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A guide to difficult conversations

medium.dave-bailey.com

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Re: A guide to difficult conversations

#351

Post by narag »

pdonis wrote: post #348
leesalminen wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 a very tough situation and I don't think it was any lack of skill on your part that made you unable to get through to your brother-in-law this time. I don't think the world's champion hostage negotiator could have done it on the first try. I'm a little unclear on one aspect, though. You sa…

If there are aunts and uncles, presumably some of them are siblings of your father-in-law, as closely related as his children...

A technicality: Not sure in the USA, but over here that's not correct. Relation is measured in grades being those the basic parent-child "distance". So you're related in the first grade to your parents or children, but in the second grade to your siblings (1 grade distance from you to your parents, another one from your parents to them) so, unless the father in law has a living parent, no one is more closely related to him than his children.

So for lack of a better way of understanding, I would just ask a lawyer.

Re: A guide to difficult conversations

#352

Post by marshray »

andrei_says_ wrote: post #330
jschwartzi wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The example doesn't sound manipulative at all. It sounds like she's calling attention to the underlying emotion that's driving her child to hate the teacher. Being able to recognize that is key to actually understanding why you do things. Hate is not an emotion, it's an evaluation of the teacher, and to behave like an adult you need to recognize why you have that evaulation.

I disagree. The example sounded like an attempt to manipulate the emotion by providing a mechanical response. It sounds a bit like a memorized technique applied without the underlying alignment necessary for true empathy. NVC practice aims connection, not changing the other person’s emotional state. Thus the term manipulationnin my response.

Sure, restating what someone just told you about how they are feeling "What I hear you saying is ..." can start to sound mechanical.

But consider the alternative: most people never actually get any acknowledgement of their thoughts and feelings. They are fully expecting to just be ignored and responded to with the argument that the other party was building in their head while they were talking.

The Mom was preparing GGGP to expect people to give a sh*t when he speaks, he just hasn't realized it yet.

Re: A guide to difficult conversations

#353

Post by musicale »

"When ____[observation], I feel ____[emotion] because I’m needing some ____[universal needs]. Would you be able to ____[request]?"

The typical/traditional response to such a request is somewhere between "uh, no" and "absolutely not - and making such a request is itself an unforgivable offense; if you value your (job/career/life/relationship/etc.) you will never speak of it again."

The only exception is if the requester is a boss or another person whose "requests" are actually orders.

Re: A guide to difficult conversations

#354

Post by quickthrower2 »

codeape wrote: post #123

So if I understand the article, one should use the communication pattern: When ____[observation], I feel ____[emotion] because I’m needing some ____[universal needs]. Would you be able to ____[request]? For instance: When [you're acting like a dickhead], I feel [the urge to punch you] because I'm needing some [f king professionalism]. Would you be able to [stop acting like a dickhead]?

"you're acting like a dickhead" is not an observation, it is a characterisation.

"the urge to punch you" could be phrased as "angry" perhaps?

"fking professionalism" isn't what you need, it is a trait you want the other person to show. What is it that you need?

Re: A guide to difficult conversations

#355

Post by Obi_Juan_Kenobi »

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 think there's an idea that you can heroically 'push through' in situations like that, but in my experience that's simply not how people change their ideas/behavior.

People change slowly.

You set forth the idea, you make your case quickly (e.g. the '40 word' guideline in this article) and you don't apply pressure. You can make clear the gravity of the situation if needed, but coercion, rhetoric, etc. will just work against you when people feel defensive. If you need someone to come closer to your point of view, you need to make room for them to do so.

Giving space like this is hard, and it often seems like nothing is changing, but this approach is a lot more powerful than you might think.

Obviously you don't have the luxury of time, but the reality is that you can't force the issue. 2 hours sounds miserable, for both of you, and it's only adding to his agitation. He may very well be making terrible mistakes, but they're his to make.

I'll tell you this: there's a reason he doesn't want your wife there. I bet you he feels undermined, antagonized, or otherwise unsupported by her (justified or otherwise), and wants to focus on the difficult decisions ahead.

