »

chroma wrote: post #156

Calling it "nonviolent communication" is a brilliant marketing move, as it implies that not conversing in this manner is violent. I've seen this style many times in my career, and it always comes off as patronizing. It also tends to be used far more often than recommended. Instead of being deployed in difficult conversations, it gets used in every one-on-one. My guess is that NVC ends up like power posing[1]: pop-psy…

In general I'm also not a fan of changing definitions of words for the extra pathos and marketability. I also would be surprised if Rosenberg has any sort of malicious intent here in his choice of wording.

Violence is, by definition, physical, and claiming that "speech is violence" seems like a trivialization of actual physical violence.

While there is evidence that certain types of psychological abuse can cause a physical reaction akin to that experienced by victims of physical violence, those cases are extremely rare and shouldn't be used as justification for this sort of rebranding.

Re: A guide to difficult conversations

#174

Post by noobiemcfoob »

tome wrote: post #111
icelancer wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I'm sorry, I don't understand. If someone says to me "Three of the numbers in the report were inaccurate" (an observation) that's a lot more helpful to me than "Your work is sloppy" (an evaluation). Did you have something else in mind?

People observe different things and even then, weight the memories of those observations differently. There are many who employ a barrage of "factual" observations. These are unavoidably biased even as the speaker attempts to pan the feelings out.

Often a speaker doing this feels that the sheer number of data points makes their strategy (that they will argue for shortly after finishing their list of observations) all but inevitable. People who have interacted with such arguers get understandably defensive when shown a barrage of facts painting them a certain way.

In the presence of a pattern of behavior, one example followed by every means necessary of keeping the offender on your side while building a strategy should be enough if the pattern is real and the offender has good intentions.

Re: A guide to difficult conversations

#175

Post by PakG1 »

leesalminen wrote: post #161
freyir wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've often seen families get particularly hostile when an in-law involves him or herself with the death or illness of a parent. It doesn't matter whether you're right or what approach you use. They're likely in one of the worst times of their life, and they're not going to be receptive to negotiation tactics. Why is your wife not having this conversation?

Unfortunately they’re both terrible to each other. Always have been, likely always will be. Even in relatively stressless situations they end up at each other’s throats in seconds. The family (not my wife) asked me to talk to my brother-in-law about this because nobody else could get through to him. I totally agree I’m not the right person to get in the middle. There’s just nobody else willing or able to.

If this is the situation, I would not be so hard on yourself. It seems like there's a lot of history and emotional trauma that would need to be resolved before any progress would be feasible. If this is indeed the situation, getting your wife involved in the process could make it worse, not better. Imagine all the fights they'd have with so much on the line, when they'd have so many fights before when there wasn't much on the line. You just walked into an impossible situation and did your best. You probably would have done better if you were a sympathetic complete stranger with whom your brother-in-law had zero emotional history (and even if he had zero emotional history with you, he certainly had a lot with your wife and probably subconsciously viewed you as her proxy).

edit: Thinking about it, I think the only thing I'd be able to say in that situation is something like this, just be supporting, not judgmental, not trying to convince him about anything: "Hey man. I'm really sorry this is happening. I know that things are hard right now. If there's anything I can do to help you or the situation, let me know, and I'll do it. How are you yourself? Do you need to talk with anyone about how you're feeling? Let me know if I can help, I'll be right here, OK?"

Re: A guide to difficult conversations

#176

Post by leesalminen »

ndynan wrote: post #131
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...

Thank you for the link. I will check it out!

Re: A guide to difficult conversations

#177

Post by fencepost »

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…

The questions that should follow now that the rest of the family is now available are "Who had the authority to grant this to him, do they have the authority to revoke it, has the rest of the family spoken with this outside authority, and what else can be done?"

There has to be some sort of provision for dealing with situations like this, because this is far from the worst possible outcome. (e.g. "Great, $social_worker, you've now granted power of attorney to the person who lives with dad because dad was the only person able to get him to remain in treatment and on his medications, but who hates the rest of the family.")

Re: A guide to difficult conversations

#178

Post by dougmwne »

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…

That is such a sad situation. I can tell from the language you used that you and your wife must be quite upset with your brother-in-law. And he is clearly very upset and expressing it in a way that's making a difficult time even more difficult. He also had to take on a terrible responsibility when he was the only person available.

It might be that there's nothing you can do right now to get him to see things through your eyes. Maybe all you can do at the moment is work on self-kindness, forgiveness and patience on your own and prepare for how to mend the relationship in the future. I have seen these rifts in my own family never heal, so I hope that they will in your family.

Re: A guide to difficult conversations

#179

Post by onion2k »

chroma wrote: post #156

Calling it "nonviolent communication" is a brilliant marketing move, as it implies that not conversing in this manner is violent. I've seen this style many times in my career, and it always comes off as patronizing. It also tends to be used far more often than recommended. Instead of being deployed in difficult conversations, it gets used in every one-on-one. My guess is that NVC ends up like power posing[1]: pop-psy…

You may be right, but don't ignore the fact that nonviolent communication has been around for more than 50 years. Power posing was discredited within a decade.

Re: A guide to difficult conversations

#180

Post by __blockcipher__ »

vfinn wrote: post #140

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 under…

I was shocked when I saw that Krishnamurti quote.

J Krishnamurti's talks are some of the most insightful and clear-headed that I've ever encountered. And yet it's very rare to encounter references to him in the wild.

Sounds trite to say but some of "his" teachings (he hated that phrasing) got me through some very difficult times in my life. There was a time when I realized that my relationship with my parents was twisted; that they were hurting me by being oppressive/overbearing/controlling. Hearing his thoughts on love and the relationship between perception and action (namely, that perceiving a problem without running away from it _is_ the act of fixing the problem) gave me the insight and clarity I needed to cut my parents off [ASTERISK], pay my way through college and build a life that I was happy with.

[ASTERISK] This sounds weird or callous when you have to say it "out loud", but to be clear, I had very good reasons to do so. I did it to protect myself, not to hurt them.

edit: how the hell do I escape an asterisk? I tried single asterisk, triple asterisk, backslash asterisk before giving up and just putting [ASTERISK]

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