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A guide to difficult conversations

medium.dave-bailey.com

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Re: A guide to difficult conversations

#211

Post by jacobolus »

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…

I think you (and probably the people adopting this form in talking to you, if it is coming across as patronizing or passive-aggressive) are mistaking the point.

This style of communication is not supposed to be a tool for more efficient (or deniable) emotional manipulation / control.

The “nonviolent communicator” is supposed to spend a lot of work up front thinking about what their real emotional needs are (which takes serious introspection, not just trivial rationalization), stripping judgment and generalization out of their observations, eliminating speculation about other people’s intent and state of mind, and coming up with requests instead of demands (in many cases those requests might be requests for additional data or possibilities), not backed by implicit threats if the request goes unmet. Ideally the non-violent communicator should be trying to drop their internal judgments and biases as well, not just leaving them unstated.

Someone who is adopting this kind of communication needs to be open to getting push-back on their comments and hearing that their demands are harming the emotional needs of the other person, open to considering alternative suggested remedies, etc.

The point is to accelerate mutual understanding of each-others’ feelings, promote empathy, and come up with some kind of outcome which is acceptable to both parties.

Re: A guide to difficult conversations

#212

Post by dragonwriter »

__blockcipher__ wrote: post #180
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 twi…

> edit: how the hell do I escape an asterisk?

It's best not to try; use numbers[0] for notes.

[0] like this.

Re: A guide to difficult conversations

#213

Post by watwut »

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…

There is no contradiction between the two. You absolutely can emphathize with team and protect egos while also discuss efficacy of solutions or correctness.

It is not even hard. Just keep it factual instead of using words like "stupid", "shitty", "crap" or passive aggressivity. Discuss issues before they become big. Listen when they disagree with your assessment - they might have reasons.

I already met enough people who claim to criticise while actually venting their emotions and settle scores with those they dislike.

Re: A guide to difficult conversations

#214

Post by dragonwriter »

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.

> The family (not my wife) asked me to talk to my brother-in-law about this because nobody else could get through to him.

This is probably a central part of the problem: you're the worst person to have the conversation, and you were brought in because everyone else failed, so he was primed against the subject matter. You started in a hole you had no hope of digging out of.

Re: A guide to difficult conversations

#215

Post by Zelphyr »

wdrw wrote: post #145
tome wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

"3 numbers were inaccurate" (great job, that's way below average) "3 numbers were inaccurate" (just an FYI for next time, no big deal) "3 numbers were inaccurate" (and I am annoyed that I had to deal with the consequences, please ensure it doesn't happen again) "3 numbers were inaccurate" (but I understand the pressure you were under and the volume of work you had, so I don't see it as an ongoing problem) "3 numbers…

I feel like this also speaks to having to know your audience. Some people you have to tread lightly with. You might think you're being patronizing but to go any harder would cause them put up a major wall. Others just want you to lay it right out for them and not sugar coat it in any way.

And, in fact, people can be different in different scenarios.

In a work scenario I'm going to respond best if you're bringing up something I need to improve in a constructive way, with feedback that is actionable on my part, and doing so fairly dispassionately. "Hey Z. Here's what happened and how/why it was incorrect. Here's how you can make up for it/do better next time. No harm, no foul as long as you do better in this one area and keep rockin' it everywhere else."

But I need my wife to tread more lightly for some reason. Being dispassionate would be perceived by me as uncaring in that scenario.

Re: A guide to difficult conversations

#216

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]

Re: A guide to difficult conversations

#217

Post by tashian »

edoloughlin wrote: post #158

When [you use NVC on me], I feel [patronised] because I'm needing some [respect as a fellow human being]. Would you be able to [drop the insincere MBA bullshit and treat me like an adult]?

That's really the worst. When people copy and paste something like NVC insincerely. It's not a "tool" that you "implement" in your speaking style.

But, when people are taking on things like this at first, it is awkward. I remember my first one-on-ones as a manager were super awkward, because I hadn't internalized a sincere way of doing it, I was following a recipe I learned on a podcast. And, for someone to learn to be a good manager, there's likely to be some awkward recipe-following along the way. We're all learning as we go.

I think for things like NVC there's the stated technique, and then there's the art of it. The art takes a pretty major shift in mindset for a lot of people, and managers can still be in very high-level roles while still being super insincere robots, usually because they're really good at other stuff.

Re: A guide to difficult conversations

#218

Post by peteradio »

mercutio2 wrote: post #97
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…

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…

It's passive aggressive if the person doesn't really give a shit about the underlying cause and just wants the tardiness to stop. Putting on fake empathy is disgusting. If they actually do care that's great and hopefully it comes across as genuine.

Re: A guide to difficult conversations

#219

Post by tashian »

gowld wrote: post #127
rsweeney21 wrote: post #119

The formative years of my career were spent as a software engineer at Microsoft where communication was direct and sometimes harsh. Code reviews could be particularly harsh with comments like "this code is bad because..." or "this is unreadable." At first it was really hard, but eventually my skin got pretty think. I even came to love the efficiency of direct communication in programming. When I became a founder, the…

It's an anti-pattern to call abrasiveness an "engineering" habit. It's an orthogonal axis. "saying things are 'unreadable' or 'bad'" is not efficiten -- that's not actional feedback. Skip the "this code is bad", and the unsupported univeral claims of "unreadable" (obviously the author and the compiler could both read it, and get directly to the point of your concern with the code -- this code has a logic bug, or is i…

I agree. I think talking about code is a critical skill, but not everyone has a strong practice of doing it. When I was first learning to code I never had anyone to talk to about my code, so I didn't get to learn the vocabulary until later.

Re: A guide to difficult conversations

#220

Post by mevile »

> move them on

When I see these disingenuous alternative ways to say that you've fired someone I just think that person is being an asshole. Why is it so hard to say you fired someone? Why is it always some bullshit like "we transitioned them out" "we moved them on" and no bullshit, "they graduated".

Using these euphemisms makes you come across as tone deaf and dishonest. Your audience can take hearing that you fired someone. If you have a hard time using the words required to effectively describe what you're doing maybe you're in the wrong line of work and shouldn't be coaching others.

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