Re: A guide to difficult conversations

#356

Post by jeffdavis »

The article begins with the need to fire people as an example of an important but difficult conversation, but then doesn't show us how that should be handled. The article seems more about correcting tardiness, which doesn't seem like it should be a very difficult conversation.

I am not in a position to fire someone, nor would I want to be. But let's say that Jane really needs to fire Bill, what universal need should she express and how does that help the conversation? What observations would actually help such a conversation? How does expressing her feelings help?

How is that different from a simple "Bill, you aren't the person we need on this team right now, and we have to let you go. Here's what I can do to make this transition as easy as possible."

This post is very highly rated so there must be some gem here that I'm missing.

Re: A guide to difficult conversations

#357

Post by ehsanu1 »

tomp wrote: post #72

Another interesting idea: apparently, positive motivation (reward) works much better than negative motivation (punishment). Allegedly it's "scientifically proven" (for some definition of "scientifically") which I haven't yet taken the time to research, but I plan to. I've been thinking about how to apply this in two of the most important areas of interpersonal interaction in our lives, in our careers and in interpers…

Rewards can also backfire. I'm currently reading "Punished by Rewards", by Alfie Kohn, which spells out all the ways in which rewards are counterproductive. Interestingly enough, I found this book via Marshall Rosenberg's book on non-violent communication, in which Marshall urges us not to use rewards as a means to manipulate others (and not to use punishments for that purpose either of course).

Re: A guide to difficult conversations

#358

Post by ehsanu1 »

vfinn wrote: post #281
funfunfun wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this summary offers template solutions. They are an approximation of the insights of the book. The book is more about relating a human experience to a conversation,

Ah, silly me. I forgot to mention that I was referring to his 3 hour Youtube workshop (link was in the summary), not the summary itself. Hard to imagine the book would be that different. Still, I appreciated the applied Krishnamurti :).

I don't believe Marshall's idea is to apply a template-based approach to communication, if that is what you mean. The templates themselves are not NVC, but are rather a guide to help the uninitiated to apply the philosophy behind NVC.

Aside: I'm definitely interested in learning more about Krishnamurti after reading this thread of conversation.

Re: A guide to difficult conversations

#359

Post by skolsuper »

tyingq wrote: post #79
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…

"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.

At the same time, if it comes from a place of genuine concern, even unnatural communication can be empathetic. I once asked for help on an online forum, and one person responded with something along the lines of "I don't know how you feel, but if that happened to me I'd feel terrible". In the moment, it felt very carefully crafted, but the care with which the words were chosen really amplified their impact to me.

Re: A guide to difficult conversations

#360

Post by ehsanu1 »

davesque wrote: post #159

I went through a phase where I was pretty interested in NVC. I learned some useful things mostly have to do with the distinction between observation and evaluation and emotion and thought. However, I feel the system can't justify its particular choice of words used to describe universal needs and also can't justify the notion that those concepts would apply in any situation. I remember seeing Marshall Rosenberg speak…

Based on that answer, and given the initial confusion, I can't help but speculate that Marshall took the question to literally mean "where do needs originate", to which the obvious literal answer is a creator or the Universe. I think the question was meant to understand how the list of needs was determined, to which I would imagine Rosenberg may have had a different answer.

I can't know this for sure, but my understanding is that these needs were identified via some sort of introspection, and probably seemed somewhat obvious to Marshall. This is clearly subjective in some way, but it does seem that most humans do share many of the same needs, so I'm not sure that your criticism holds much weight.

The idea behind calling needs universal is to ensure we are talking about the same kinds of needs. eg. I don't need you to accept whatever I do and say it's ok no matter what. But I do need autonomy. The need should not reference specific people, things, times or situations. It should be very general, which helps frame the conversation in a less combative way and makes sure we are talking about the underlying values that motivate all our actions.

It's very hard for me to try to think of something that follows those rules of generality and that may be characterized as a need by someone, but is not a real universal need and is overly righteous. Could you help me by giving an example of such a mis-characterized need?

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