“Difficult conversations are almost never about getting the facts right.

They are about conflicting perceptions, interpretations, and values.”

In the previous post, we talked about different attachment styles. Your attachment style impacts what you need in a relationship. A true partnership, where each partner’s well-being is addressed, can only be achieved if each partner communicates his/her needs. But having these conversations can sometimes be very difficult. In today’s post, we’re going to talk about how to find your voice in a difficult conversation to ensure your needs are met – whether your needs are related to your attachment style or not.

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I was running my first project and managing a new consultant for the first time – let’s call her Penelope – and I was completely in over my head. Given that Penelope was new, she provided no leverage. I spent most of my days teaching her what to do and I thought this investment upfront would pay off, but it didn’t seem to. She would eat up all my time during the day, preventing me from doing my work during the day, which led to late nights and early mornings for me; even so, I always felt like we were behind. What upset me most is that Penelope did not have a strong work ethic. She was always arriving after 9am and leaving at 6pm to get dinner with her friends. I offered her an opportunity to present to a client – which is very rare for a new consultant – but it was at 8am and she refused to come in early. I told her to finish our client documentation by Wednesday morning. On Tuesday night, her friend invited her to a concert, and she decided to go to the concert and finish the documentation the next day, despite our agreed upon timeline. The stress of the project was one thing, but the stress of Penelope drove me insane. All I wanted was for her to work harder, but at the same time, I was terrified of asking her to do so because I didn’t want her to think I was a mean manager or that I cared about face-time or that this project sucked. I wanted this project to work out – I wanted the partners and client to be overjoyed with the deliverables, I wanted to finally get the SC2 bubble for written communication on the OW rubric and I wanted Penelope to have a good first experience at OW. I never gave Penelope any of the feedback I described above, always being too worried that it would negatively impact our working relationship and potentially reduce her motivation even further. After 3 months of drudgery, the project ended, and I gave Penelope her review. I only wrote positive things, again being afraid of hurting her feelings. And 2 years later, I can still remember my experience with Penelope so vividly because I repressed all these emotions, instead of giving her honest feedback.

Since this experience, I’ve vowed to have more difficult conversations with people because not telling someone how they drive you nuts is a clear way to be constantly on-edge. This year, I have tackled tough conversations – from telling a friend that I needed her to be more engaged in our friendship, to telling a boy that I no longer wanted to see him to giving my manager honest feedback. Before each of these conversations, I wrote out multiple drafts of what I was going to say and practiced it. I second guessed myself 100x – thinking that I was overreacting and that raising this issue would ruin my relationship with the other person. These conversations had varying degrees of success – with some people getting defensive and upset while others were extremely receptive and it helped us to better understand each other. Regardless, I felt much better after each conversation because I was able to explain my perspective and/or what I needed to feel better.

Unfortunately, difficult conversations are always going to be difficult, but how can we make them less difficult? Luckily, the Harvard Negotiations Project wrote a book titled “Difficult Conversations: How Do Discuss What Matters Most.” The authors developed a Framework for how to tackle difficult conversations, intended to be filled out before you have the conversation. We will first walk through the Framework and then replay the Penelope situation through this Framework.

The Framework emphasizes moving away from a “blame conversation,” to a “learning conversation,” where each party is trying to understand the other’s perception of the events, intentions and feelings. Difficult conversations are not about the facts – the documentation was finished Wednesday afternoon —, but rather the perception of the facts – while Penelope thought that finishing the documentation Wednesday afternoon was acceptable, it was not acceptable in my eyes because we agreed to finish the documentation Wednesday morning.

Okay, so now let’s take the Penelope situation and run it through the Framework.

By filling out this worksheet, I can already see that my issues with Penelope were much deeper than her only working 9-6 and submitting her assignment late - the situation also had to do with my own insecurities. In addition, my perception of Penelope’s laziness may not have been true in her eyes – she may of thought she was doing a great job; even if she was acting lazy, it could have been driven by many different factors, such as her being homesick or disengaged with the content of the project, as opposed to pure laziness. If I could go back, I would have raised my frustrations with her and tried to understand her perspective to have created a more productive working relationship.       

Try this: Have you been developing negative feelings towards someone because you’ve been avoiding a difficult conversation? Fill out the Framework sheet to prepare yourself for the conversation. Then have the difficult conversation and let me know how it goes!