How to Have Difficult Conversations (When You Know You're Right): Part 1
/
“They may forget what you said—but they will never forget how you made them feel." Carl Buechner had the right idea in 1971. You’ve since heard variations: It’s not what you say, it’s how you say it!
In the heat of a workplace disagreement or tough conversation (or person) that hooks us emotionally—these are the moments we need to remember these words most. But it’s exactly when we forget them. Our emotions get the better of us and we say things we don’t mean or, worse, that we regret later. The destruction that follows is swift and sometimes really difficult to repair.
Workplace relationships can be tricky, because while most people say “I truly want your honest feedback” they aren’t actually telling the truth. Even stickier is how we feel about telling someone higher up the command chain when they’re wrong.
How do we communicate meaningfully and truthfully in a way that gets our point across without harming our relationships?
This is the first in our series of spotlighting simple but powerful ways to address situations of disagreement— the kind that raises hackles and can spark unproductive conflict. Served up in bite-sized bits, these tips for you to remember and call up (before the sparks start to fly) when you find yourself in a difficult conversation or situation where feedback is required.
1. You don’t always have to be right.
This is a big one that most people find challenging, so fear not, you’re not alone. The need to be right has been ingrained in us since childhood: If you’re not right, you’re wrong, and you are expected to bear all the feelings of failure and embarrassment tied to that “wrong” thing. Right answers get positive nods in school, wrong answers get snickered at.
Add to this an American society that’s considered the pioneer of the “competitive spirit”—a characteristic that has its pros and cons. We can find easy examples of negative conflict instead of healthy competition in just about any area of our lives, ranging from sports, pop-culture social media and reality tv, driving on most urban roadways —and in business culture.
When there’s an undercurrent (or maybe a running stream) of competitiveness with others in your organization, each conversation can become a right/wrong success/failure experience. Even if you strive for collaboration, it’s inevitable that you will find yourself bumping against someone who’s hypercompetitive, feels threatened by your position or very existence, or just has the need to be right all the time.
This is a situation where you can either choose to go the collision course of “playing chicken” or determine that you’re going to take your ego out of it and focus on the issue or solution at hand.
The tip: Choose your battles.
See the difference between being right to achieve an end, and being right for the sake of being right. In those moments of abrasive disagreements, remind yourself that it doesn’t matter whether or not you have all the right answers or you believe you’re smarter than your team member, team lead, or boss. Decide if this situation is worth fighting for, because the clash of competition and egos could end up turning against you and putting you in a worse position than before.
For those situations where it does matter, keep your emotions in check and state your business case, backing up your arguments with numbers and data. Ask curious questions of the other person to try to get a better understanding of their position. You have a greater chance of getting to the outcome you desire, with your integrity (and hopefully your relationship) intact.
2. “Ask the happiest animal in the world.”
There are two kinds of people: Ted Lasso fans, and people who haven’t watched Ted Lasso yet. If you are a fan you’ll understand the goldfish reference, and it bears reminding here. If you intended to watch the show, sorry for the spoiler!
Here’s Ted Lasso’s quirky homespun gem: You know who’s the happiest animal in the world? It’s the goldfish, because of its ten-second memory. When things get tough and the losses mount up for his (European) football team, Coach Ted encourages his players to be the goldfish—let things go, and move on.
The Tip: Be a goldfish.
The hardest part about picking your battles is letting go of those battles. It can be a challenge to allow someone else to think they’ve bested us in an argument even if that argument served no purpose. It can feel impossible to let it go without biding our time to clap back.
If you were to stop and count how many times in your professional life—or perhaps in your typical business week—that you have encountered these kinds of “battles,” you might also calculate the amount of wasted angst, energy, and unhappiness that attended those encounters. It makes the goldfish advice pretty compelling.
Choose to turn your attention to the things that matter—to you, to your team, to your common goals and mission. Stand up for what’s important, and move on from those that are not…with a memory like a goldfish.
When we join a company, partnership or team, our expectation is that everyone involved will exhibit professional behavior toward us and each other. Instead, it’s highly possible that we may become one of the more than 60 million adults in the United States who are affected in some way by bullying behavior at work.
What kind of behaviors are we talking about? Our definition is any interpersonal behavior that causes emotional distress in others sufficient enough to impede their productivity or disrupt organizational functioning. It isn’t just a personality conflict — it’s a chronic pattern of disrespectful behavior.