By Natasha Josefowitz, Ph.D.
LA JOLLA, California– Potentially difficult conversations are the conversations we put off because we assume they will be unpleasant at best or escalate into acrimony at worst. And yet it must be done.
It can be anything from needing to tell an elderly parent he or she should stop driving (my mother got very upset and defensive with me when I said I worried about her safety) to telling a child you disagree with his or her school or career decisions, choice of friends, or even mate. It can be a concern about the way your children are raising their children (the usual advice is to say nothing) or about a spouse spending money unwisely. It can be telling a friend about a self-destructive behavior or giving employees negative feedback on their performances. In other words, you’re really not looking forward to that conversation. You’re uneasy about the ensuing dialogue. Too often, rather than bringing us closer by opening doors, talking can shut doors and drive us further apart.
How can we not only keep doors open but also have a dialogue that leads to a resolution comfortable for both parties? One of the biggest problems we have is to come to the conversation well prepared. I often have rehearsed what I was planning to say and how I was to say it and even imagined the other’s responses. This in itself is not a bad idea; the issue here is that we must be willing to forego our preparation and instead of being ready to talk, be ready to listen. Instead of just waiting for our turn to talk, we need to be able to drop our assumptions, change directions, step back, and hear the other without an immediate reaction or prepared opinion.
We need to learn not only to talk together, but also to think together, becoming equal partners in the dialogue. This is not always easy, especially if there is a power differential. It can be status (boss to employee), age (parent to child), it can be due to expertise, to wealth, even to better skills at communicating. You must be willing to:
- Listen without resistance.
- Respect the other’s different viewpoint by putting yourself in their place.
- Forego expressing your own opinion before listening to theirs.
- Speak to problem-solve and not to dominate or win an argument.
If your agenda is to talk the other person into a specific action, such as getting your parent to stop driving, the following steps may help:
- What has happened or is happening? E.g., your parent’s eyesight is failing.
- What feelings are involved? Their loss of independence and your fear of an accident.
- Change shoes. What would they do in your place? What would you do in theirs? Change roles and role-play a dialogue. The worst thing you can do is criticize or become defensive.
- Paraphrase: In other words, state how you believe they think and feel.
- Accept that not every difficult conversation can end with an acceptable compromise for both parties. There may be inevitable hurt feelings, but these can be mitigated by knowing one is understood, even if disagreed with.
- Finally, if you can’t prevent a conflict, and you’re unable to resolve it, then try to contain it by either letting go until another more propitious time or asking for a third party to mediate if this is acceptable to both. In the case of your parents’ driving poorly, get a doctor’s opinion and have them do a driver’s test.
Might there be any predictable or unintended consequences? In this case, it might be having to find alternative transportation, which is predictable, or that your parents would not wish to spend the money and would instead stay at home more, which would be unintended.
Putting off a difficult conversation does not solve anything except making you anxious about needing to do it as some future point. The only time it may be helpful to wait is when a problem has a chance of resolving itself in due time.
You won’t look forward to a difficult conversation if your plan is only to be heard, but you can look forward to finding out how the other person thinks, feels, and prefers to act. Then and only then will you be able to paraphrase their position, insuring that you have understood correctly and thus begin a true dialogue. Always being ready to either change your mind, compromise, or stick by what you believe is in the best interest of both parties.
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Josefowitz is an author and freelance columnist who resides in La Jolla, California. This article appeared originally in La Jolla Village Voice.