Sort Out the Three Conversations

• “It turns out that no matter what the subject, our thoughts and feelings fall into the same three categories, or ‘conversations.’ And in each of these conversations we make predictable errors that distort our thoughts and feelings, and get us into trouble.”
  1. The “What Happened?” Conversation - “Most difficult conversations involve disagreement about what has happened or what should happen. Who said what and who did what?”
  2. The Feelings Conversation - “Every difficult conversation also asks and answers questions about feelings. Are my feelings valid? Appropriate? Should I acknowledge them or deny them, put them on the table or check them at the door?”
  3. The Identity Conversation - “This is the conversation we each have with ourselves about what this situation means to us. We conduct an internal debate over whether this means we are competent or incompetent, a good person or bad, worthy of love or unlovable.”
• “Typically, instead of exploring what information the other person might have that we don’t, we assume we know all we need to know to understand and explain things.”
• “What I think about your intentions will affect how I think about you and, ultimately, how our conversation goes. The error we make in the realm of intentions is simple but profound: we assume we know the intentions of others when we don’t. Worse still, when we are unsure about someone’s intentions, we too often decide they are bad.”
• "As we argue vociferously for our view, we often fail to question one crucial assumption upon which our whole stance in the conversation is built: I am right, you are wrong. This simple assumption causes endless grief."
• “In situations that give rise to difficult conversations, it is almost always true that what happened is the result of things both people did--or failed to do...Talking about blame distracts us from exploring why things went wrong and how we might correct them going forward.”

The “What Happened?” Conversation

• “Stop arguing about who’s right: explore each other’s stories.”
• “We think they are the problem. They think we are the problem. We each make sense in our story of what happened. Arguing blocks us from exploring each other’s stories. Arguing without understanding is unpersuasive.”
• “Arguing inhibits our ability to learn how the other person sees the world.”
• “People almost never change without first feeling understood.”
• “To get anywhere in a disagreement, we need to understand the other person’s story well enough to see how their conclusions make sense within it. And we need to help them understand the story in which our conclusions make sense.”
• “There’s only one way to come to understand the other person’s story, and that’s by being curious. Instead of asking yourself, ‘How can they think that?!’ ask yourself, ‘I wonder what information they have that I don’t?’ Instead of asking, ‘How can they be so irrational?’ ask, ‘How might they see the world such that their view makes sense?’ Certainty locks us out of their story; curiosity lets us in.”
• “Don’t worry about accepting or rejecting the other person’s story. First work to understand it. The mere act of understanding someone else’s story doesn’t require you to give up your own.”

The Feelings Conversation

• “Difficult conversations do not just involve feelings, they are at their very core about feelings. Feelings are not some noisy byproduct of engaging in difficult talk, they are an integral part of the conflict."
• “Feelings are too powerful to remain peacefully bottled. They will be heard one way or another, whether in leaks or bursts. And if handled indirectly or without honesty, they contaminate communication.”
• “The two hardest (and most important) communication tasks in difficult conversations are expressing feelings and listening.”
• “Feelings are more complex and nuanced than we usually imagine. What’s more, feelings are very good at disguising themselves. Feelings we are uncomfortable with disguise themselves as emotions we are better able to handle; bundles of contradictory feelings masquerade as a single emotion; and most important, feelings transform themselves into judgments, accusations, and attributions.”
• Are you sharing your feelings or your attributions?