Difficult conversations: the FACTS

Conflict Matters: Difficult conversations: the FACTS

Last month we started looking at “difficult conversations” defined as any conversation we don’t want to have. One approach is to consider three levels, or layers: facts, feelings and identity. If we cover all three the conversation may go better than expected. This month we’ ll look at the first level: the facts. Your parents completely fail to recognise you are no longer a child, your partner or work colleague failed (yet again) to do something they were supposed to, your sibling is incredibly selfish!.

Your perfectly natural starting position is that there is no dispute over the facts and the problem is the other’s fault. If only they could see this, if we could make them see it, they would get it. So we tell them. Firmly. This seldom goes well. Put like that it is pretty obvious why it doesn’t work. No one likes to be “should” upon. The Harvard Negotiation Team’s alternative approach is to start with acknowledging that our version of what happened is a story which is true for us (totally true!). AND (not “but”) the other person has an alternative story, which is just as true for them.

Did you ever get taken to a Christmas parade when you were a child? Can you recall the images you formed, what you saw as the floats went by? Were you on a grown-up’s shoulders some, but not all the time? Those images form your story of that parade. Now think about how different the images formed by the adult(s) who took you will be. Same parade, very different images, very different stories, simply because the different people there took in quite different information about the same event.

We all do this, all the time, which is why no two stories are ever the same. It also explains why eye witness accounts of events can vary so dramatically. We simply notice different things. Remembering this provides a clue to the next step, which is to move from certainty to curiosity.

How genuinely curious can you be? Not just about the other person’s story, but about yours as well. We can form our views so quickly, we are highly skilled at ignoring anything that doesn’t fit the story we are creating. Can you be equally curious about both stories: yours and theirs?

One way to do this is discard “Or” and embrace “AND”. Consider this question: Who is right when one person likes to sleep with the window closed and one likes the window open? If the question makes no sense to you, then your refusal to accept one is right and the other wrong is a great start when considering all stories, yours AND theirs. Next month we’ll look at feelings……..

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